(Gibson) To some, it was the ultimate triumph of a band at the top of their game. To others, it was a folly that blew a great band apart. Twenty years ago this week, Guns N' Roses released Use Your Illusion. It was only the band's second full release, but what a release.Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion 2 were confined to a disc each on CD, but on vinyl they were both double albums, making for eight sides of vinyl. With 4.2 million copies sent to record stores for a midnight release, it was the largest album shipment in history. But such grandeur came at a cost.
All involved admit that Guns N' Roses were on a precipice even so early in their career. Guitarist Slash recently told Total Guitar, "I was just totally obsessed with the creation of the Illusion records and when I got into that studio, I was completely absorbed with everything to do with them, all the time. Because it had been so long. We'd made Appetite [for Destruction] and then toured for years and – for me, and I know for a couple of the other guys – we'd crashed and burned. So we were pulling ourselves out of the quagmire and going back to work."
For singer Axl Rose, lofty ambitions were paramount. "We want to define ourselves," Rose told Rolling Stone. "Appetite was our cornerstone, a place to start. That was like: Here's our land and we just put a stake in the ground. Now we're going to build something." more on this story
