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One reason CD wasn't the success it should have been


Apollo

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Fans share their views on albums. At least where I come from. If I keep hearing an album sucks, chances are I won't buy it. I bought CD, because I am a fan, but when my friends asked me what I thought about it, I said, It's not that good. I'm sure others bought it and they said It sucks . I am sure comments like that will damage an album's reputation.

your friends keep saying chinese democracy sucks. but you bought chinese democracy

the gnr camp didn't bad mouth the album. but the gnr camp didn't promote the album either

when you don't promote.....many say your album sucks. like your friends say chinese democracy sucks

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In the late 80's, 9 out of 10 people I knew thought AFD sucked. But back then, 10 out of 10 people bought cassettes and cds all day, every day, so that 10% that didn't think it sucked created a ridiculously huge market of music-buyers.

When Illusions was released, people bitched that only half the songs were good. They sold like mad though because the marketing was insane, and because all the pretty ballads were turned into epic videos to get the girls of the world interested. If the girls like it, the guys buy it. But by the time the Estranged video was released, most of the original fans were saying GNR sucks, because liking them after the NR video made you look like a puss. By the time Spaghetti was released, the AFD fan base had been cut in half. There wasn't much demand for GNR to release something new, despite what some of your memories may tell you.

CD "failed" commercially because this generation has the attention span of a gnat, but are also smart enough to download music from MySpace. Why the hell any band would put their entire "most anticipated ever" album online for free is beyond baffling to me. A few songs, sure. 30-second clips of songs? Great! If MySpace didn't give Axl a pile of money to do that, I'd have to say that was the dumbest thing he's ever allowed to happen.

Also, since it has been cool to bash Axl for the last 25 years, the negative comments about his character were often looked at (by short attention-spanners) as serious criticism of the music. People still butt-hurt about the Slash-Axl breakup of the mid-90's helped to destroy whatever momentum the album had left after the MySpace fiasco, hoping their two gods would somehow reunite if they could just thwart the success of the record. Nice work, dickheads! We could've had two more releases by now!

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I don't think lack of promotion had anything to do with it. And I will tell you why. If you're a rock fan, you will buy the album and if you follow a band, you know they are making are record. If you follow a band, you know what they're doing. I don't need no promotion.

I've never been like OMG, Metallica made an album, but I didn't get it cause it got no promotion. If you are a fan, you know what they're doing.

The only thing that will keep me from buying an album is bad word of mouth. Word got around that CD was not THAT good. So people didn't buy it.

if axl promotes the fuck out of chinese democracy in advance using bestbuy's advance promotional plan....chinese democracy debut is #1. not #3

but what is this bad word of mouth? who bad mouthed the record? who from the gnr camp?

what type of promotion would have made the difference?

Most anticipiated album of all time

GnR was touriing off and on since 2002, including playing an MTV music awards show

EVERY music magazine reviewed the album

Every newspaper that has a music section reviewed the album

Built in GnR fanbase of 15 million people?

Album was streamed on Myspace and received the most listens in myspace history

Dr Pepper promotion

Tv Commercials

Harley Davidson flub-up made national news

According to a couple forum "experts" the album featured two smash hits

Which part of potential GnR album purchasers didn't know the album dropped?

The only lack of promotion came from Axl not doing interviews or the band doing late-night talk shows or awards shows. Other than that, this album received a TON of promotion.

The Best Buy decision was terrible in terms of album sales, even though it netted them a ton of cash.

Every city has a Walmart. There isn't a Best Buy within 500 miles of where I live. So GnR lost the impulse purchase sale - the candy bar effect. Like when grocery stores put candy bars in the checkout lane, hoping you will by one even though you didn't go there shopping for candy

I don't even like AcDc that much anymore. But I bought a CD and their book a couple years ago. Why ? Because I was at Walmart, buying items for a business trip. As I went up to the checkout isle there was a huge ACDC display. I thought "what the heck, the book might be interesting to read on the plane" and I bought it on impulse.

You rarely get that at Best Buy. People usually go there for specific items, and there isn't a Best Buy in every city.

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Well for starters Axl was away for way to long, the 2001 version of the band was beyond embarrassing, the wait for the album was beyond ridiculous, anytime the band did get some major exposure the performances were dreadful, the album doesn't sit well next to the bands previous albums(It sounds nothing like Guns N Roses), the album broke records on MySpace yet when It came time to purchase the album people chose to not do so, which speaks volumes on what the majority thought when It came to the quality of the songs.

