How much has CD sold as of 2015?

[wasted]

Absolutely. It wasn't pointed at you. Anyone is free to have their opinion, and my opinion is that although it may contain some good songs and excellent bursts of Axl's genius, I in no way shape or form think there is anything classic about it. The biggest thing the album will always be known for is how long it took to make, how there were many musicians and how it was Axl Rose without the Guns.

If this album makes Wasted get all excited and makes him happy then great!

Just to add to that, if Wasted had argued the point that the "best" stuff on CD is superior to the "worst" stuff in the back catalogue, I would probably agree 9 times out of 10.

I just think the first 7 songs are classics. For different reasons. I'll say Scraped and Riad (Get in the Ring and Shotgun blues) arent essential but enjoyable. But Sorry is pretty interesting song, it's vital listening. IRS, Madagascar, TIL, Prostitute all classics.

I just can't dismiss these songs, they actual playing on those songs is out this world. Sorry is flawless. Shacklers is closer to YCBM than Locomotive in terms of being a well crafted song.

I just don't care it's not hard rock. It might give it bump because it's not standard AC DC or whatever. If the World is a special song. But it gets overlooked because it's too pop or not metal enough. It's a single to me.

[Mr. Dude]

The lowest credible numbers I've seen are 6-7 million and those were all several years ago. I think there's a good chance that its somewhere relatively close to 10 million now.

[Rustycage]

Outside of North America and Europe, only 250,000 copies can be verified as shipped/sold. Anything else is speculation and/or wishful thinking.

The lowest credible numbers I've seen are 6-7 million and those were all several years ago. I think there's a good chance that its somewhere relatively close to 10 million now.

LOL

[Rustycage]

Funny how you say by 2011 that 2.36 million were sold in North America when all that can be verified as shipped is 1.84 million total and we know for a fact that in 2011 1 million copies remained in Best Buy's supply from the original 1.6 million deal.

This whole thing falls flat on it's face from the start.

[Subtle Signs]

Some of you are way too invested in this. Are you planning to marry into Axl's family and receive royalties from Chi Dem? If it sold five million,great. If it sold three million,hip hip hooray. People using the sales as justification for it being great or terrible are missing the point. It should be judged based on how much you enjoy it. I love it and I wouldn't waste time trying to convince others to do the same nor would I bother researching sales numbers from Universal Music Chile.

[Rustycage]

Some of you are way too invested in this. Are you planning to marry into Axl's family and receive royalties from Chi Dem? If it sold five million,great. If it sold three million,hip hip hooray. People using the sales as justification for it being great or terrible are missing the point. It should be judged based on how much you enjoy it. I love it and I wouldn't waste time trying to convince others to do the same nor would I bother researching sales numbers from Universal Music Chile.

I can't speak for the others but my interest in it is to explain why I do not think the follow up is a possibility and no amount of promotion is going to make it worth the effort. At least on the label's part. I say this not only because of the facade of decent demand that exists in the certification numbers, but also due to the fact that the next record could fulfill the record contract and thus the label would be losing leverage on a potential reunion product. Ever since they made the Best Buy deal and recouped their expense for CD, they've been holding the ball.

People want to be delusional and think it sold more than can be verified? Fine. That's what fans do but when discussing possibilities for this band with what they can produce and release, using CD as a gauge is very relevant.

[Apollo]

I agree SoulMonster with the numbers. People who say it was a financial failure can't see the 14,000,000 Best Buy deal & what it has sold up to present. Which is possibly 20 Million. If that's a failure then I don't know what success to measure it too.

Do you think best buy is happy with their 14 million dollar investment?

The problem with guys like you and soul is that you can't get past your own personal bias.

If you look into how the album did in the first month, first year and souls new favorite word extrapolate it........3 million seems like the most likely number. Sales always drop off considerably after the first month and year. CD never charted again - except for a week when they went on sale for $2.

If CD was still selling 50,000 copies a month then it wouldn't be demoted to dollar stores and it would still crop up on billboard charts.

