On Earth-2, the second and third albums came out but they were just horrible. That's why Earth-2 no longer exists.

Still trying to figure out Gun'n'Roses.  I don't know why, what else is there to do?

I heard "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" on the radio today and forgot how much I'd liked it.  There are exceptions but I generally don't think of cover songs when I'm thinking about musicians and since I don't listen to a lot of music anymore, that's basically it.  But one thing I had been wondering about this band is the bizarre use of overdubbed movie dialogue or even Axl just reciting it himself.

What the hell is the point of that?  I'm sure other bands have done it, but nothing comes to mind at all, save the Beatles including themselves from their own movie between songs on Let It Be which isn't remotely the same as this.

"Heaven's Door" involves Josh Richman reciting "You just better start sniffing your own rank subjugation, Jack, because it's just you against your tattered libido, the bank and the mortician forever, pal, and wouldn't it be luck if you could get out of life alive."

What the hell is that?  Wikipedia says Richman has a few bit parts in movies and tv shows, few of which I've ever heard of, and a Fergie video in 2014.  He directed G'n'R's "Live and Let Die" video and had some non-camera role for "Don't Cry."  Apparently he was in the movie Heathers which I've never seen but was the most famous of the batch and isn't even listed on Wikipedia's list of actors in it.

The vocal does build up to the female-sung chorus but a musical instrument could have done that.  They never made a video for it despite releasing it as a single, the B-side was just a live version from the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, so there's never been any indication of what this means or why it's even there.  And it wasn't the only G'n'R song to do this.

Appetite For Destruction had nothing of the kind with the possible exception of the girl having sex in the last song.  Axl was banging Steven's girlfriend in the studio.  We don't know why but it's a sensible build-up for the end of the album and it's not like sex hadn't been mentioned earlier.  Anything Goes...

GN'R Lies had nothing of the kind either but its final song was written solely by Axl and bitching about police and niggers, immigrants and faggots.  Shock value seemed to be his thing.

Use Your Illusions I didn't have much added dialogue but II were full of it.  I did slowly start adding non-band members playing tambourine, the back-up ladies on "November Rain" or a song co-written with Paul Huge before G'n'R ever formed.  Alice Cooper sang a verse on "The Garden" but he's Alice Cooper, that's understandable.  "Coma" had the 'bitches' bitching about sex with Axl, but it was an epic song that closed out the album.  It was still sensible.

Every song has plenty of lyrics but it's only in the last several songs that it's really noticeable, starting with "Garden of Eden."  The song is 2:36 and a really fast tempo but there's just so many that it's mindboggling.  The next song, "Don't Damn Me" has even more lyrics and it's 5:16.  "Coma" has about as many and it's 10:08.

UYI II starts off with "Civil War" which includes dialogue by Strother Martin from the movie Cool Hand Luke and Axl recites lines by an unnamed Peruvian Guerilla General.  "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" has already been discussed.  "Get in the Ring" has back-up sounds but those make sense, added as part of the song as if to an audience.  "Breakdown" has Axl reciting Cleavon Little's lines from the movie Vanishing Point.  There's the end of the trilogy, "Estranged," the other version of "Don't Cry" and Axl ends it with a bizarre track that's basically homemade white-boy rap.  Izzy - and possibly the rest of the band - didn't even know this was included until they received the actual record.  "My World" was definitely Axl promoting himself, over the band and audience who were expected to keep track of him.  "Guess what I'm doing nowwwww..."

Spaghetti Incident has none of this and Chinese Democracy only has "Madagascar" but it merges clips from movies - Mississippi Burning, Braveheart, Casualties of War, Seven and Cool Hand Look again - with two Reverend King speeches.  What was the point of this?  The music doesn't stand out although it might be nice to hear an instrumental version, the lyrics are completely ignorable and the movie quotes are needlessly tossed in and overworked.  It's still gibberish, no matter how much time and effort you put into it.

I haven't looked at the various album booklets in ages and I'll admit to being a bit more impressed than I'd expected.  Appetite was straightforward, no one knew where this band would be in a year or two.  Lies had the newspaper cover added because the band was now controversial and very successful.  The Illusions were pretty simple, just some odd images added in places and a central picture of band photos being surrounded by pictures of other people they were working with.  It's amusing to note how many names are still recognizable to people who have paid attention to GNR all this time.  And there's Alice Cooper.  The outlying pics are the same in both albums, I just has a collage of band pics while II shows individual band pictures around the G'n'R logo.  Spaghetti Incident has very little, just song credits and band pictures except for Axl, we only see his feet.  Guess what he's doing now?

Chinese Democracy was obviously overworked, each song fills a page with lyrics and the designs/band pictures are reworked for whatever reason although it is understandable.  It is an actual album, believe it or not.  Axl did complain about the cover after it came out, he'd only had 14 years to work on it.

So now I've worked all that out, what have we learned?  If you answered "don't be Axl Rose," you deserve a pat on the head.  You'll get one when the next GNR album comes out.