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I don't think lack of promotion had anything to do with it. And I will tell you why. If you're a rock fan, you will buy the album and if you follow a band, you know they are making are record. If you follow a band, you know what they're doing. I don't need no promotion.

I've never been like OMG, Metallica made an album, but I didn't get it cause it got no promotion. If you are a fan, you know what they're doing.

The only thing that will keep me from buying an album is bad word of mouth. Word got around that CD was not THAT good. So people didn't buy it.

if axl promotes the fuck out of chinese democracy in advance using bestbuy's advance promotional plan....chinese democracy debut is #1. not #3

but what is this bad word of mouth? who bad mouthed the record? who from the gnr camp?

what type of promotion would have made the difference?

Most anticipiated album of all time

GnR was touriing off and on since 2002, including playing an MTV music awards show

EVERY music magazine reviewed the album

Every newspaper that has a music section reviewed the album

Built in GnR fanbase of 15 million people?

Album was streamed on Myspace and received the most listens in myspace history

Dr Pepper promotion

Tv Commercials

Harley Davidson flub-up made national news

According to a couple forum "experts" the album featured two smash hits

Which part of potential GnR album purchasers didn't know the album dropped?

The only lack of promotion came from Axl not doing interviews or the band doing late-night talk shows or awards shows. Other than that, this album received a TON of promotion.

The Best Buy decision was terrible in terms of album sales, even though it netted them a ton of cash.

Every city has a Walmart. There isn't a Best Buy within 500 miles of where I live. So GnR lost the impulse purchase sale - the candy bar effect. Like when grocery stores put candy bars in the checkout lane, hoping you will by one even though you didn't go there shopping for candy

I don't even like AcDc that much anymore. But I bought a CD and their book a couple years ago. Why ? Because I was at Walmart, buying items for a business trip. As I went up to the checkout isle there was a huge ACDC display. I thought "what the heck, the book might be interesting to read on the plane" and I bought it on impulse.

You rarely get that at Best Buy. People usually go there for specific items, and there isn't a Best Buy in every city.

axl promotion makes the difference

built in fanbase of 15 million didn't help the album debut #1 on the billboard top 200 album chart

2 date, the album sells less than 500 thousand u.s. copies. but they have a 15 million people fan base. cool huh?

the myspace idea was team brazil. i say what axl says about team brazil "thanks again, team brazil" the myspace idea killed bestbuy sales

dr. pepper didn't help sales either

what tv commercials? tv commericlas on when people are sleeping?

harley davidson was a disaster. killed better from having success

what smash hits were these by so called experts?

the general music public didn't have a clue

if axl did advance promotion.....it would have had monster u.s. sales

don't make excuses for bestbuy. bestbuy promoted cd better axl. axl rejected bestbuy plans for cd.

axl shows more passion at a 3 hour live show than promotion of a guns n roses record

don't use ac/dc or walmart as excuses either. don't make excuses. don't kick the can down the road

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Going to go on a bit of a diatribe here :lol:

OK, where to begin, I guess I'll start with assertion that CD didn't sell because it "wasn't good." Quality of music has little if anything to do with record sales, less in this day and age than ever before. Look at the current Billboard Top 10 for proof. How many "good albums" do you see there? Now, further along that path, you have a new Smashing Pumpkins album released a few weeks ago. It has received excellent reviews from both critics and fans alike, many of whom are saying its their best album since 1995. This is a band that has sold over 30 million records worldwide and has never had an album sell less than 500,000 copies in the US. Aside from their independent debut, they've never had an album sell fewer than 145,000 copies in the first week. Their latest album debuted at #4 on the charts with 54,000 sold; it had a 66% decline in week 2. I would argue that the quality of the album is not the reason that it is selling far less than their previous efforts. I would argue that this says more about the state of the record industry and how perception equals reality. The Pumpkins are simply no longer an "it" band, and so even when they release good albums that the critics and fans like and that have catchy radio singles, the label is not going to push them and cares to focus its energy elsewhere.

Two, the notion that singles and promotion don't matter in terms of sales. Uh, what? Singles or more important now than they've ever been. The music industry has become completely driven by singles; the labels make their money off of ringtone downloads and iTunes single sales now, not off of album sales. Singles are the key to reaching the casual listener and making them buy the album. Not everyone who buys music is a hardcore fan of the band or album who is simply going to pick up a copy the day it comes out.

Music has largely become a commodity. People do not value it the way they did 10, 20 or 30 years ago. That is an inarguable fact. And the thing with commodities is, the only thing that differentiates them is "branding" or marketing. In such a market advertising/promotion is key. The product needs to be visible, and readily available, otherwise people will simply move on to the next thing without batting an eye.

