“I’ll Fix This. I Can Make It Cool Again!” (Vol. 7) — Special Guest: Si White
In a new occasional series for paid subscribers. I’m going to take albums that need “fixing” and make them what they should have been…But for this special edition we welcome guest writer, Si White.
Today’s fix is one of the most obvious for a series like this — as obvious as back with the very first example when I ‘fixed’ Mellon Collie by The Smashing Pumpkins, making it The Finite Sadness:
But today is also special because it is the first edition featuring guest writer, Si White. He’s previously contributed Five Films That Stay With Him
AND Ten Albums He Couldn’t Live Without
He is the kind of Paying Subscriber and reader I cannot live without! In all seriousness, I’m most grateful for his contributions here, and for his commitment to the bit. He was first to write with what he knew was the obvious example for a ‘fix’ and I said I was only too glad to save it for him to tackle when he was ready. Well today is that day. And though this is usually a series for the paying subscribers only, it’s also only fair that Si gets to share this about with this friends and fam and social media peeps if he wants. So this one is going out to one and all — paying, not paying, not subscribing, anyone and everyone can read this ‘fix’. So, without further adieu, it is of course
Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II by Guns n’ Roses. (Technically two single albums, but both very long and most often thought of as a ‘double’, making it an epic, sprawling mess in need of “fixing”).
Take it away Si White:
While technically not a double-album, but two 'companion' albums released on the same day, I feel like the iconic, unwieldy Illusions qualify for the "I'll Fix This. I Can Make It Cool Again!" treatment. Luckily for me, Simon agrees - so here we go. To me, at least half of the songs on these albums don't need to be there. For whatever reason, it seems Axl (let's face it, all the decisions at this time were his) wanted to have a fire sale of all the stock lying around in the back room. But by removing a bunch of the past-due and damaged items, we should end up with a single album, still of decent length and packed with great tunes, that doesn't need to be discounted. It's a big job, slicing a beast like this in half, so I'll tackle it in two parts. First I'll dissect the original tracklist song by song, and like an unskilled surgeon, reach in and yank out the unnecessary (and sometimes malignant) specimens that we no longer want or need. The second task will be to take the remaining parts and re-attach them, to end up with a new, 'reanimated' Illusion that we can all enjoy using. But before that, some context.
Way back on September 17, 1991 I had just turned 12 years old and was already a die-hard Gunners fan. I had been listening to Appetite for Destruction since a friend at primary school let me borrow the tape a year or so after it was released. At that very instant, my former soft-rock loves of Bon Jovi and Def Leppard were forever jilted (well at least for 20 years or so) and it was Gn'R all day, err day — as long as Mum and Dad were out of earshot, these guys swore! I sometimes wonder how my teenage life would have gone if I hadn't been given that exact tape at that exact time, if I had continued to listen to the wholesome bands that I had been previously enamoured of. Were W. Axl Rose, Slash and co a corrupting influence on an impressionable young mind? Is it simply a coincidence that the boy who lent me that tape went on to spend time in prison? But that's another, less frivolous subject, and I digress...
So it was that I spent a very long three to four years (like, a third of my life at the time!) listening to ‘Appetite' and wistfully pining for new music from my wayward rock n' roll heroes. Then one fateful Saturday morning I woke up and turned on the TV to whatever the current, short-lived, music video show hosted by Robert Rakete or someone along those lines was. There, in all his glory, was Arnold Schwarzeneger blasting dudes with a shotgun, accompanied by some banging riffs!
Now, Arnold was another one of those bad influences at the time. I had somehow managed to watch nearly all of his "action" movies, despite being well under the legal age limit to do so, and knew most of his hilariously murderous one-liners by heart. So the sudden realisation, on hearing those unmistakable vocals, that this was new music from Guns N' Roses and it's in a new Arnie movie literally blew my mind! From that moment on I was then keenly anticipating what could only be the best album to be released in three to four years, if not all of time! I'm not sure how long I had to wait, but there was no internet back then, and information had to actually be searched for. Finally, I saw it in the window of the local Wainuiomata record store, a double album! Mind blown - again! So, with the preamble out of the way, I turn to the job of whittling the two albums that, as a kid, I felt could not be improved upon, down to 1 record much more suited to my adult palate.