You guys need to leave GnR forums and check out other music sites. While most of is love CD, the album gets destroyed by the overwhelming majority of rock music fans.

Your heads are in the clouds if you think that 50,000 people a month have been buying copies of CD every month for the last four or five years.

It simply isn't happening.

Making up false sales numbers just makes you guys look desperate.

[SoulMonster]

Outside of North America and Europe, only 250,000 copies can be verified as shipped/sold. Anything else is speculation and/or wishful thinking.

But those verifications are from 2009. It really doesn't say much when we are talking about sales numbers for 2015. By looking at the recent sales figures we have from USA and UK, and just projecting these to other countries that we know bought CD back in 2009 and also obtained gold and platinum certifications, we get an estimate of 5 million +/- 1 million (even when subtracting a million for the fact that some of these certifications were shipped and hence somewhat higher than the sold numbers).

You are of course completely entitled to think that for some reason people in USA and UK bought half of all copies of CD sold, as much as the rest of the world combined, even such strong markets as Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia, Canada, Germany, etc, but it really doesn't make much sense at all, and it anything speaks of wishful thinking it is just that .

Funny how you say by 2011 that 2.36 million were sold in North America

I have never said that . If you read my post you will, hopefully, actually see that that number is an extrapolation for the entire "gold market", and not just for North America.

Funny how you say by 2011 that 2.36 million were sold in North America

I have never said that . If you read my post you will, hopefully, actually see that that number is an extrapolation for the entire "gold market", and not just for North America.

People want to be delusional and think it sold more than can be verified?

When those verification numbers are from 2009, one would be delusional to NOT think it has sold more by now....

[Apollo]

Some of you are way too invested in this. Are you planning to marry into Axl's family and receive royalties from Chi Dem? If it sold five million,great. If it sold three million,hip hip hooray. People using the sales as justification for it being great or terrible are missing the point. It should be judged based on how much you enjoy it. I love it and I wouldn't waste time trying to convince others to do the same nor would I bother researching sales numbers from Universal Music Chile.

Exactly.

I love the album and hope CD2 is exactly the same quality as CD.

But the reason I comment is that I believe people should be honest when they talk about things like sales totals.

I was recently chatting with some local guys about our high school sports days. One guy spouts off about how awesome him and his best friend were and how great their varsity team was, how their team would have killed the current team

Well, I'm the town sports historian. So I knew that this guy wasn't awesome. His team finished with 11 wins and 15 losses. And he barely played and averaged under 2 pts a game.

In the overall scheme of life - who cares.

But just in terms of people being honest, I pointed out that he was greatly "exaggerating" what had happened. He got pissed and eventually stormed off.

There is nothing wrong with keeping people accountable. It doesn't matter how many copies CD sold. But let's at least be honest and realistic about it. We aren't savages.

Some of you are way too invested in this. Are you planning to marry into Axl's family and receive royalties from Chi Dem? If it sold five million,great. If it sold three million,hip hip hooray. People using the sales as justification for it being great or terrible are missing the point. It should be judged based on how much you enjoy it. I love it and I wouldn't waste time trying to convince others to do the same nor would I bother researching sales numbers from Universal Music Chile.

I can't speak for the others but my interest in it is to explain why I do not think the follow up is a possibility and no amount of promotion is going to make it worth the effort. At least on the label's part. I say this not only because of the facade of decent demand that exists in the certification numbers, but also due to the fact that the next record could fulfill the record contract and thus the label would be losing leverage on a potential reunion product. Ever since they made the Best Buy deal and recouped their expense for CD, they've been holding the ball.

People want to be delusional and think it sold more than can be verified? Fine. That's what fans do but when discussing possibilities for this band with what they can produce and release, using CD as a gauge is very relevant.

Great post.

[SoulMonster]

I agree SoulMonster with the numbers. People who say it was a financial failure can't see the 14,000,000 Best Buy deal & what it has sold up to present. Which is possibly 20 Million. If that's a failure then I don't know what success to measure it too.

Do you think best buy is happy with their 14 million dollar investment?