Specific to CD, the Best Buy deal, while brilliant from a financial standpoint, hurt record sales in the US. Anyone who denies that simply doesn't understand business. Best Buy was unproven in terms of handling a major exclusive release, and Azoff was able to get them to pay a tremendous amount of money for the rights. And make no mistake, Best Buy did not think they were going to make money off of the sales of Chinese Democracy, but they did think it was going to be a great loss leader, whereby the hardcore GnR fans would come to Best Buy and purchase Christmas presents there instead of at Wal-Mart, Target, etc. However, a lot of people for some reason thought that the Best Buy exclusive deal was "apples to apples" with Wal-Mart's exclusives. Not only are the only 850-900 Best Buys compared to 4,200-4,300 Wal-Marts, but Wal-Mart gets 100,000,000 customers a week in the US. Combine that with the fact that Wal-Mart's AC/DC kiosks were 100 times more impressive than what Best Buy did with CD, and you'll see another reason that the sales did not live up to expectations.

But again, here are the main points for why CD didn't sell as much as it could (should) have:

-Poor single selection. CD would've been a decent choice if they trimmed the intro and began with the riff. However releasing it with that minute long ambient intro was a massive mistake. On top of that, CD is too plain. I saw numerous comments about "13 years and this is the best single they could come up with?" They took an "old school" approach by saving the best single on the album for later. This day and age, when music is treated like McDonald's, you need to drop your best single first. Better absolutely should've been the first single; it is unique and "complex" enough that people wouldn't be able to dismiss it as generic like they did with CD. Further, it's just a far better and catchier song than CD. The only other songs on the album that really had a shot at being modern rock radio hits were Shackler's ("classic" pre chorus and chorus, very catchy) and Scraped (simple, straightforward song with a catchy chorus and lyrics that are easy to hear/understand). I also think Sorry would've been a good choice for the second or third single, though it's a bit long for radio, it has a good chorus and is one of the best songs on the album

-Poor marketing (non-existent from both label and band). People on the forums claim that its release was this massively hyped, anticipated thing but the general public stopped caring about the CD myth many years before its release, and many people I know who are casual fans of the old GnR or just rock fans who aren't really into GnR would've had no clue that CD was released if not for me, much less heard any of the songs.

-Album simply lacks commercial appeal. Very few of the songs really grabs you immediately and draws you in, which I think is more necessary than ever, especially in for rock songs. To me, I love this. The album's songs are so dynamic, and as Groghan said most of them are like a journey. As Stephen Thomas Erlewine put it in his review, "These aren't innovations; they're extensions of "Breakdown" and "Estranged," epics that require some work to decode because Axl forces the listener to meet him on his own terms." This album is very old school in the sense that it was made with the intention of people sitting down and listening to it all the way through, the way people used to. People don't listen to albums anymore; they listen to singles. People can downplay this all they want but the only way to fully appreciate CD is to listen to it as an album; if people sifted through it and only listened to a handful of songs or the first couple minutes of a few tracks, the album wouldn't sound nearly as good as it is. And the fact is that most people listen to albums that way now.

-The album did not appease a large portion the core fanbase. Unfortunately, a lot of GnR fans (or specifically, fans of the old lineup) dismissed it out of hand because of the lineup changes, or if they were willing to forgive that, dismissed it because the blues rock was gone. On the flip side, a lot of people who are "modern" rock fans view GnR as a dated buttrock band and never gave it a chance. There are people I know who quite enjoyed it to their surprise, people whose favorite bands are Tool and Radiohead and don't particularly care for old GnR. They may not have been "blown away" but they ended up liking the album, much to their surprise. But I think a big problem is that the album didn't appeal to a large portion of the core fanbase, and was dismissed because it was "Guns N' Roses" and "Axl Rose" by people who may have enjoyed it had they given it a fair shot

Finally, let me reiterate, looking back the album did as well as could be reasonably expected. Between the lineup changes, the overwhelming expectations (due to the lineup changes, the time and money spent), the polarizing nature of Axl, and the general lack of mainstream commercial appeal in the music, the album still sold better than almost anything else released in 2008. The fact that it was #14 in worldwide sales for the entire year and only out 5 months is actually pretty damn impressive. I think if it were widely released in the US it probably would've sold a lot more copies, but it would've made less money so from a financial/business perspective the Best Buy deal was the only real option

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So shotgun, the quality of the album wasn't to blame, yet It broke records on MySpace with 25 listeners per second, yet the majority of those that heard It had no Interest In purchasing It after hearing It, how could anyone come up with any other conclusion as to why the album didn't sell as well as the bands previous releases other than It just wasn't up to par and people just didn't care for It.