The opening track of Illusion 1, Right Next Door to Hell starts with a moody intro that feels like a nod to Welcome to the Jungle the first song on "Appetite" — possibly part of the reason that it was chosen as the opener for the new set of songs. Welcome to the Jungle it is not, but it still has enough of that Gn'R guts and energy that tells us we are in for a (mostly) good time. It's not going to stay at the top in my fixed version, but it does survive the cull. Dust n' Bones is next up in the original order, and this track definitely stays in. It's got all the great elements of that bluesy side of the Gunners. It's heavy with Izzy Stradlin's influence and attitude, and it stacks up against the best of their blues-influenced tracks. Another one that stays in this leaner, meaner fixed set of songs.
Live and Let Die - ugh. This is the first song from the original tracklist to get the axe. And it deserves to. It's a bad song. The original is a bad song. And this version is possibly worse. It served only as a vehicle for Axl to try and position himself in people's minds alongside the Beatles, but without being too obvious. It sucks and it's gone.
Don't Cry — the first of two versions in the double set (the fact that there are two versions of the same song is enough to tell you that some pruning is needed here) — is next in the original line up, and this song definitely stays in. Head to head with the Illusion's other, more played power-ballad November Rain - I think it's the better song. Better chord structure, less sprawling (apart from that weird, artificially-extended final vocal note), and the more traditional lyrics are a nice break from Axl's usual 'woe is me, and you're a &^%$' schtick. So far we have a run of three pretty damn good songs to add to the fixed album - things are looking better already. The next two tracks in the original order are on the chopping block. First Perfect Crime — it's not terrible, and pre-teen me got a thrill out of all the cussing in it, but it's not, um, perfect. Compared to the other songs on my "fixed" record, it's filler, not killer. Then You Ain't the First — which has its charm but ultimately it's a tamer, more boring version of Used to Love Her and we don't really need it here.
Bad Obsession is next and it definitely stays in. This catchy, honky tonk number about multiple vices actually rocks, and is a good example of where piano actually works well in a Gn'R song. Back Off Bitch — a load of misogynist lyrics set to average music that no one really needs or wants to hear. Out. The next two songs survive the cut: Double Talkin' Jive — again, this one has Izzy Stradlin's sound and attitude all over it. A great riff, lyrics and I love the coda where it fades out to a flamenco style acoustic guitar riff. “Get the money, motherfucker!”
November Rain — it's sprawling, cheesy and overwrought. But it's also epic, resplendent with orchestral arrangements and probably the best known song on the album. Not to mention the fact that it conjures up the image of Slash shredding a solo in front of a church in the desert during a sandstorm! It's a keeper.
Now towards the end of Illusion 1 is where it's time to really cut some fat. None of the next five items in the original track list need to be there. The Garden — featuring Alice Cooper for some reason? — is a meandering, pointless piece of music with underwhelming lyrics, "bye bye, so long...".
Garden of Eden goes by in a blur of sameness. Don't Damn Me is Axl whining about being called out, quite appropriately, on his many inappropriate utterances (One in a Million, anyone?) set to average riffs. Even Axl himself says at the end: "Alright, that sucked". There's not much more to say about the next two songs either, Bad Apple is just bad, and Dead Horse is dead weight. The original tracklist of Illusion 1 rounds out with Coma which I've always thought of as the GnR's equivalent of Comfortably Numb. Much more abrasive, but with all the histrionics of the most over-dramatic Pink Floyd numbers, Coma is a journey that I'm up for repeating. Now that we have given ourselves some breathing room in Illusion 1, we can begin carving out the best bits from the second volume, before the all-important task of reordering.
Illusion 2 kicks off with Civil War, and this is the song that I think makes the best point of them all. An anti-war anthem with real feeling, some great guitar solos, an iconic sample at the start (from Cool Hand Luke — a film I've been meaning to see for 30 years based on this song) and, ah... whistling. I really dig this one and it stays in.
14 years is up next, and while not a terrible song, in this context it's just a worse version of Dust n' Bones with a lot of unnecessary piano in it. In the interest of brevity it's cut. I'm a bit torn about Yesterdays. It's a good song, but it's not really a Guns n' Roses song. It's an Axl song. It's charming in its own way though, and on balance it's good enough to make it onto the fixed album.
