JakeTheFlake

First off, I am 23 years old and have been a diehard Axl Rose/GNR fan since I was 13 years old. Unfortunatley I was only just being born back in GNR's heyday but in ways I think it makes me more of a unique fan. I have seen the new band twice and have been waiting for Chinese Democracy for the past 10 years. When it came out it was everything I had hoped or and then some. I thought the album was phenomenal. From what I understand, to date, Chinese Democracy has went gold in America with a total of 600,000 albums sold and 3 million worldwide. I see a lot of people find this dissipointing(especially U.S. amount) but that is pretty much all I would of expected it to sell. And I will give some reasons why. First off, the majority of GNR's main followers and fanbase from back in the day are now in their mid-40's with careers and families. Some of them probably grandparents.(Yeah, thats how long its been). Most of them probably aren't fans anymore or don't care any more.(I said most, not all.) Secondly, the fact that Axl is the only original member left and it took him over 15 years to release Chinese Democracy left a bad taste in peoples mouth and tarnished the GNR name and the album pretty badly. To the point people wern't gonna give it a chance from the get go. When I got the album I gave it to my 40 year old friend(a gnr fan from back in the day) to listen to in the car. He listned to 10 seconeds of the first 3 tracks and then took it out saying it sucks. But the truth is he never even gave it a chance cuz he didn't want to. He didn't want to like it. And unfortunatley thats what a lot of people probably did. And it's a shame cuz they missed a great album. Thirdly, the majority of kids and youth today(with an exception of myself) don't get into this type of rock music anymore. Kids today don't know what good music is. And because of that the radio never caught onto it. I'm pretty sure Britney Spears was number 1 on the charts when Chinese Democracy was released and that says a lot. The fourth reason people don't buy albums much anymore anyway. They just get the music off the internet. You combine all these reasons and I think it's pretty cool the album sold over 500,000 copies in the U.S alone. People were gonna dog on it no matter what. Most of the critics seemed to like it. Some of my friends liked it, some didn't. People compared it too much to the old band which turned the album off for them. Us die-hard GNR fans know it was a great album and should just enjoy it and appreciate it for what it is. In my opinion it was the most underrated underappreciated album of all time.

Music is a personal thing. I think it's pretty egotistical to say that someone doesn't know real music...

If someone doesn't like something, that is their business...

Yeah, I agree with you that good music is an individual's own personal opnion and who am I to say whats good or bad. But going by my own opinion it seems that the majority of todays rock music either falls into the emo category or some kind of screamo metal band which I can't stand. Either that or it's some bland Nickelback type rock band which in my opinion is pretty good by todays standards. It just seems that good old hard rock music isnt liked or appreciated anymore by todays youth. Obviously whats good or bad music is someones opinion but I wrote the thread based on my opinion.

First off, I am 23 years old and have been a diehard Axl Rose/GNR fan since I was 13 years old. Unfortunatley I was only just being born back in GNR's heyday but in ways I think it makes me more of a unique fan. I have seen the new band twice and have been waiting for Chinese Democracy for the past 10 years. When it came out it was everything I had hoped or and then some. I thought the album was phenomenal. From what I understand, to date, Chinese Democracy has went gold in America with a total of 600,000 albums sold and 3 million worldwide. I see a lot of people find this dissipointing(especially U.S. amount) but that is pretty much all I would of expected it to sell. And I will give some reasons why. First off, the majority of GNR's main followers and fanbase from back in the day are now in their mid-40's with careers and families. Some of them probably grandparents.(Yeah, thats how long its been). Most of them probably aren't fans anymore or don't care any more.(I said most, not all.) Secondly, the fact that Axl is the only original member left and it took him over 15 years to release Chinese Democracy left a bad taste in peoples mouth and tarnished the GNR name and the album pretty badly. To the point people wern't gonna give it a chance from the get go. When I got the album I gave it to my 40 year old friend(a gnr fan from back in the day) to listen to in the car. He listned to 10 seconeds of the first 3 tracks and then took it out saying it sucks. But the truth is he never even gave it a chance cuz he didn't want to. He didn't want to like it. And unfortunatley thats what a lot of people probably did. And it's a shame cuz they missed a great album. Thirdly, the majority of kids and youth today(with an exception of myself) don't get into this type of rock music anymore. Kids today don't know what good music is. And because of that the radio never caught onto it. I'm pretty sure Britney Spears was number 1 on the charts when Chinese Democracy was released and that says a lot. The fourth reason people don't buy albums much anymore anyway. They just get the music off the internet. You combine all these reasons and I think it's pretty cool the album sold over 500,000 copies in the U.S alone. People were gonna dog on it no matter what. Most of the critics seemed to like it. Some of my friends liked it, some didn't. People compared it too much to the old band which turned the album off for them. Us die-hard GNR fans know it was a great album and should just enjoy it and appreciate it for what it is. In my opinion it was the most underrated underappreciated album of all time.