# 1997         Guns N' Roses -   PRETTY TIED UP

     Use Your Illusion, Geffen Records, 1991


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Guns N' Roses began work on the long-awaited follow-up to Appetite for Destruction at the end of 1990.  In October of that year, the band fired drummer Steven Adler, claiming that his drug dependency caused him to play poorly; he was replaced by Matt Sorum from the Cult.  During recording, the band added Dizzy Reed on keyboards.  By the time the sessions were finished, the new album had become two new albums.

After being delayed for nearly a year, the albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II were released in September 1991.  Messy but fascinating, the albums showcased a more ambitious band.  While there were still a fair number of full-throttle guitar rockers, there were stabs at Elton John-style balladry, acoustic blues, horn sections, female backup singers, ten-minute art rock epics with several different sections, and a good number of introspective, soul-searching lyrics.  In short, they were now making art; amazingly, they were successful at it.  The albums sold very well initially, but while they had seemed destined to set the pace for the decade to come, that turned out not to be the case at all.

Nirvana's Nevermind hit number one in early 1992, suddenly making Guns N' Roses -- with all of their pretensions, impressionistic videos, models, and rock star excesses -- seem very uncool.  Rose handled the change by becoming a dictator, or at least a petty tyrant; his in-concert temper tantrums became legendary, even going so far as to incite a riot in Montreal.  Izzy Stradlin left by the end of 1991, and with his departure the band lost their best songwriter; he was replaced by ex-Kill for Thrills guitarist Gilby Clarke.  The band didn't fully grasp the shift in hard rock until 1993, when they released an album of punk covers, The Spaghetti Incident?.  It received some good reviews, but the band failed to capture the reckless spirit of not only the original versions, but their own Appetite for Destruction.  By the middle of 1994, there were rumors flying that the band was about to break up, since Rose wanted to pursue a new, more industrial direction and Slash wanted to stick with their blues-inflected hard rock.  The band remained in limbo for several more years, and Slash resurfaced in 1995 with the side project Slash's Snakepit and an LP, It's Five O'Clock Somewhere.


source:  VH-1.com