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In the late 80's, 9 out of 10 people I knew thought AFD sucked. But back then, 10 out of 10 people bought cassettes and cds all day, every day, so that 10% that didn't think it sucked created a ridiculously huge market of music-buyers.

When Illusions was released, people bitched that only half the songs were good. They sold like mad though because the marketing was insane, and because all the pretty ballads were turned into epic videos to get the girls of the world interested. If the girls like it, the guys buy it. But by the time the Estranged video was released, most of the original fans were saying GNR sucks, because liking them after the NR video made you look like a puss. By the time Spaghetti was released, the AFD fan base had been cut in half. There wasn't much demand for GNR to release something new, despite what some of your memories may tell you.

CD "failed" commercially because this generation has the attention span of a gnat, but are also smart enough to download music from MySpace. Why the hell any band would put their entire "most anticipated ever" album online for free is beyond baffling to me. A few songs, sure. 30-second clips of songs? Great! If MySpace didn't give Axl a pile of money to do that, I'd have to say that was the dumbest thing he's ever allowed to happen.

Also, since it has been cool to bash Axl for the last 25 years, the negative comments about his character were often looked at (by short attention-spanners) as serious criticism of the music. People still butt-hurt about the Slash-Axl breakup of the mid-90's helped to destroy whatever momentum the album had left after the MySpace fiasco, hoping their two gods would somehow reunite if they could just thwart the success of the record. Nice work, dickheads! We could've had two more releases by now!

great post :thumbsup:

just to add a few things, the myspace thing i agree totally with most bands might put a 20 or so second clip of each song but not the whole fucking album lol. 8million hits all someone had to do was get a program to catch streams and they have the album totally free, not to mention downloading the album from a torrent or even youtube.

the other thing is the best buy deal there isnt a best buy in every town like their is a walmart, i had to drive 70 miles or so to get the album when i could have gotten it at a walmart in 10 minutes. the marketing of the album was non existent i only saw adds for it on g4tv that was the only channel i ever saw it on and some people dont have that channel, some people i knew didnt know the album was even released months after it came out, like i said the nearest best buy was 70 miles away if it was at walmart had a big display more people would have saw it and picked it up

last like you said is the modern music fan and the music scene itself. rock is not big anymore unless gnr becomes a watered down nickleback type band they are not going to sell 500k copies in a week. i have said this before in 1991 gnr had to sell 770k copies of use your illusion II to make #1 now 300k can make #1 and 3k will land you in the billboard top 150. todays teens dont care about albums they want watered down singles.

Edited by bran
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So shotgun, the quality of the album wasn't to blame, yet It broke records on MySpace with 25 listeners per second, yet the majority of those that heard It had no Interest In purchasing It after hearing It, how could anyone come up with any other conclusion as to why the album didn't sell as well as the bands previous releases other than It just wasn't up to par and people just didn't care for It.

lots of other points but this one is pretty damning, in my opinion. I love the album but its not for everyone. That aside it did great overseas. Just not as expected in the states

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So shotgun, the quality of the album wasn't to blame, yet It broke records on MySpace with 25 listeners per second, yet the majority of those that heard It had no Interest In purchasing It after hearing It, how could anyone come up with any other conclusion as to why the album didn't sell as well as the bands previous releases other than It just wasn't up to par and people just didn't care for It.

why would most purchase it? you find a program to grab streams and you have a free album. if no one cared about it, there wouldnt be 8million + hits and 25 people listening to it every second

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First of all, you'd have to compare it to other albums that were streamed in entirety on MySpace prior to release up to that point in order to give context to the relevance of the record that was broken. My guess is that CD is one of (if not the) top selling records worldwide that was streamed prior to release on MySpace up to that point

Second, the MySpace record is a worldwide record, and CD sold quite well internationally by any objective measure

Third, you're assuming that the type of people who listen to music on MySpace are some sort of authority on what "good music" is

Fourth, you're ignoring the fact that an album that receives a lot of attention on the Internet is likely to be downloaded illegally

Finally, I highly doubt that the "core" American audience that still buys rock music produced by bands that started in the 1980s, (people 30+ years old, many of them in middle and southern America) was listening to CD on MySpace prior to its release. The fact is that an absolutely massive portion of the US market that still purchases rock music (almost exclusively in physical format, no less) was prevented from purchasing the album. Best Buys are few and far between in the midwest and the south in the US.

