‘Chinese Democracy’ Falls Short of Expectations
December 2, 2008 by Albert Costill
Filed under General, News
A lot of people were thinking that Axl Rose’s long overdue album Chinese Democracy was going to save the industry.
Well, it looks like it won’t.
Estimates for Chinese Democracy have been revealed, which really aren’t that dominating for all the hype, and waiting. The album is expected to sell around 300,000 copies for it’s first week. While that’s not too shabby for most bands, it wasn’t even close enough to top the charts. Kanye West’s 808’s and Heartbreak has that honor with between 450,000 to 500,000 copies. Meanwhile across the pond in the UK, The Killers landed the top spot with Day & Age.
Now we’ll have to wait for the blame game.
Sure, it’s still way too early to even think that Chinese Democracy will be a flop, which it most likely won’t. But this was built up to be the release of the century. Not to mention that Axl did a lot of things right.
He released tracks slowly and methodically through various media outlets, like “Sheckler’s Revenge” on Rock Band. He streamed the entire album on MySpace, which broke streaming records, somewhere around 25 listens per second. He teamed up with Best Buy so that Chinese Democracy could only be found there, which worked for The Eagles and AC/DC at Wal-Mart. Shit, AC/DC’s latest release Black Ice sold just under 800,000 copies in it’s first week back in October.
Yeah, the economy is shitty and overall sales have been down, but people would dig up the change to be a part of this moment on rock n’ roll. So, I honestly don’t know where this thing went wrong.
Is Chinese Democracy that bad?
Or, do people not give a shit about bands like Guns N’ Roses anymore, which I think is bullshit.
The conclusion I can come up with is that people can’t forgive Axl and that ego of his. For as much as I try to look beyond his past misadventures, there is a part of me that can’t forgive him. I’m still bitter that he didn’t show up in Philly back in December of 2002; which is a great story to tell and being in the middle of a riot is always fun, but I really tried to give the guy a chance. I tried to look past the exits of Slash, Duff, Izzy and Matt and focus on the music, but to hand over my cash to someone that has been so shitty to fans, it just makes me feel dirty inside. I don’t know if I could sleep with myself at night. Yeah, I know that the label gets a bulk of the sales, but it’s the principle.
Let the excuses come to the rescue.
Image by Nienyi Ho via Flickr
I haven’t bought it yet. I want to.
I agree Axl has treated us all like shit. But he’s Axl Rose and that’s what he does.
This album is the nail in the coffin of radio-rock n roll as far as I’m concerned. Over budget rock sold on hype. No one cares anymore.
If Axl had started a blog 14 years ago and let us into his world, showed us the trials and tribulations of making the record, then we’d care.
I hate to burst your bubble. GNR is simply not as relevant as they used to be. Yeah, the new GNR album is finally out, but it really feels a lot like an Axl Rose solo record which just doesn’t have the same heat. If it would have been a “real” GNR album and would have come out several years ago before the grinding death of record retail, rock radio etc., then yeah. It would have been a MONSTER. But now? Eh.