The problem with guys like you and soul is that you can't get past your own personal bias.

If you look into how the album did in the first month, first year and souls new favorite word extrapolate it........3 million seems like the most likely number. Sales always drop off considerably after the first month and year. CD never charted again - except for a week when they went on sale for $2.

If CD was still selling 50,000 copies a month then it wouldn't be demoted to dollar stores and it would still crop up on billboard charts.

You guys need to leave GnR forums and check out other music sites. While most of is love CD, the album gets destroyed by the overwhelming majority of rock music fans.

Your heads are in the clouds if you think that 50,000 people a month have been buying copies of CD every month for the last four or five years.

It simply isn't happening.

Making up false sales numbers just makes you guys look desperate.

Just a few comments:

- Whatever you feel "seems" like the most likely number is very uninteresting. The point of this exercise is to actually get past people's feelings on this subject, and attempt a sound qualification of what the sales figures would be by now.

- I am awed by your ability to judge records sales over an 8 year period based on your subjective feelings around its reception in a sub-market. That's quite some skill you got there To bad it doesn't really work, because 3 millions seems way off when we know that it has sold more than 1 million in USA and UK only.

- Yes, sales drop markedly after release. No one is denying that. But still we KNOW that the sales figures in USA has doubled since 2009.

- Extrapolate it not my favorite new word, but I guess it is a new word to you.

- "False sales numbers"? Which sales number have I made up?

[SoulMonster]

Just came across this article while browsing for recent sales figures: http://grantland.com/features/justin-timberlake-daft-punk-chinese-democracy-effect/

I have never read ot before and found it interesting. I am posting it here, if it is worthy of its own thread than go ahead and make it.

[Free Bird]

I agree SoulMonster with the numbers. People who say it was a financial failure can't see the 14,000,000 Best Buy deal & what it has sold up to present. Which is possibly 20 Million. If that's a failure then I don't know what success to measure it too.

Do you think best buy is happy with their 14 million dollar investment?

The problem with guys like you and soul is that you can't get past your own personal bias.

If you look into how the album did in the first month, first year and souls new favorite word extrapolate it........3 million seems like the most likely number. Sales always drop off considerably after the first month and year. CD never charted again - except for a week when they went on sale for $2.

If CD was still selling 50,000 copies a month then it wouldn't be demoted to dollar stores and it would still crop up on billboard charts.

You guys need to leave GnR forums and check out other music sites. While most of is love CD, the album gets destroyed by the overwhelming majority of rock music fans.

Your heads are in the clouds if you think that 50,000 people a month have been buying copies of CD every month for the last four or five years.

It simply isn't happening.

Making up false sales numbers just makes you guys look desperate.

Just a few comments:

- Whatever you feel "seems" like the most likely number is very uninteresting. The point of this exercise is to actually get past people's feelings on this subject, and attempt a sound qualification of what the sales figures would be by now.

- I am awed by your ability to judge records sales over an 8 year period based on your subjective feelings around its reception in a sub-market. That's quite some skill you got there To bad it doesn't really work, because 3 millions seems way off when we know that it has sold more than 1 million in USA and UK only.

- Yes, sales drop markedly after release. No one is denying that. But still we KNOW that the sales figures in USA has doubled since 2009.

- Extrapolate it not my favorite new word, but I guess it is a new word to you.

- "False sales numbers"? Which sales number have I made up?

AFD has reached 18x platinum in the USA.

Still it's considered to have world wide sales of 30 millions.

So that's 2/3 more of the US sales alone.

Fact is, you just can't take sales of a state and extrapolate them to find out what's total sales of a record. Deal with it.

Edited September 23, 2015 by Free Bird

[SoulMonster]

AFD has reached 18x platinum in the USA.

Still it's considered to have world wide sales of 30 millions.

So that's 2/3 more of the US sales alone.

Fact is, you just can't take sales of a state and extrapolate them to find out what's total sales of a record. Deal with it.

I see no reason why we can't extrapolate when you only include countries that we can assume would buy as many copies per capita. And that is what I have done.

