Guns N' Roses' Use Your Illusion I and IIEric WeisbardLabel: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.Description: It was the season of the blockbuster. Between August 12 and November 26 1991 a whole slew of acts released albums that were supposed to sell millions of copies in the run-up to Christmas. Metallica Michael Jackson Pearl Jam Nirvana Garth Brooks MC Hammer and U2 - all were competing for the attention of the record-buying public at the same time. But perhaps the most attention-seeking act of all was Guns N' Roses. Their albums Use Your Illusion I & II released on the same day were both 75-minute sprawlers with practically the same cover design - an act of colossal arrogance. On one level it worked. The albums claimed the top two chart positions and ultimately sold 7 million copies each in the US alone. On another level it was a disaster. This was an album that Axl Rose has been unable to follow-up in fifteen years. It signalled the end of Guns N' Roses of heavy metal on the Sunset Strip and the entire 1980s model of blockbuster pop/rock promotion. Use Your Illusion marked the end of rock as mass culture.In this book Eric Weisbard shows how the album has matured into a work whose baroque excesses now have something to teach us about pop and the platforms it raises and lowers about a man who suddenly found himself praised to the firmament for every character trait that had hitherto marked him as an irredeemable loser.
