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Use Your Illusion II [VINYL] | ![Use Your Illusion II [VINYL]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51mcjV4Zn2L._SL500_.jpg)
| Artist: Guns N' Roses
Label: Commercial Marketing
Category: Music
Used (3) from £37.85
Rating:  41 reviews
Sales Rank: 272999
Format: Box Set, Explicit Lyrics, Import
Media: Vinyl
Running Time: 76
Discs: 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 12.2 x 12.1 x 0.3
UPC: 720642442012
EAN: 0720642442012
ASIN: B000057DOV
Release Date: November 24, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
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| Tracks:
Disc 1
| • | Civil War | | • | 14 Years | | • | Yesterdays | | • | Knockin' On Heaven's Door | | • | Get In The Ring | | • | Shotgun Blues | | • | Breakdown |
Disc 2
| • | Pretty Tied Up (The Perils Of Rock N' Roll Decadence) | | • | Locomotive (Complicity) | | • | So Fine | | • | Estranged | | • | You Could Be Mine | | • | Don't Cry (Alternative Lyrics) | | • | My World |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
Had Use Your Illusion II been combined with Use Your Illusion I, keeping only the best material while dropping the filler, it would have been one of the best rock albums ever recorded. Instead, great songs like "Civil War", "14 Years", "Estranged", and "So Fine" compete with the inexcusable "Get in the Ring" and the well-intentioned but off-target cover of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door". There's no point to the second version of "Don't Cry", either. On the other hand, when Guns N' Roses were good, they were very, very good, and some of the material on this album is unsurpassable. --Genevieve Williams
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| Customer Reviews: Read 36 more reviews...
 MORE PROGRESSIVE THAN UYI VOL 1... July 28, 2008
Both are strong albums, but where as Vol.1 is in your face Hard Rock/Metal , this is more experimental, dare I say, progressive!
Estranged, Locomotive, Civil War are all GREAT, lengthy epics, with complex arrangements and musicianship.
A really strong, (still) modern sounding Rock album.
Brilliant Rock album from an amazing rock band. June 14, 2008
It's really annoying when you are reading reviews for a guns n'roses album which isn't Appetite for destruction and the fans given it bad review for one reason it isn't Appetite for Destruction God thats annoying the same thing goes for every band get over the bands do what they want just appreciate their album for what they are not what you expect them to be. Now on to the album it is a brilliant it has more variety then appetite for destruction. The tracks to mention would be Civil War, Knockin On Heavens Door (Bob Dylan Cover), Get In The Ring, Pretty Tied Up, Locomotive & You Could Mine those are my fave songs on this album. If you're a Guns N' Roses fan and dont have this buy it be Open Minded about it and get over the fact that their not gonna make another appetite for destruction album, though if you're new to guns n roses then yes deffinetly buy Appetite For Destruction thats where everyone should start with Guns N Roses.
 Dont abuse your dillusion Axl... June 30, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
While Guns 'N Roses are a great, if occasionally pragmatc, ninties rock band, Use Your Illusion to me has always seemed a little sparse.
Dont get me wrong its got some top notch songs on it, but for every moment of brilliance (Civil War, November Rain) there are parralells of mediocrity (Shotgun Blues) and unbearable idiocy (My World)
This inconsistency could be atributed to the size of the thing (I am reviewing both albums as one here) and while its eccentric nature might have worked in its favour, as is the case with other extended efforts like Floyd's "The Wall", the confusng laspes of quality let it down and make it seem a little self indulgent.
However there are great moments, like the brilliant Estranged or 14 years, which is one of their best proper rock songs. Although the audacity to cover Macca (Live And Let Die) and Dylan (Knockin' On Heavens Door) serve only to measure Axl's bloated ego that he felt he was great enough ot cover the work of a Beatle and the greatest lyricist alive. His dillusion then is what lets this album down, that he felt he could pull of inconsistency. I mean, why not make a smaller album? Why include two versions of the same song (Dont Cry)? But his vision was such that it had to be a double, and that uncompromising attitude led to an album with peaks as high as it has troughs low.
In light of this I have given it three stars, which in my book is average. There are excellent bits and not so great bits and they balance it out. Get it if you want to hear greatness, because greatness you will nost certainly hear, but only if you can put up with skipping a lot of tracks.
The Rose For The Gun December 30, 2006
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This is a very different beast from "Appetite", or even UYI Vol 1. Whilst Guns always could rip it up and tear it out with the best of them (and they do so brilliantly on Vol 1's "Perfect Crime", "Right Next Door To Hell", "Bad Obsession" and so on), on this album there's a concerted effort to display musical and emotional growth. Axl was always a broader musican than Slash - a fact evident from the fact that on this moderately-paced album, Slash only has 3 or 4 writing credits. This is very much Axl's baby, although the quibbling over credits (unlike "Appetite", which is band-credited) already suggests the loss of band solidarity. This album is less of a stomping hard-rock album and more of a classic rock album, where the act is established and they can now stretch their wings. Slash has already said that the UYI albums are their equivalent of the White Album.
The songwriting is I think consistently stunning. There's more, and more varied, emotion too. God only knows why "Estranged" isn't more recognised - it's one of the pinnacles of their acheivement, a cold, disconsolate beginning, shifting (via one of Slash's finest ever lines) to a sneering, callow hauteur, then a sad, yearning instrumental, to a open and warming ending, closing on an almost desperate note. "So Fine", sung wonderfully by Duff, has shivers and sighs of pure emotion, a rock ballad of unusual exquisiteness. "Locomotion", like "Estranged", considers the end of relationships and the realisation of emotional emptiness, Axl's nasal, almost-sneering delivery suggestive of the immaturity he's singing about. "Breakdown", another song that's oddly underappreciated, again suggests a man on the edge of his tether, yearning for the innocence and certainties of younger, simpler days (note the country-style intro - similar to Axl's piece of straw in the "Welcome To The Jungle video - he was an Indiana boy after all!) - which "Yesterdays" does explicitly but with far less style. "Pretty Tied Up", a classic piece of Izzy, is typically Stones-y and also features some outstanding sitar. And so on - the album is filled with classic moments ("Civil War", "You Could Be Mine").
Some have suggested that you could make one killer album from the two volume of Use Your Illusion. I think that would miss the point. Firstly, the two albums gave them the space to stretch their wings musically, which "Appetite" being far more condensed and focused didn't. Who would have expected sitar, spanish guitar, bizarre electronica, and so on? Secondly, the two albums very much have their own character. Volume One is far more aggressive and vitriolic, Volume Two is much more reflective and sensitive. GN'R always had both sides to them - hence their name, typically Yin/Yang.
This album is almost a return to a more 60s/70s rock album and succeeds on every possible level. Treat yourself.
Better than part 1 September 4, 2006
Use your Illusion 2 is another hard rocking GNR 90's album. In my point of view this surpasses 1 (which was an amazing album by the way). 2 contains some pretty awesome hard rock songs like 14 years, you could be mine (yeah terminator 2), locomotive,shotgun blues and get in the ring. as well as the good old conventional rock, there are ballads such as civil war and knockin on heavans door. Although not as good as appetite this album is still an essential purchase.
9.1/10
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