How much has CD sold as of 2015?

[Billsfan]

So basically, if you liked chinese, it sold 5 million. If you hated Chinese, it sold less than 3 million..

Has anyone ever asked anyone in the "band" how much it actually sold?

[Rustycage]

If you hated Chinese, it sold less than 3 million..

Uh, no. Unless you can find one more certification or a source that says more copies were ordered, nothing suggests it sold over 3 million. Nothing.

1. The billboard charts don't suggest it outsold the original 2.8 million.
2. The 2009 peak of certifications with no later upgrades does not suggest there was a stronger demand than 2.8 million.
3. The one million that haunted Best Buy's shelves do not suggest a demand more than what was shipped.
4. Majority of the countries that CD shipped to in bulk certified the album off of the shipments instead of actual sales.
5. CD hit 198 on the billboard charts in 2011 for one week when they sold 3200 copies and immediately fell off. This was the $1.99 deal.

It has nothing to do with hate. It has to with not being delusional to the point where we exaggerate numbers to either defend Axl or to be argumentative for the fun of it.

[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.

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.

You took what I was going to say but extrapolated to make it make better sense.

Soulmonster is using an incorrect starting point and then bashing people who don't believe his final conclusion. He is taking his own assumptions and presenting them as fact. (He does that a lot, in case you are new here),

So basically, if you liked chinese, it sold 5 million. If you hated Chinese, it sold less than 3 million..

Has anyone ever asked anyone in the "band" how much it actually sold?

CD is one of my ten favorite albums of all time.

And I would bet money that it didn't sell more than 3 million copies.

Edited September 23, 2015 by Apollo

[Apollo]

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.

BAM!!!!

I haven't seen a beat down like that since Rodney King.

[Apollo]

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

Classic and I disagree on just about everything. Especially if you extrapolate the numbers over a three year period. We disagree on about 85% of all topics.

But I will gladly say that he is 100% correct here.

Classic and Rusty are posting with logic and common sense. Thank you guys, it's nice to see people posting that way instead of just t-rolling or some weird need to be a contrarian.

[Billsfan]

If you hated Chinese, it sold less than 3 million..

Uh, no. Unless you can find one more certification or a source that says more copies were ordered, nothing suggests it sold over 3 million. Nothing.

1. The billboard charts don't suggest it outsold the original 2.8 million.
2. The 2009 peak of certifications with no later upgrades does not suggest there was a stronger demand than 2.8 million.
3. The one million that haunted Best Buy's shelves do not suggest a demand more than what was shipped.
4. Majority of the countries that CD shipped to in bulk certified the album off of the shipments instead of actual sales.
5. CD hit 198 on the billboard charts in 2011 for one week when they sold 3200 copies and immediately fell off. This was the $1.99 deal.

It has nothing to do with hate. It has to with not being delusional to the point where we exaggerate numbers to either defend Axl or to be argumentative for the fun of it.

You liked the album right?

[Estranged Coma]

I'm in my early twenties I cannot tell you one cd I have bought since I bought Chinese in 2008 lol. And I only bought it because I was starting to love the band and it's history. If I wasn't becoming a die hard I would have just listened to it on myspace until i got bored of it.

Out of every person I know i know one guy who buys albums. My white buddy who loves to buy new hip hop albums. But even the majority of his music is downloaded.

It's just to simple to get free music. My non tech savy gf downloads fukin music and books on her smart phone for free...

[Billsfan]

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.

You took what I was going to say but extrapolated to make it make better sense.

Soulmonster is using an incorrect starting point and then bashing people who don't believe his final conclusion. He is taking his own assumptions and presenting them as fact. (He does that a lot, in case you are new here),

So basically, if you liked chinese, it sold 5 million. If you hated Chinese, it sold less than 3 million..

Has anyone ever asked anyone in the "band" how much it actually sold?

CD is one of my ten favorite albums of all time.

And I would bet money that it didn't sell more than 3 million copies.

Cool but just seems like there are no concrete definitive sources confirming or denying exactly how many copies it actually sold, seems like people who didn't like the album will refuse to ever accept it. One of my favorite albums as well, but with all the downloading online legally and illegally I will agree that it didn't sell to expectation.

[ludurigan]

honestly who cares? i think selling 2m for a band that hadn't been relevant since 96, only had one original member left and had a completely different sound is good especially in a era where CDs didn't sell like they used to and the kids were more into Lil Wayne (or rap music in general)...ppl have skewed ideas of what it should have sold

the GNR name meant nothing to the new generation...the only connection they might have had was the Grand Theft Auto game lol (which is still the best game ever made i might add) and i bet many didn't even know Axl was the voice of one of the radio DJ's

if you consider that gnr sold records to about 20-30 million different individuals in the planet...

then you have 2 million different people buying Axl Rose CD...

you see, its sort of easy to think that at least 1 to 1.5 million (maybe more) of these CDs were purchased by serious fans who would actually buy ANYTHING that Axl was to release

So you probably have very few people who bought the Axl Rose CD because they actually listened to some songs and enjoyed them.