[Free Bird]

AFD has reached 18x platinum in the USA.

Still it's considered to have world wide sales of 30 millions.

So that's 2/3 more of the US sales alone.

Fact is, you just can't take sales of a state and extrapolate them to find out what's total sales of a record. Deal with it.

I see no reason why we can't extrapolate when you only include countries that we can assume would buy as many copies per capita. And that is what I have done.

Ok. So I assume it has sold 2 million copies. Who's right now?

[Rustycage]

Outside of North America and Europe, only 250,000 copies can be verified as shipped/sold. Anything else is speculation and/or wishful thinking.

But those verifications are from 2009. It really doesn't say much when we are talking about sales numbers for 2015. By looking at the recent sales figures we have from USA and UK, and just projecting these to other countries that we know bought CD back in 2009 and also obtained gold and platinum certifications, we get an estimate of 5 million +/- 1 million (even when subtracting a million for the fact that some of these certifications were shipped and hence somewhat higher than the sold numbers).

You start a new topic just so you can do this trolling again?

It did NOT "sell" 2.6 million by that time. Those are the stockpile numbers. You must remove the 1 million that we know for a fact did not sell from Best Buy. You reach a more realistic(but still delusional) number 1.6 million. Every market outside of the US has to SELL OUT for that to be the actual sales. That is irrational. You want to claim another 700,000 sold in gold markets to reach 2.36 million. Here you are leaving out that by 2011, 1 million were still stockpiled in Best Buy. To do this, you are making up additional orders to reach that conclusion. You would need to find the extra 700,000+ before you can even post that shit.

2.8 million shipped globally by 2009

-

1 million leftover in Best Buy by 2011.

=

1.8 million.

Now

1.8 million(all that is verified to have existed)

-

2.36million(your claim of sold in the gold markets by 2011)

=

-560,000.

This was just your start of the method and it comes up short as being illogical and you show nothing to explain it. Everything after that isn't worth looking at.

You are of course completely entitled to think that for some reason people in USA and UK bought half of all copies of CD sold, as much as the rest of the world combined, even such strong markets as Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia, Canada, Germany, etc, but it really doesn't make much sense at all, and it anything speaks of wishful thinking it is just that

Still the same trolling from the other topic. The total certified/shipped/sold to those you listed is only 400,000. 2 of which(Canada and Germany) are part of the big 4 they shipped to. Without them, you're talking about 60,000 total verified as shipped/sold. Why do you keep leaving that out? If you want to act like you don't have a bias, quit trolling the issue.

I have never said that . If you read my post you will, hopefully, actually see that that number is an extrapolation for the entire "gold market", and not just for North America.

You are making it up. USA made up 1.6 million of the 2.8 million shipped. 1 million were not sold by 2011. You fabricate a total number of floating copies to over 3 million to achieve your 2.36 million without a single source to verify it(additional certifications or more orders due to exhausting the stock in the other markets). Therefore, you need some kind of proof that not only did the rest of the markets completely sell out(which they would absolutely have to do), but that they also placed more orders. Step 1: Go with what you can prove.

When those verification numbers are from 2009, one would be delusional to NOT think it has sold more by now....

You can't pile numbers on top of an existing supply when you CANNOT prove the original supply was exhausted and that more orders were placed. You keep trying to do this and even started a new topic to escape the fact that you were shown that the 2009 figures were based on shipments instead of just sales.

I know that people have bought the album since then and I know that they're still buying from the shipped stock of '08-'09. There is nothing to suggest otherwise. CD never made a huge surge on the charts to support the claim. If you think otherwise, prove it. You won't because you can't. There are no new certifications or reports of a large rise in purchases to show it.

This method doesn't say anything at all except that you're only fabricating numbers. Step 1: Go with what you can prove.

As of 2011, people in North America had not purchased half of the copies shipped just to that region which make up 66% of all verified as being shipped globally. To assume, that with the joke nugnr became to the general public since then, that it somehow increased demand in the 3 year old product in a retail atmosphere where albums hardly sell when downloading is king is purely delusional.