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So shotgun, the quality of the album wasn't to blame, yet It broke records on MySpace with 25 listeners per second, yet the majority of those that heard It had no Interest In purchasing It after hearing It, how could anyone come up with any other conclusion as to why the album didn't sell as well as the bands previous releases other than It just wasn't up to par and people just didn't care for It.

This x 10000000000.

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The reason it didn't sell "up to par" with the other releases is, among other things, it was released in a totally different era when most people don't buy music anymore, they steal it

Second, AFD sold 18 million in the US. UYI I and UYI II sold about 7 million each. That's 39%. Are you guys railing on about how those sales figures prove UYI sucked?

Music sales went from 14.6 billion in 1999 to 6.3 billion in 2009. That's an absolutely massive decline. Converting CD into "1999" sales figures based upon percentage decrease you end up with an album that sold 7-8 million copies worldwide. You take that into account and then take into account all the controversy, negativity, and general bad press surrounding Axl/GnR, and it's not bad.

To me the people who try to compare CD to albums that were released 17-21 years earlier, in a totally different industry, when the band was at the peak of its popularity, are completely out of touch with reality. Comparing it to AFD and UYI is unrealistic and ridiculous for so many reasons.

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First of all, you'd have to compare it to other albums that were streamed in entirety on MySpace prior to release up to that point in order to give context to the relevance of the record that was broken. My guess is that CD is one of (if not the) top selling records worldwide that was streamed prior to release on MySpace up to that point

Second, the MySpace record is a worldwide record, and CD sold quite well internationally by any objective measure

Third, you're assuming that the type of people who listen to music on MySpace are some sort of authority on what "good music" is

Fourth, you're ignoring the fact that an album that receives a lot of attention on the Internet is likely to be downloaded illegally

Finally, I highly doubt that the "core" American audience that still buys rock music produced by bands that started in the 1980s, (people 30+ years old, many of them in middle and southern America) was listening to CD on MySpace prior to its release. The fact is that an absolutely massive portion of the US market that still purchases rock music (almost exclusively in physical format, no less) was prevented from purchasing the album. Best Buys are few and far between in the midwest and the south in the US.

also a good chunk of the album leaked years before the album came out here is some first week sales by high profiled rock artists

ozzy- scream: 65,000( previous album 152,000)

smashing pumpkins: oceania -54,000

iron maiden: the final frontier 63,000

slash: apocalyptic love 38,000

the cult: choice of weapon 3300

Edited by bran
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First of all, you'd have to compare it to other albums that were streamed in entirety on MySpace prior to release up to that point in order to give context to the relevance of the record that was broken. My guess is that CD is one of (if not the) top selling records worldwide that was streamed prior to release on MySpace up to that point

Second, the MySpace record is a worldwide record, and CD sold quite well internationally by any objective measure

Third, you're assuming that the type of people who listen to music on MySpace are some sort of authority on what "good music" is

Fourth, you're ignoring the fact that an album that receives a lot of attention on the Internet is likely to be downloaded illegally

Finally, I highly doubt that the "core" American audience that still buys rock music produced by bands that started in the 1980s, (people 30+ years old, many of them in middle and southern America) was listening to CD on MySpace prior to its release. The fact is that an absolutely massive portion of the US market that still purchases rock music (almost exclusively in physical format, no less) was prevented from purchasing the album. Best Buys are few and far between in the midwest and the south in the US.

I'm not assuming anything. It's pretty cut and dry, you listen to a song or album, you like It, you buy It, people listened, they didn't like It and they didn't buy It, real simple. As far as the album being downloaded Illegally, that's the way It goes, every major act has that dilemma. The exclusive Bestbuy deal Is not an excuse, the album could have, and still can be, purchased via the Internet and as far as promotion goes, let's see, the album has been out for four years with somewhere around three million sold, don't you think that If the album was that great, at least some of those 3 million buyers would spread the word and album sales would start to pick up.

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Power to the people that think Chinese Democracy is a master piece. But long time fans like myself were GNR fans because we dug the straight up hard rock. We didn't want the key boards the sound effects, and the songs going to all different directions.

