Retro Video of the Week: "Don't Cry" by Guns N' Roses

Apologies for the lack of CoronaVinyl posts this week.  I've had a couple concerts this week and have had to work late other nights, which has prevented me from posting, but rest assured, CoronaVinyl will be back next week.

The late summer and early fall of 1991 was arguably one of the greatest couple months for album releases in history.  You may have seen the meme floating around social media with a photo of a stack of seven cassette tapes, saying "These were all released within 41 days of each other in 1991."   The stack contains Metallica's self-titled album (aka "the Black Album"), Pearl Jam's Ten, Guns N' Roses' Use Your Illusion I and II, Red Hot Chili Peppers' Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger, and Nirvana's Nevermind.

The meme is actually off by two days.  The Black Album was released on August 12, 1991, and the last three albums listed above were released 7 weeks and one day later (i.e., 43 days later) on September 24, 1991.  Except for Soundgarden (who was nominated in 2020 for the first time), all of the bands on that list are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and all seven of those albums are classics that helped define grunge, hard rock, and alternative rock in the '90s.

What's crazy is that, in that same 43-day span, there were several other massive and/or influential albums in various genres that were released.  Check out this list, which is in chronological order and contains some stats where necessary:

August 12
-Metallica by Metallica (16x platinum in the U.S.; best-selling album released in the SoundScan era (3/1/91-present); #1 on Billboard 200 for four weeks)

August 13
-Brooks & Dunn's debut album Brand New Man (6x platinum in the U.S.; #10 on Billboard 200; produced 4 #1 songs on the Billboard County singles chart)
-Cypress Hill's self-titled debut album (double platinum in the U.S.)

August 20
-Pocket Full of Kryptonite by Spin Doctors (5x platinum in the U.S.; #3 on Billboard 200)

August 26
-Blur's debut album Leisure

August 27
-Ten by Pearl Jam (13x platinum in the U.S.; #2 on Billboard 200)
-The Fire Inside by Bob Seger (platinum in the U.S.; #7 on Billboard 200)
-Fear by Toad the Wet Sprocket (platinum in the U.S.; two Top 20 songs on Billboard Hot 100)

September 3
-Naughty By Nature's self-titled second album (platinum in the U.S.; "O.P.P." was #6 hit on Billboard Hot 100)

September 10
-Ropin' the Wind by Garth Brooks (14x platinum in the U.S.; first country album to debut at #1 on Billboard 200; eventually spent a combined 18 weeks at #1 on Billboard 200) 

September 17
-Emotions by Mariah Carey (4x platinum in the U.S.; #4 on Billboard 200; three Top 5 songs on Billboard Hot 100, including one #1)
-Use Your Illusion I by Guns N' Roses (7x platinum in U.S.; #2 on Billboard 200)
-Use Your Illusion II by Guns N' Roses (7x platinum in U.S.; #1 on Billboard 200 for two weeks)
-Hole's debut album Pretty on the Inside
-No More Tears by Ozzy Osbourne (4x platinum in the U.S.; #7 on Billboard 200)

September 24
-Waking Up the Neighbours by Bryan Adams (4x platinum in the U.S.; #6 on Billboard 200; five Top 40 hits on Billboard Hot 100, including one #1)
-Nevermind by Nirvana (10x platinum in U.S.; #1 on Billboard 200 for two weeks 
-Blood Sugar Sex Magik by Red Hot Chili Peppers (7x platinum in U.S.; #3 on Billboard 200; "Under the Bridge" went to #2 on Billboard Hot 100)
-Badmotorfinger by Soundgarden (double platinum in U.S.)
-The Low End Theory by A Tribe Called Quest (platinum in U.S.)

Holy shit, what a 43 days.  

All of this does have a point and is timely.  I happened to see Guns N' Roses last night at Wrigley Field, and they predictably put on a great show.  Coincidentally -- but certainly not ironically -- today marks the 30th anniversary of the release of Gun N' Roses' ambitious release of two albums on the same day:  Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II.  The albums were GNR's first releases in nearly three years since their half-live, half-acoustic G N' R Lies was released.  In that time, they brought on Dizzy Reed on keyboards, and drummer Matt Sorum replaced original drummer Steven Adler.  Both albums were huge, with Use Your Illusion II debuting at #1 on the Billboard album chart and Use Your Illusion I debuting at #2, meaning that GNR had the top two albums in the U.S. in the same week.  Both eventually going 7x platinum in the U.S.

Use Your Illusion I went to #1 in Canada and was top five on the album charts in nine other countries.  Use Your Illusion II topped the album charts in Austria, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK, and it reached the top five on the album charts in five other countries.  Together, the albums spawned four Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, one of which was "Don't Cry" (from Use Your Illusion I), which went to #10.  Blind Melon lead singer Shannon Hoon (whose older sister was high school friends with Axl Rose) provides co-lead vocals on the song, singing the higher parts behind Rose's main vocals.

Just as memorable as the song was its video, which along with "November Rain" and "Estranged," form a related trilogy of songs and videos inspired by the Del James short story "Without You."  The video features Rose's then-girlfriend Stephanie Seymour (as does the video for "November Rain") and Hoon, but noticeably absent from the video is guitarist and the song's co-writer Izzy Stradlin.  A "Where's Izzy?" sign can be seen at one point in the video.  Stradlin would quit the band about a month after the video was shot.