Up next is Knockin on Heaven's Door, Axl's second attempt at positioning himself next to the serious songwriters. This time he picked a decent song to cover. Let's just not talk about that "Gimmee some reggae!" bit on the live version. Get in the Ring — this one also has me in two minds, it's juvenile and immature, but so was I when I first heard and LOVED it (some would say things haven't changed much). It's far from the best-written song, but ultimately it has all the bravado and middle-finger waving that is the real essence of what Gn'R were about, at least to start with. It's got to stay. There's really nothing special about the next couple of songs, Shotgun Blues and Breakdown — neither of them ever really grabbed me. Shotgun Blues is just kind of bland, and Breakdown is all over the place and nowhere all at once. Neither of them will be missed.
Pretty Tied Up (The Perils of Rock n' Roll Decadence) — a song about, well, the perils of rock n' roll decadence. This one is a banger (pun possibly intended?) It's got a great groove and you can't help but sing along to the chorus in your deepest voice, although probably not out loud if you're in public. Locomotive is out. It has some good parts, like the heavier bridge section, and the chorus hook is catchy, but the nasally vocals and overall disjointed nature of this beast means it doesn't stack up next to its better counterparts. Gone.
So Fine is worth leaving in as a deviation from the norm, being written and sung by bass player Duff McKagan (of course Axl couldn't let him have the whole song, so he's in there on vocals too). This song was written as a tribute to Duff's hero, Johnny Thunders of the New York Dolls. Again, it's not the most well-written song, but you can tell there is real passion here and it adds some of that punk ethos that Duff brought to the band.
Estranged is another sprawling, disjointed, yet epic number. But this one works, sort of. At the time, the video for this song was allegedly the most expensive ever made — dolphins cost a lot back then. It's a shining example of the largest excesses of the band, both in songwriting and otherwise, so let's leave it in.
We've already talked about You Could Be Mine and will again in a moment. Suffice to say it's great and it stays. Don't Cry (again). Haven't we already had this one? Bin it.
My World — totally out of place, and likely the result of too many all nighters in a room full of cocaine and ProTools. This feels like either an intro or an outro for Coma. It's absolutely bonkers and shouldn't be allowed. But it's also a testament to Axl's single mindedness, megalomania and desire to be seen as more than just an ignorant rock star but an artiste. So by the skin of its teeth, the last track in the original 2 album set makes the cut.
Phew, that was a lot of judging! Now the fun part of re-arranging the wheat now that we have discarded the chaff. The previously described excitement at receiving the twin blessings of Gn'Arnie at the same time, is one of the reasons You Could Be Mine moves up from the tail-end of the second album, right up to the top of my fixed version.
It's a better song than Right Next Door to Hell and also has a suitably intriguing intro, hinting at what's to come. Add to that the fact that it's one of the most well-known tracks from either album, it seems to me to be the logical choice to kick off this new, improved Illusion. Right Next Door to Hell isn't too far away though. The previous opener stays near the top of the album along with Dust n' Bones, before we move into the serious business of Civil War and Don't Cry.
After that we bring the pace back up with the run of three cautionary rock n' roll tales: Bad Obsession, Double Talkin' Jive and Pretty Tied Up, culminating with the all out aggression of Get in the Ring. We've peaked, energy wise now so it's time for a period of quieter reflection with Yesterdays, Knocking on Heaven's Door, So Fine and November Rain. Finally, we have My World and Coma. I landed on the former acting as the introductory, short, sharp break to the latter's extended psychosis. These two tracks seem to still be best placed at the end of our journey, just as they were on the original two volumes.
So, there we have it. A fixed version, pared back to a manageable one hour and 19 minutes listening time, with every song accounted for and in its place.
But the big question is what do you think? Do you agree with my decisions/incisions? Or did I butcher an already perfect double-set of songs by removing some of the most vital parts? Have a listen to the Spotify playlist via the link above and let me (and Simon) know. As Axl says in "Estranged" - "...maybe I'll get it right next time".
SIMON SWEETMAN: Wow! I loved that, my huge thanks to Si White, a great read and a great listen. If you’re new here, this is an occasional, ongoing series, meant mostly in jest of course. I’ve reduced The Clash’s triple album to an EP, taken a single song off a Bob Dylan classic, changed the order and shortened Led Zeppelin’s best studio album, and made Pink Floyd’s The Wall a single disc, which is ridiculous given it’s a story-album. I even insultingly changed its name to “The Small”. So have a look around, they’re free to preview but it is a paid subscriber perk to read all of this nonsense. Hey, but Si’s post here went above and beyond. So well thought through!
Oh man I love this. If only someone had done this at the time. Instead we ended up with a bunch of (dis)illusioned fans