Customer Reviews

Guns N Roses' Use Your Illusion I And II (33 1/3)

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The authour spends more time talking about his own past, (youth, his sister's wedding [wtf??], novels he has read, John Updike, etc.) than he does about the music. "I still don't know much of anything about Guns N' Roses, and wouldn't want to spoil my fog by reading books and articles about them just yet." (p. 25) Yeah, well, I wish you had. I couldn't finish the book. So if you don't want to read about the GN'R double album, Use Your Illusion I & II, this is the book for you.

I'm writing this having read only 36 pages, so take it for what it's worth. I wanted to put a warning out there though -- this is not, to use the writer's words, a reportorial work. That's why I'm disappointed so far. The writing isn't bad but it's more of a personal essay.

I buy 33 1/3 books to learn the details about how albums I like were made. I want to hear stories from the production, what inspired the songs, what the band was going through, etc. This book doesn't seem to fall in that category.

Dear Eric Weisbard,

If you hate a band, why write about them? This wasn't some forced album review that you *had* to do. Rather than discuss, as the series suggests, the importance of a record, or how it was made, etc., Eric takes apart the UYI albums.

I didn't expect it to be the dribbly fan prose my personal reflections on the book would have been, but I also didn't expect him to be so self-righteous. Why do I know more about Eric's married life (he has a kid, he's married to a girl he used to listen to one track of GNR with repeatedly) than the album or what it meant? Apparently this album (for the author) heralded the end of rock.

Clearly Mr. W wanted to write the review of Pearl Jam's "Ten" and didn't get the gig. So we have to listen to him rag on the band's persona (rather than their songwriting). He blathers on, and I found myself checking how many pages were left (the book only rings in at a hefty 125, but it feels like War and Peace the way he writes).

He even gets as arrogant as to talk about if *he* had ordered the tracks, what order he would have done, and what he would have kept. You know what *I* would have done, Eric Weisbard? I would have hired an editor :)

But that's not the worst of it. At one point early on he refers to an art critique and decides to bite the style and review the albums WITHOUT LISTENING TO THEM. then, in the final chapter, we're supposed to be grateful that he did so and pour over his pontifications. EXAMPLE GIVEN - this is one gem I dog-eared in my book to share with you all:

"Also, if you hit the same note at the end as you had in the beginning, just more torn and frayed, then nothing has moved forward. Gothic imperatives that have long counterposed Puritan skepticism to the smiley faced motto of American revivalism: "all may be saved"".

If any of you understand what the hell he's on about (this was in reference to the song "Don't Cry", which the author has particular disdain for", lemme know.

This book McSucked.

Anyone who thinks "Out ta Get Me" on Appetite for Destruction "borders on filler" (see p. 88) should not be writing about Guns N' Roses.

Yeah, I get it, he's examining them as a guilty pleasure, and why in a lot of ways GnR is just MORE FUN to listen to than Nirvana. It's an interesting premise, but having gotten that far, he completely misses the point. He doesn't understand that they were actually good musicians. Weisbard gets that Axl's excesses destroyed the band, but he doesn't seem to understand why this was the case, and he doesn't have anything new or interesting to say about it. He also announces proudly in the first chapter that he doesn't intend to listen to Use Your Illusion again until the last chapter of the book, which should pretty much tell you that the next 114 pages are going to be pointless wankery--which basically makes this the book-length equivalent of "My World," Axl's "sound collage" on Use Your Illusion II.

I took a risk with this one because I thought the premise sounded interesting. I am a big fan of this series and liked Appetite for Destruction and had Use Your Illusion II when I was younger. If you are looking for a book about the making of the album, this certainly isn't it. This book was more about the significance of an album that sold 28 million copies but is currently regarded as a guilty pleasure at best. I bought it used for $1.50 and don't regret it.

