The success of Use Your Illusions and the brief tour that followed gave the band enough momentum to push them through the recording of the next album. So much momentum that after wrapping up one album they recorded another quickly before hitting the road again. Unfortunately that momentum was not enough to fix some of the problems the band was having and by the time the sessions were done so were Adler and Stradlin.
Adler and Stradlin were replaced by Sorum and Clarke and with the addition of Dizzy Reed a massive tour was launched. The plan was to tour in support of this album and halfway through the tour release the next album (already in the can) to give the tour an added boost.
Side One
The Garden
Dead Horse
14 Years
So Fine
Breakdown
Side Two
Get In The Ring
You Ain't The First
Live And Let Die
Bad Apples
Estranged
Reality Notes
For the remainder of tracks from Use Your Illusions I & II I divided them into two groups. Because the documentation I found does not indicate a chronology of when each song was written and they were all recorded at roughly the same time, I split them according to style. This album contains the more accessible and mature songs as a follow up to UYI and the next album is a proper "back to basics" heavy follow up to Appetite.
The cover features an illustration I found on an old clip art CD (remember those?).
I like the contrary nature of title vs. image...I have two mixtapes from now 19 years ago that I resurrected in iTunes that I had to now come up with cover images for, and through Google sorcery I did find what became their 'covers', plural, since one tape was actually two self contained sides and I came up with two different images that fit. And yes, I do remember clip art CDs 😂
ReplyDeleteI know now we (the interested LOL) could now assemble the last CD ourselves, but I will await the final chapter as you have made it, and I may actually give you a couple of my own reduxes for you to check out and see if they're worth posting as filler between your own creations 😎
"It's all bleedin' comin' together" - Dondylion (Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy)
DeleteI'm always downloading images as I find them when I think they might make a good album cover. Only a few of them actually work or are used but it's fun playing with them. I think I enjoy making the covers just as much as the constructions themselves. I need some more free time to grow my photoshop skills. I do everything in MS Word with some work in Irfanview.
Glad you're enjoying it. One more to go.
I think what it is, is as you started this off about double albums and the fine line between bloat and quality, and my own anecdotal experiences, you are condensing the overall 'two' albums into three more manageable works that (will) still convey the bombast and artistry of the group, a case of addition by division if you will, as you did mention coming to appreciate certain songs in these new configurations that were lost in the dual oceans of UYI.
ReplyDeleteExactly my intentions. I am interested in hearing your own reduxes.
DeleteAt least in my purview, the interesting part of this recasting is that whereas the only album that retains its place and content is Appetite, this in no way takes Live '87-'93, even if not my favorite album, out of the discography. Where it was kind of a slapdash release to gloss over more of the eventual crash of the original lineup, here it would fit in timewise as just another of these yearly or so releases in the format established here. Yes it's still over a decade before Axl and G4H ;) release Chinese Democracy, but if these are the last albums of a great band before, Beatlelike, they just had to go their own ways, they go out in a decent arc rather than an ignominious end two decades in the crashing.
ReplyDelete