Guns N' Roses: Use Your Illusion I (2LP, remastered reissue, 180g) [UME]

Why you'll love it

This 2LP set is the first-ever remaster from the original analog stereo tapes, cut by Ted Jensen at Sterling Sound, on 180g vinyl in an expanded gatefold with a lyrics insert. It sold 685,000 copies in its first week and has been certified 7x Platinum in the US.

This edition

• 2LP set
• 180g vinyl
• Remastered from the original analog tapes
• Gatefold jacket
• Lyrics and credits insert
• Stereo mix
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

Most bands follow a monster debut with one album. Guns N' Roses made two, put them out on the same September day in 1991, and watched them take over the top of the Billboard chart. Use Your Illusion I is the one with "November Rain," and it's as gloriously big as that suggests.

Mike Clink produced with the band, and the sessions moved around studios in Hollywood and Los Angeles and even up to Metalworks in Toronto. Axl Rose sits at the piano for "November Rain," "Don't Cry" is a power ballad for the ages, and the Wings cover "Live and Let Die" goes off like fireworks. Alice Cooper turns up on "The Garden," Michael Monroe of Hanoi Rocks blows harmonica on "Bad Obsession," and the ten-minute "Coma" closes the set. For this edition, "November Rain" gets its first ever real orchestra, recorded in 2021 and mixed by Steven Wilson.

Along with its twin, it was the band's last album of new original songs until Chinese Democracy in 2008. Part of it was made at Metalworks in Toronto, which gives us a small and entirely unearned sense of local pride.

Also at Kops: more Guns N' Roses on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Geffen / UMe, a reissue of the 1991 album.