No additional certifications have been shown to prove additional orders/sales other than the 2.8 million figure.

The basis of your topic is only mental masturbation.

Edited September 23, 2015 by Rustycage

[SoulMonster]

AFD has reached 18x platinum in the USA.

Still it's considered to have world wide sales of 30 millions.

So that's 2/3 more of the US sales alone.

Fact is, you just can't take sales of a state and extrapolate them to find out what's total sales of a record. Deal with it.

I see no reason why we can't extrapolate when you only include countries that we can assume would buy as many copies per capita. And that is what I have done.

Ok. So I assume it has sold 2 million copies. Who's right now?

But you can't just use the same numbers for different records You have to compare with other countries who sold the same amount initially, and then extrapolate to these countries only.

Outside of North America and Europe, only 250,000 copies can be verified as shipped/sold. Anything else is speculation and/or wishful thinking.

But those verifications are from 2009. It really doesn't say much when we are talking about sales numbers for 2015. By looking at the recent sales figures we have from USA and UK, and just projecting these to other countries that we know bought CD back in 2009 and also obtained gold and platinum certifications, we get an estimate of 5 million +/- 1 million (even when subtracting a million for the fact that some of these certifications were shipped and hence somewhat higher than the sold numbers).

You start a new topic just so you can do this trolling again?

It did NOT "sell" 2.6 million by that time.

That is irrelevant. I am not using that number at all. Again, read the first post in this thread until you get it, you obviously haven't yet, or maybe ask Free Bird to explain it to you.

Edited September 23, 2015 by SoulMonster

[maynard]

Needs more

[Rustycage]

AFD has reached 18x platinum in the USA.

Still it's considered to have world wide sales of 30 millions.

So that's 2/3 more of the US sales alone.

Fact is, you just can't take sales of a state and extrapolate them to find out what's total sales of a record. Deal with it.

I see no reason why we can't extrapolate when you only include countries that we can assume would buy as many copies per capita. And that is what I have done.

Ok. So I assume it has sold 2 million copies. Who's right now?

But you can't just use the same numbers for different records You have to compare with other countries who sold the same amount initially, and then extrapolate to these countries only.

Outside of North America and Europe, only 250,000 copies can be verified as shipped/sold. Anything else is speculation and/or wishful thinking.

But those verifications are from 2009. It really doesn't say much when we are talking about sales numbers for 2015. By looking at the recent sales figures we have from USA and UK, and just projecting these to other countries that we know bought CD back in 2009 and also obtained gold and platinum certifications, we get an estimate of 5 million +/- 1 million (even when subtracting a million for the fact that some of these certifications were shipped and hence somewhat higher than the sold numbers).

You start a new topic just so you can do this trolling again?

It did NOT "sell" 2.6 million by that time.

That is irrelevant. I am not using that number at all. Again, read the first post in this thread until you get it, you obviously haven't yet, or maybe ask Free Bird to explain it to you.

2.6 is the claim from one of your sources. The one that you were so sure of yesterday were sales.

The point of my post is to show that there was still an existing supply of the shipped copies of 08 and 09. Apparently you are drowning in your own creation here.

Funny that you edit out the rest of the response.

TBH, your math is fuckin hilarious.

By 2011, you are negative 560,000 and I don't even want to look at the rest of it yet until you can at least get past step 1.

Edited September 23, 2015 by Rustycage

[Rustycage]

For the luls

2.8 million is all that can be proven to have been shipped/sold from 08 to now.

-

2.36 million sold in gold markets(your claim)

-

2.63 million sold in Platinum markets.(your claim)

=

- 2.19 million.

You are down over 2 million copies here. Where are you thinking they came from? The ether? Additional orders would have needed to take place along with more gold/platinum certifications(which have not occurred).

Not only are you coming up short here, you are seriously trying to claim that orders have nearly doubled the original release between 09 to now. DELUSIONAL!