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First of all, you'd have to compare it to other albums that were streamed in entirety on MySpace prior to release up to that point in order to give context to the relevance of the record that was broken. My guess is that CD is one of (if not the) top selling records worldwide that was streamed prior to release on MySpace up to that point

Second, the MySpace record is a worldwide record, and CD sold quite well internationally by any objective measure

Third, you're assuming that the type of people who listen to music on MySpace are some sort of authority on what "good music" is

Fourth, you're ignoring the fact that an album that receives a lot of attention on the Internet is likely to be downloaded illegally

Finally, I highly doubt that the "core" American audience that still buys rock music produced by bands that started in the 1980s, (people 30+ years old, many of them in middle and southern America) was listening to CD on MySpace prior to its release. The fact is that an absolutely massive portion of the US market that still purchases rock music (almost exclusively in physical format, no less) was prevented from purchasing the album. Best Buys are few and far between in the midwest and the south in the US.

I'm not assuming anything. It's pretty cut and dry, you listen to a song or album, you like It, you buy It, people listened, they didn't like It and they didn't buy It, real simple. As far as the album being downloaded Illegally, that's the way It goes, every major act has that dilemma. The exclusive Bestbuy deal Is not an excuse, the album could have, and still can be, purchased via the Internet and as far as promotion goes, let's see, the album has been out for four years with somewhere around three million sold, don't you think that If the album was that great, at least some of those 3 million buyers would spread the word and album sales would start to pick up.

its really not that cut and dry people hear the album and like it they burn it, its the way alot of people do it

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I gotta admit, when I first put CD in the player, I fuckin thought it was soft and bloated. Also, I really, really wanted to like it. And I do like a couple songs.

What kills it for me is axls voice. He sounds like he is trying way to hard. It used to come easy, but now, the pressure, and slash obsession, and dived fans leave alot of fans in the dust. His lyrics ( some) , sound like the person writing them has a big sloppy VAG.

And , my god DJ is god awful .

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First of all, you'd have to compare it to other albums that were streamed in entirety on MySpace prior to release up to that point in order to give context to the relevance of the record that was broken. My guess is that CD is one of (if not the) top selling records worldwide that was streamed prior to release on MySpace up to that point

Second, the MySpace record is a worldwide record, and CD sold quite well internationally by any objective measure

Third, you're assuming that the type of people who listen to music on MySpace are some sort of authority on what "good music" is

Fourth, you're ignoring the fact that an album that receives a lot of attention on the Internet is likely to be downloaded illegally

Finally, I highly doubt that the "core" American audience that still buys rock music produced by bands that started in the 1980s, (people 30+ years old, many of them in middle and southern America) was listening to CD on MySpace prior to its release. The fact is that an absolutely massive portion of the US market that still purchases rock music (almost exclusively in physical format, no less) was prevented from purchasing the album. Best Buys are few and far between in the midwest and the south in the US.

I'm not assuming anything. It's pretty cut and dry, you listen to a song or album, you like It, you buy It, people listened, they didn't like It and they didn't buy It, real simple. As far as the album being downloaded Illegally, that's the way It goes, every major act has that dilemma. The exclusive Bestbuy deal Is not an excuse, the album could have, and still can be, purchased via the Internet and as far as promotion goes, let's see, the album has been out for four years with somewhere around three million sold, don't you think that If the album was that great, at least some of those 3 million buyers would spread the word and album sales would start to pick up.

its really not that cut and dry people hear the album and like it they burn it, its the way alot of people do it

That Is true, but as I stated every band or artist has that dilemma, not just Guns N Roses.

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First of all, you'd have to compare it to other albums that were streamed in entirety on MySpace prior to release up to that point in order to give context to the relevance of the record that was broken. My guess is that CD is one of (if not the) top selling records worldwide that was streamed prior to release on MySpace up to that point

Second, the MySpace record is a worldwide record, and CD sold quite well internationally by any objective measure

Third, you're assuming that the type of people who listen to music on MySpace are some sort of authority on what "good music" is

Fourth, you're ignoring the fact that an album that receives a lot of attention on the Internet is likely to be downloaded illegally

Finally, I highly doubt that the "core" American audience that still buys rock music produced by bands that started in the 1980s, (people 30+ years old, many of them in middle and southern America) was listening to CD on MySpace prior to its release. The fact is that an absolutely massive portion of the US market that still purchases rock music (almost exclusively in physical format, no less) was prevented from purchasing the album. Best Buys are few and far between in the midwest and the south in the US.

