Very interesting parallel's between Now and 1991 Pt2(NY Times article, Sep 91)

"Use Your Illusion" I and II are the work of a band that's used to spurring a reaction, a band that's rich, famous and turbulent, not to mention tabloid-news fodder: "So many eyes are on me," Mr. Rose wails in the opening song, "Right Next Door to Hell." The two albums insist that fame and wealth are no picnic; "Just because you're winnin' don't mean you're the lucky ones." Success has given the band a bunker mentality, with Mr. Rose demanding, "Just leave me be." It's a new stance: belligerent isolationism.

Musically, the two albums are distinct. Like Bon Jovi, their rival in sales and goody-goody opposite in image, Guns 'n' Roses present an anthology of late-1960's and 1970's rock styles, so-called classic rock. Along with their old Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith influences, they now evoke dozens of bands, from the Beatles and the Doors to the Sex Pistols. Of the two albums, "Use Your Illusion I" is the hard rocker, largely guitar-driven and looking over its shoulder at the Rolling Stones' "Exile on Main Street." For "Use Your Illusion II," the piano moves into the foreground (played by Mr. Rose or by the group's new keyboardist, Dizzy Reed) and the songs grow more reflective, with glimmers of Derek and the Dominoes and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

The band generally stays with what it does best, chaining riff to riff, in the strategy they learned from Led Zeppelin, on "Use Your Illusion I." Their tour de force, "Coma," is the first album's finale; as it considers and then rejects the lures of oblivion, its music is almost free-form, with riffs appearing and disappearing like specters in a delirium.

"Use Your Illusion I" shows the band at its most eloquent, defensive and immature. In the better lyrics, private fury is linked to the state of the world. "Garden of Eden," which machine guns words like a revved-up Aerosmith, is a manifesto of alienation that lives up to its own imperative: "Dance to the tension of a world on edge." "Perfect Crime" and "Double Talkin' Jive" share a raw, dead-end rage, while "The Garden" connects portents of insanity to a slippery, amorphous psychedelia.

But just as often, as in the honky-tonking "Bad Apples," the songs get caught up in the band's pains of fame. "I know you don't wanna hear me crying," Mr. Rose sings in the self-justifying "Don't Damn Me," and he's right.

When the band isn't blaming the outside world for intruding, it falls back on its old scapegoat: women. "You Ain't the First," a mock-country waltz that casually dismisses an ex-lover, is just a warm-up to "Bad Obsession," which equates a lover and a drug habit, and "Back Off Bitch," which gripes, "If it's lovin' you I'm better off dead." By contrast, the love songs "November Rain" and "Don't Cry" sound half-hearted.

"Use Your Illusion II" is more of a hodge-podge. Like a mid-concert breather, it begins with slower songs, like the statesmanlike "Civil War," which, Mr. Rose bawls, "Feeds the rich while it buries the poor." But most of the ballads sound imitative. When they end, the bullying begins.

"Get in the Ring" wastes high-powered riffs on a petty diatribe against the press, immortalizing writers who reach perhaps one percent of Guns 'n' Roses' audience. "Shotgun Blues," a full-tilt punk-rocker, has Mr. Rose pointing the muzzle at a vague adversary, cursing with all the creativity of a playground tough.

The band regains its balance with "Breakdown," musical kin to Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird," with lyrics about long-suffering outsiders. The momentum carries into a second group of breakup songs, less vindictive than those on "Use Your Illusion I."

"Locomotive," a Led Zeppelin-James Gang hybrid, builds to syncopated blasts that almost tear the song apart, capturing the volatility of a real breakup. "Estranged," with two different soaring guitar lines, turns into an anthem despite cliches like "the changing seasons of my life." But "You Could Be Mine," a screaming riff-rocker, reverts to macho posturing.

Hostility has an honored place in rock-and-roll; the music was made to shout away frustrations and shake up authorities. No one expects Mr. Rose to suddenly turn into Santa Claus. But Guns 'n' Roses can only retain their power as long as they convince themselves and their audience that they're still misfits and outsiders, a voice for underdogs.

At its ugliest, the band has become a vindictive overdog, lashing out at anyone who dares to puncture its vanity. But now and then -- in "Garden of Eden," "Coma," "Perfect Crime," "Breakdown" and "Civil War" -- Guns 'n' Roses transcend their grudges and turn their rage on deserving targets. In the meantime, there's always another great guitar line to make the nastiness sing, and sting.