Guns N' Roses 在1991年9月17日推出的双专辑《Use Your Illusion I》和《Use Your Illusion II》显示了这支一夜走红的乐队的野心,乐队为了这套专辑整整准备了3年的时间,专辑录制的难度可想而知。工作一开始乐队成员关系就非常紧张,Izzy Stradlin(guitars)希望专辑的风格能更靠近乐队原来的那种带有强烈的 Blues 的 Hard Rock,而 Axl Rose 则希望能像Queen和Elton John那样的多样化,还好最后两者都达成拉了共识。这儿有五个都很有个性的小伙子,在最后总是能够很好的相容,如果说专辑有什么不足的话那可能就是专辑作得太艺术化了,热爱《Appetite for Destruction》的歌迷显然无法消化。专辑中不仅有他们传统的冲动的快歌,也有象《Don't Cry》这样的慢版抒情经典,还有气势宏大的《November Rain》,同时还翻唱 Paul MaCartney的《Live and Let Die》,素材复杂,曲风多变,编排精心,值得歌迷用4年的时间来等待它。特别是其中的Guns N' Roses最出色的两首歌《Novermber Rain》和 《Don't Cry》。有这两首你已经又赚了一张专辑。
两张《Use Your Illusion》专辑象征枪花音乐风格的转折点。他们未放弃第一张专辑《Appetite for Destruction》中的硬摇滚风格,并在《Use Your Illusion I》中首次采用了或多或少的新风格,如布鲁斯、古典音乐、乡村音乐,主唱Axl Rose为两张专辑的许多歌曲弹奏钢琴。
《Use Your Illusion I》不少歌曲早在乐队创作《Appetite for Destruction》时就诞生了,虽未收进第一张专辑,但出现在一张热销的走私碟《Rumbo Tapes》——一张早期的专辑小样之中。这些歌曲包括:《Back Off Bitch》、《Bad Obesession》、《Don‘t cry》(在随后的巡演中Axl说这是第一首他们一起写的歌)、《November Rain》、《The Garden》。
根据Slash的自传《UYI I》的大多数歌曲的原声音乐是在他家(the Walnut House)用几个晚上写出的,在此之前有好几个月专辑的创作都毫无进展。
与《Use Your Illusion I》不同,《Use Your Illusion II》较早期的作品更多涉及到政治,例如《Civil War》、翻唱Bob Dylan的《Knockin' on Heaven's Door》、《Get the Ring》,这三首歌分别表现了暴力、法律的实施、媒体的偏见三个主题,较之《UYI I》专辑,该专辑减少了吸食毒品的情节。
《UYI I》的特点是多数歌曲早于《毁灭的欲望》便完成创作,而《UYI II》的多数歌曲是创作《毁灭的欲望》的同时或后期完成的。(转自吉他中国论坛)
by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
The "difficult second album" is one of the perennial rock & roll clichés, but few second albums ever were as difficult as Use Your Illusion. Not really conceived as a double album but impossible to separate as individual works, Use Your Illusion is a shining example of a suddenly successful band getting it all wrong and letting its ambitions run wild. Taking nearly three years to complete, the recording of the album was clearly difficult, and tensions between Slash, Izzy Stradlin, and Axl Rose are evident from the start. The two guitarists, particularly Stradlin, are trying to keep the group closer to its hard rock roots, but Rose has pretensions of being Queen and Elton John, which is particularly odd for a notoriously homophobic Midwestern boy. Conceivably, the two aspirations could have been divided between the two records, but instead they are just thrown into the blender -- it's just a coincidence that Use Your Illusion I is a harder-rocking record than II. Stradlin has a stronger presence on I, contributing three of the best songs -- "Dust n' Bones," "You Ain't the First," and "Double Talkin' Jive" -- which help keep the album in StonesyAerosmith territory. On the whole, the album is stronger than II, even though there's a fair amount of filler, including a dippy psychedelic collaboration with Alice Cooper and a song that takes its title from the Osmonds' biggest hit. But it also has two ambitious set pieces, "November Rain" and "Coma," which find Rose fulfilling his ambitions, as well as the ferocious, metallic "Perfect Crime" and the original version of the power ballad "Don't Cry." Still, it can be a chore to find the highlights on the record amid the overblown production and endless amounts of filler.