Use Your Illusion I
1991 studio album by Guns N' Roses
Use Your Illusion I is the third studio album by American hard rock band Guns N' Roses, released by Geffen Records on September 17, 1991, the same day as its counterpart Use Your Illusion II. It was the band's first album with keyboardist Dizzy Reed, and drummer Matt Sorum, who replaced Steven Adler following Adler's departure in 1990, shortly after playing on "Civil War", which appears on Use Your Illusion II. The supporting tour for the albums, the Use Your Illusion Tour, began in May 1991, four months before the release of the albums due to delays in getting the albums out.
The album debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, selling 685,000 copies in its first week, behind Use Your Illusion II's first-week sales of 770,000. Use Your Illusion I has sold 5,502,000 units in the United States as of 2010, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Each of the Use Your Illusion albums have been certified 7× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance in 1992, and its single "Live and Let Die" was nominated in the same category the next year.
Background
The Use Your Illusion albums represent a turning point in the sound of Guns N' Roses. Although the band did not abandon the aggressive sound it had become known for with 1987's Appetite for Destruction, Use Your Illusion I demonstrated a more diverse, "hard/art-rock" sound, incorporating elements of blues, classical music, heavy metal, punk rock, and classic rock and roll. This is exemplified by the use of piano on several tracks by singer Axl Rose and keyboardist Dizzy Reed, as well as on Use Your Illusion II. Use Your Illusion I contains two of the three songs, "November Rain" and "Don't Cry", whose videos are considered a trilogy. The third song, "Estranged", is on Use Your Illusion II.
Another factor in the different sound compared to the band's earlier work is the addition of former The Cult drummer Matt Sorum, who replaced Steven Adler.
“Use Your Illusion I” enters the record as 1991 studio album by Guns N' Roses. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Your, Illusion and studio can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Use Your Illusion I” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Your, Illusion and studio provides the most credible route into that argument.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q826486. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1991, 1990, 2010 and 1992.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Use Your Illusion I”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Use Your Illusion I primary sources, Use Your Illusion I archive and Your research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Use Your Illusion I”?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Use Your Illusion I” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.