I'm not assuming anything. It's pretty cut and dry, you listen to a song or album, you like It, you buy It, people listened, they didn't like It and they didn't buy It, real simple. As far as the album being downloaded Illegally, that's the way It goes, every major act has that dilemma. The exclusive Bestbuy deal Is not an excuse, the album could have, and still can be, purchased via the Internet and as far as promotion goes, let's see, the album has been out for four years with somewhere around three million sold, don't you think that If the album was that great, at least some of those 3 million buyers would spread the word and album sales would start to pick up.

its really not that cut and dry people hear the album and like it they burn it, its the way alot of people do it

That Is true, but as I stated every band or artist has that dilemma, not just Guns N Roses.

hence why every big name is suffering a lack of album sales, lady gaga last album had to padden her sales by having the album on sale for 99 cents just to watch it in the second week tank 85%

i just listed popular rock figures and their album sales they are all vastly down, shotgun posted how much the music industry has fallen justin bieber was at number #1 with a little over 340,000 album sales that guy is everywhere marketed and promoted yet it only outsold gnr by less than 100k?

Edited by bran
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So shotgun, the quality of the album wasn't to blame, yet It broke records on MySpace with 25 listeners per second, yet the majority of those that heard It had no Interest In purchasing It after hearing It, how could anyone come up with any other conclusion as to why the album didn't sell as well as the bands previous releases other than It just wasn't up to par and people just didn't care for It.

This x 10000000000.

In 2008 when the album was released, the fan base included the same 1000 people WORLDWIDE that regularly frequented this forum and others. That was it. There weren't legions of millions dying for a new release from GNR like there were in 1991. Nobody cared.

The points from ironmt are noted, thanks to your unneeded emphasis, but that doesn't change the fact that almost 100% of the world are not dedicated fans to ANY band. To sell music, a band has to use proven sales techniques. Giving away the entire thing for free on myspace will result only in 1) impulse purchases, and 2) dedicated fan purchases. Why would the majority of the music-purchasing demographic (15-25 year-olds) buy something when they are also the exact same demographic that knows exactly how to rip music from youtube or myspace? They're more likely to give $12.99 to a stranger on the street.

CD would have sold 3-5x better had it been released just a few years earlier. And, as bran emphasized, limiting it to Best Buy in the US was a huge mistake, limiting exposure to at least 60% of the population, and even a much greater percentage if you consider that hard rock music is not as popular in urban areas as it is in rural areas, where Best Buy is uncommon.

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First of all, you'd have to compare it to other albums that were streamed in entirety on MySpace prior to release up to that point in order to give context to the relevance of the record that was broken. My guess is that CD is one of (if not the) top selling records worldwide that was streamed prior to release on MySpace up to that point

Second, the MySpace record is a worldwide record, and CD sold quite well internationally by any objective measure

Third, you're assuming that the type of people who listen to music on MySpace are some sort of authority on what "good music" is

Fourth, you're ignoring the fact that an album that receives a lot of attention on the Internet is likely to be downloaded illegally

Finally, I highly doubt that the "core" American audience that still buys rock music produced by bands that started in the 1980s, (people 30+ years old, many of them in middle and southern America) was listening to CD on MySpace prior to its release. The fact is that an absolutely massive portion of the US market that still purchases rock music (almost exclusively in physical format, no less) was prevented from purchasing the album. Best Buys are few and far between in the midwest and the south in the US.

I'm not assuming anything. It's pretty cut and dry, you listen to a song or album, you like It, you buy It, people listened, they didn't like It and they didn't buy It, real simple. As far as the album being downloaded Illegally, that's the way It goes, every major act has that dilemma. The exclusive Bestbuy deal Is not an excuse, the album could have, and still can be, purchased via the Internet and as far as promotion goes, let's see, the album has been out for four years with somewhere around three million sold, don't you think that If the album was that great, at least some of those 3 million buyers would spread the word and album sales would start to pick up.

Actually, you're assuming a lot.

1. The majority of album sales are (or until very recently were) still physical. Most of American fans of rock bands founded pre-1990 are not buying their albums online, either digitally or via mail order (fact)

2. Your argument about MySpace records is worthless without further data. You say that Chinese Democracy "broke the MySpace views record" and then turn around and say that proves people didn't like the album because it sold poorly. But you've provided nothing to back up your argument. For example, if Chinese Democracy had more MySpace listens than any other album ever, but was also the #1 selling album of all time that was streamed live on MySpace prior to its release, then your argument doesn't hold up. I would be willing to bet that up to 2008, out of the albums streamed in entirety on MySpace prior to being released for sale, Chinese Democracy sold more than all but one or two of them (if not more than all of them period)

3. The album is still not available in the US at other major retailers (Wal-Mart, Target, etc). Its retail availability is still limited, increasing illegal downloads

4. In the context of its year of release and its competition, it sold quite well. Any time you can be a top 15 selling album in a year where your album was out for less than 10% of the days, that's pretty good. In the context of AFD and UYI, it failed. In the context of what it cost to make and how long it took, it underperformed, but it still made money. Unfortunately what you refuse to recognize is that no band, not GnR or anyone else, will ever even come close to those types of sales figures again.