Edited September 23, 2015 by Rustycage

[RussTCB]

The last credible source* I saw cited Chinese Democracy as having sold more copies than Pink Floyd-Dark Side of the Moon, Michael Jackson-Thriller, Garth Brooks-No Fences and Eagles-Their Greatest Hits put together.

*source: The latest issue of "Things Some Users Wish Really Happened"

[maynard]

The last credible source* I saw cited Chinese Democracy as having sold more copies than Pink Floyd-Dark Side of the Moon, Michael Jackson-Thriller, Garth Brooks-No Fences and Eagles-Their Greatest Hits put together.

*source: The latest issue of "Things Some Users Wish Really Happened"

How do you think CD would have done if Jimmy Page were the lead guitar player? And if the track order went like this:

CD

TIL

Prostitute

Schaklers

Madagascar

IRS

Scraped

Oh My God

[classicrawker]

Outside of North America and Europe, only 250,000 copies can be verified as shipped/sold. Anything else is speculation and/or wishful thinking.

But those verifications are from 2009. It really doesn't say much when we are talking about sales numbers for 2015. By looking at the recent sales figures we have from USA and UK, and just projecting these to other countries that we know bought CD back in 2009 and also obtained gold and platinum certifications, we get an estimate of 5 million +/- 1 million (even when subtracting a million for the fact that some of these certifications were shipped and hence somewhat higher than the sold numbers).

You are of course completely entitled to think that for some reason people in USA and UK bought half of all copies of CD sold, as much as the rest of the world combined, even such strong markets as Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia, Canada, Germany, etc, but it really doesn't make much sense at all, and it anything speaks of wishful thinking it is just that .

Funny how you say by 2011 that 2.36 million were sold in North America

I have never said that . If you read my post you will, hopefully, actually see that that number is an extrapolation for the entire "gold market", and not just for North America.

Funny how you say by 2011 that 2.36 million were sold in North America

I have never said that . If you read my post you will, hopefully, actually see that that number is an extrapolation for the entire "gold market", and not just for North America.

People want to be delusional and think it sold more than can be verified?

When those verification numbers are from 2009, one would be delusional to NOT think it has sold more by now....

This most definitely has been beat to death but your extrapolations are assuming that CD sold at a steady rate for the last 6+ years after the initial release which we know is not true as it dropped from the charts. It never reappeared until Best Buy dropped the price to $1.99 at which point it sold about 2K for the first week and snuck back into the Billboard 200 only to drop out of sight again. As far as I know it never appeared on any countries charts again so after the initial sales it dropped like a rock. Best Buy then dumped the rest of their stock to surplus discount stores like the Dollar Store.

Going with the chart theory if you think it sold 3 million additional units starting in 2010 until today you would have 70 months of sales. If you divide 3 million more copies sold since 2010 by 70 months it would have had to sell an average of 42,857 units a month. Since it never appeared on any charts again after 2009, with the exception of the Best Buy $1.99 sale, how could this be possible? Even when Best Buy dropped the price to $1.99 it only sold 2K copies the first week and then dropped out of sight again.

All evidence points to it having sold around 3 million at best which is still nothing to sneeze at considering when it was released and the lack of promotion.

All signs point to it having sold somewhere between 2.5 -3 million copies

[niceguy]

I work in business.

There is a HUGE difference between revenue and profit, and this core principle of business is something that most people strangely cannot understand.

ChiDem generated a huge revenue--at a huge loss in profit.

[DieselDaisy]

3 million. 3.5 million max. '5 million' is blatantly absurd.

Why do you think it is blatantly absurd?

5 million is just under Black Ice's sales and Black Ice was considered a commercial smash!

As of 2015, Black Ice has sold only 5 million copies? You are wrong. Already in 2008 that record had sold 6 million copies. I have no idea how much it has sold by 2015, but it is guaranteed a lot more than even my highest possible estimater for CD.

That is why I said 'under'!!

[RussTCB]

Removed some posts obviously intended to derail the thread.

Another warning point was given and a suspension handed out. Please either deal in facts or stay out of the thread.