My take on Chinese Democracy album sales

[oktayyaxl]

hey young gun and classic rowker ...in canada chinese democracy went triple platinium.ıt has sold 250K.IF Your record sell 80k in canada ıt will go platinium.So first learn than post something in this forum.İt has sold 5 million copies including bestbuy deal.Bestbuy bought 1.6 million copies.And nearly 700K Has sold ın us.ıt was the 14th best selling album ın the world at 2008.

Chinese Democracy was certified Platinum by the RIAA on February 3, 2009. Chinese Democracy secured an IFPI European Platinum Award, having sold more than one million copies in Europe, The album also reached triple platinum certification in Canada, as well as platinum certifications in many other countries, including Finland, Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Romania, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Argentina,Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.It was certified gold in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands, Sweden, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Brazil, and Colombia.

[Young_Gun]

Yeah I always thought 5 million was pretty far fetched.

Sold 2.6 million units worldwide as of February 2009

I'm guessing it's between 3-4M now.

Didn't Universal Chile claim the 6 M worldwide?

I would believe 3 million worldwide for sure, 4 is really pushing it. I'm not sure where the Universal Chile claim came from, but I don't think it was really documented...

[Apollo]

Thankfully we are not obsessed with album sales to dictate the quality level of an album.

There are albums that sold 100,000 copies that I love and albums that sold 10 million that I hate.

Talk about CD sales are pure speculation on our part. Sure, its fun to debate the numbers or compare them to VR or slash's solo album sales. That I understand. Buy those who use the sales total (a number they create in their own head) as another reason to just bash Axl....those are the people who have issues.

[moreblack]

Yeah I always thought 5 million was pretty far fetched.

Sold 2.6 million units worldwide as of February 2009

I'm guessing it's between 3-4M now.

Didn't Universal Chile claim the 6 M worldwide?

Considering the bulk of the sales were probably in the first year while the album still had some buz and was getting a little airplay I would say your is a pretty good guess. I would be willing to bet it is somewhere south of 3.5 mill...still nothing to sneeze at........

Yeah that'd be a pretty safe bet.

[sweetness]

Great first post, pretty damn good analysis there, it really is a shame more people didn't give it a fair shot. I'm 21 so I'm in the same category as you, totally missing out on the old guns and whatnot. I'll admit at first my attitude towards Chinese Democracy was not positive, but sans This I Love, Shacklers, Scraped, and Prostitute its really grown on me. I'm just glad Axl was able to finally get it out there, hopefully there's more on the way.

[LTD]

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.

....You are welcome, OP;p

All your points make a whole lot of sense. Still, I'm tepmted to say 500k in U.S.A is extremely bad for something as mythic as CD. Countless fans, anti-fans, talk show hosts, columnists and the like had been cracking jokes about it's release for half a decade. Despite lacking promo, it was extremely talked about album. For one fuckload of years. During those same years name Guns n' Roses survived the test of time and more or less secured a postion in that small, exclusive " immortal rock giants" club. This combination alone is one hell of a departure point when it comes to selling first studio album with name GNR on it for ages.

On the flipside, it saw it's release in the middle of digital revolution.. I can't even begin to imagine how alienating it must have felt, that you have to go in specific store of specific store chain in order to be able to buy a goddamned rock album. That is everything modern districution of music is not about. Mayhaps for CD II Axl should fix an exclusive deal with Mount Everest.Or at least Tibet.

Edited August 11, 2011 by LTD

[Takeshi]

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.

If you take a look at all of the 80's and 70's rock bands that are still touring successfully, you'll see that the people who were teenagers when these bands were big are still listening to them. These people now have jobs and plenty of disposable income to spend. I went to see Def Leppard and Heart recently and a significant section of the crowd were in their late 30's and 40's. They're more interested in the oldies than any new material, but they are still interested in the same bands they followed back in the day.

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.

Most people don't really know that much about the changing line ups of GN'R. It's a bigger issue to fans like us than it is out in the real world. I've lost count of the number of times people have asked if Slash is still in the band. It isn't going to make or break an 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.

I'm not sure where you live, but don't you have rock radio stations? The stations that play britney were never going to play a GN'R album, regardless of how good it was. Radio stations have gotten alot more niche driven since the 80's. GN'R did get played on stations that played pop music but those days are gone for all rock bans. If it had been well received, then those rock stations would have been playing it, just like they play new and classic rock music.

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.

[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.