Use Your Illusion II

iTunes Review

Following the multi-platinum success of Appetite For Destruction Guns N’ Roses were thrust into the spotlight as the most exciting band in rock’n’roll, and Geffen gave them carte blanche for the follow-up album. With thirty songs spread over two albums, Guns the group took the opportunity to live out their every musical fantasy. While both of the Use Your Illusion albums contained adventurous material, Use Your Illusion II was the more ambitious of the pair. The album starts with the brooding anthem “Civil War,” before shifting to “14 Years” and “Yesterdays,” two piano-driven rockers that showed the band was developing more tuneful material without abandoning any of the ferocity of Appetite For Destruction. As Izzy and Slash continued to stoke the fires of Appetite with fierce and furious pieces like “Pretty Tied Up,” “Locomotive,” and the downright vicious “You Could Be Mine,” (not to mention Duff McKagan’s “So Fine,” a narcotic tribute to Johnny Thunders), Axl’s indulgent tendencies gave G N’ R fans more than enough to gripe about. His schoolyard taunting on “Get In the Ring” is adolescent rock star behavior worthy of Spinal Tap; the hammy rock opera “Breakdown” reveals his love for Elton John; and then, “My World,” a throwaway experiment that, admittedly, anticipates the mega-successful sound of bands like Korn and Limp Bizkit. However, Axl also brought to the table “Estranged,” as mysterious and deeply affecting a grandiose ballad as rock music has ever delivered. Even as the dissension within the group began to show, the band rose to the occasion and successfully embodied all of the larger-than-life expectations that surrounded them.