I feel that some of the reviews here are misleading. The author talks about the band throughout the entire book and only talks about his own life and experience with the album for 5-10 pages (and even then there is a context related to the band). All that being said, its not a perfect book; it can be difficult to fully follow Weisbard's points and he tends to say the same things over and over. On the whole, its a mixed bag.

If you are interested in reading about the end of the era of "blockbuster albums" and like the 33 1/3's about Belle & Sebastian or Celion Dion(which have more to do with context and history of the albums), you might want to check this one out.

The author doesn't give you much insite to the recording or production of UYI. He doesn't even talk about GNR until 50 pages in to the book.
I could care less about the author and his self indulgent tales of boredom.

Total waste of money and time, except for the Kurt Cobain encounter with Ax-hole.

I know that AXL has some serious issues and is a total Jack-A, but I bought the book because of the high quality of other releases in the 33 1/3 series.

Terrible.......

Buy the Steely Dan Aja or the Beastie Boy's Paul's books instead.

I like Guns N Roses and the write obviously does not. Probably because he doesn't have any of the talent they had. Wait - he obviously does not because this book is pretty boring. He veers off topic and is so lazy that he gets his lyric information from the internet. Like he couldn't sit there and actually listen to the song he was talking about! I've read other 33 1/3 books and they are much better. This one is a dud!

After reading 5 other titles in the generally very good 33 1/3 series this has to be the worst.
Eric Weisband's style and content is very sporadic, uninformed, and lacklustre.

There are no interviews with any members of Guns N' Roses or the people involved with making these albums.

After an initial good opening introduction about the era of the huge multi-million 'event' albums from 1991 the book offers very little, if not zero insights into the making of the Use Your Illusion I and II albums.

Throughout the book it is clear that Weisband is not a huge fan of the band. This could have been a good thing and would make more of an objective study and review.
Unfortunately throughout most of the book he tries at great length to come to terms with his own inner struggle between the merits of stadium rock and the 'alternative' scene of the time (Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, etc.). What really seems to interest him is the madness in and surrounding the band during this '91-'94 era, especially Axl Rose, but yet again there is no great new insight and revelation into Axl's warped mind.

At one point, with 33 pages left to go, he even states "As I stretch out this book,..." showing that he really has nothing left to say and is just filling to get his money.

Slash offers a far better and first person account of the making of these hugely bloated, occasionally great albums.

First off, I have to say I am biased when it comes to "Use Your Illusion". When I first heard this double album in its entirety, I was blown away. Almost every song is good, there is one song I didn't like that slips my mind and it is the last song on the second CD but over all I thought it was great. Getting that out of the way, I read Eric Weisbard's book on the double album. I don't know why because I don't like critics period. Each person has his and her own opinion on movies, music, books, religion etc. We are all different in our outlook on the world around us, we all hate and love certain things because of experience or emotion. So critics don't hold much water for me and the only critic you should listen to is yourself. I read this book because I love "Use Your Illusion" but the thing is he thinks too much. He quotes one woman journalist who worked for a prominent rock magazine when he tried to put together a forum involving academia and pop critics "rock is something you don't think about, you either feel it in your groin or you don't feel it at all." He quoted this kind of mockingly but she is right. Sure rock music can make you think, I am not denying this but the tone of this book is kind of condescending. Its just one big sneer from beginning to end. There is times I can tell he is trying to be hip and it is the hipster condescension that made me want to throw this book against the wall. I don't like stuffy critics who think they know it all and this guy fits the bill. He has some interesting things to say but there few and far in between. Most of it is intellectual, elitist, pop music critic masturbation in the worst way. There is times he accuses Axl of being too much of a scatter brain but at times his own book goes off on tangents that have nothing to do at all with "Use Your Illusion". If you like critic, wanting to be academic, "turn your nose up at" writing this is for you. If you want to make up your mind about something yourself then steer clear of this book. Guns n' Roses sold millions of copies of "Use Your Illusion" wonder how many copies of this book Weisbard sold?