Edited by shotgunblues1978
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I don't think lack of promotion had anything to do with it. And I will tell you why. If you're a rock fan, you will buy the album and if you follow a band, you know they are making are record. If you follow a band, you know what they're doing. I don't need no promotion.

I've never been like OMG, Metallica made an album, but I didn't get it cause it got no promotion. If you are a fan, you know what they're doing.

The only thing that will keep me from buying an album is bad word of mouth. Word got around that CD was not THAT good. So people didn't buy it.

if axl promotes the fuck out of chinese democracy in advance using bestbuy's advance promotional plan....chinese democracy debut is #1. not #3

but what is this bad word of mouth? who bad mouthed the record? who from the gnr camp?

what type of promotion would have made the difference?

Most anticipiated album of all time

GnR was touriing off and on since 2002, including playing an MTV music awards show

EVERY music magazine reviewed the album

Every newspaper that has a music section reviewed the album

Built in GnR fanbase of 15 million people?

Album was streamed on Myspace and received the most listens in myspace history

Dr Pepper promotion

Tv Commercials

Harley Davidson flub-up made national news

According to a couple forum "experts" the album featured two smash hits

Which part of potential GnR album purchasers didn't know the album dropped?

The only lack of promotion came from Axl not doing interviews or the band doing late-night talk shows or awards shows. Other than that, this album received a TON of promotion.

The Best Buy decision was terrible in terms of album sales, even though it netted them a ton of cash.

Every city has a Walmart. There isn't a Best Buy within 500 miles of where I live. So GnR lost the impulse purchase sale - the candy bar effect. Like when grocery stores put candy bars in the checkout lane, hoping you will by one even though you didn't go there shopping for candy

I don't even like AcDc that much anymore. But I bought a CD and their book a couple years ago. Why ? Because I was at Walmart, buying items for a business trip. As I went up to the checkout isle there was a huge ACDC display. I thought "what the heck, the book might be interesting to read on the plane" and I bought it on impulse.

You rarely get that at Best Buy. People usually go there for specific items, and there isn't a Best Buy in every city.

axl promotion makes the difference

built in fanbase of 15 million didn't help the album debut #1 on the billboard top 200 album chart

2 date, the album sells less than 500 thousand u.s. copies. but they have a 15 million people fan base. cool huh?

the myspace idea was team brazil. i say what axl says about team brazil "thanks again, team brazil" the myspace idea killed bestbuy sales

dr. pepper didn't help sales either

what tv commercials? tv commericlas on when people are sleeping?

harley davidson was a disaster. killed better from having success

what smash hits were these by so called experts?

the general music public didn't have a clue

if axl did advance promotion.....it would have had monster u.s. sales

don't make excuses for bestbuy. bestbuy promoted cd better axl. axl rejected bestbuy plans for cd.

axl shows more passion at a 3 hour live show than promotion of a guns n roses record

don't use ac/dc or walmart as excuses either. don't make excuses. don't kick the can down the road

I disagree with pretty much everything you said. Most of it makes no sense.

Your final comment shows that you really don't have a firm grasp on this issue. If there are five times as many Walmart as there are bestbuys, logic dictates walmarts would have more sales.

But rather than argue, we can agree to disagree.

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First of all, you'd have to compare it to other albums that were streamed in entirety on MySpace prior to release up to that point in order to give context to the relevance of the record that was broken. My guess is that CD is one of (if not the) top selling records worldwide that was streamed prior to release on MySpace up to that point

Second, the MySpace record is a worldwide record, and CD sold quite well internationally by any objective measure

Third, you're assuming that the type of people who listen to music on MySpace are some sort of authority on what "good music" is

Fourth, you're ignoring the fact that an album that receives a lot of attention on the Internet is likely to be downloaded illegally

Finally, I highly doubt that the "core" American audience that still buys rock music produced by bands that started in the 1980s, (people 30+ years old, many of them in middle and southern America) was listening to CD on MySpace prior to its release. The fact is that an absolutely massive portion of the US market that still purchases rock music (almost exclusively in physical format, no less) was prevented from purchasing the album. Best Buys are few and far between in the midwest and the south in the US.

Very interesting points.

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