Of course that you have to consider that very few people actually had a CHANCE to listen to the album because as we all know it was NOT promoted in any capacity.

Anyway, a lot of people were exposed to the live versions of the songs on the live tours.

Knowing that, it should be fair to say that a lot of people who went to the live shows didnt really rushed to the music shop after the shows...

Edited September 24, 2015 by ludurigan

[Rustycage]

There was plenty or promotion on radio and even tv commercials. Maybe Axl didn't push it enough but to say it received no promotion is not true.

[Randy Jesus]

The sales are going to go through the roof when it is available in China.

[Apollo]

honestly who cares? i think selling 2m for a band that hadn't been relevant since 96, only had one original member left and had a completely different sound is good especially in a era where CDs didn't sell like they used to and the kids were more into Lil Wayne (or rap music in general)...ppl have skewed ideas of what it should have sold

the GNR name meant nothing to the new generation...the only connection they might have had was the Grand Theft Auto game lol (which is still the best game ever made i might add) and i bet many didn't even know Axl was the voice of one of the radio DJ's

if you consider that gnr sold records to about 20-30 million different individuals in the planet...

then you have 2 million different people buying Axl Rose CD...

you see, its sort of easy to think that at least 1 to 1.5 million (maybe more) of these CDs were purchased by serious fans who would actually buy ANYTHING that Axl was to release

So you probably have very few people who bought the Axl Rose CD because they actually listened to some songs and enjoyed them.

Of course that you have to consider that very few people actually had a CHANCE to listen to the album because as we all know it was NOT promoted in any capacity.

Anyway, a lot of people were exposed to the live versions of the songs on the live tours.

Knowing that, it should be fair to say that a lot of people who went to the live shows didnt really rushed to the music shop after the shows...

Are you implying that 50,000 Persians didn't buy CD in 2013?

[BreakDown2014]

The only option I see that could have elevated CD's sales is the following:

Release a video for This I Love (a good video), which seems to be the most popular song from the album. The song goes 100.000.000 hits on Youtube and then release a video for Better, TWAT or another song.

But that would have never happened. There isn't a single instantly appealing song on the album imo

[ludurigan]

honestly who cares? i think selling 2m for a band that hadn't been relevant since 96, only had one original member left and had a completely different sound is good especially in a era where CDs didn't sell like they used to and the kids were more into Lil Wayne (or rap music in general)...ppl have skewed ideas of what it should have sold

the GNR name meant nothing to the new generation...the only connection they might have had was the Grand Theft Auto game lol (which is still the best game ever made i might add) and i bet many didn't even know Axl was the voice of one of the radio DJ's

if you consider that gnr sold records to about 20-30 million different individuals in the planet...

then you have 2 million different people buying Axl Rose CD...

you see, its sort of easy to think that at least 1 to 1.5 million (maybe more) of these CDs were purchased by serious fans who would actually buy ANYTHING that Axl was to release

So you probably have very few people who bought the Axl Rose CD because they actually listened to some songs and enjoyed them.

Of course that you have to consider that very few people actually had a CHANCE to listen to the album because as we all know it was NOT promoted in any capacity.

Anyway, a lot of people were exposed to the live versions of the songs on the live tours.

Knowing that, it should be fair to say that a lot of people who went to the live shows didnt really rushed to the music shop after the shows...

Are you implying that 50,000 Persians didn't buy CD in 2013?

i didnt really understand what you mean by 50000 persians

you can bet that a lot of people who saw GNR live in 1987-1988 literally RUSHED to the music shop to buy appetite and also these same people probably went on to tell all their friends and everyone else they knew about this really cool band that they had just found out. same thing probably happened for everyone who watched the videos for sweet child o mine, jungle and paradise city on MTV, and everyone who listened to these songs on the radio. people just couldnt get enough of gnr because gnr was so fucking good.

this probably didnt happen with axl rose cd, and one can say that more than 50% (maybe 70-80%) of everyone who bought axl album was old fans

[amacfantasy]

Music related sales are horrendously tracked especially in countries outside North America and parts of Europe. That coupled with the fact that GNR is a really world-wide centric band to a much above average degree (that is proven by the bands previous albums see AFD/UYI world wide sales for example) there is reason to believe that there might be a sizable amount of sales really unknown and outdated figures from certain countries especially. I'm not suggesting CD really sold something crazy like 10 million but 4 million ? That is definitely within reason when you consider things, but the nature of the beast is we will probably never really know the truth.

Edited September 24, 2015 by amacfantasy

[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.

You took what I was going to say but extrapolated to make it make better sense.

Soulmonster is using an incorrect starting point and then bashing people who don't believe his final conclusion. He is taking his own assumptions and presenting them as fact. (He does that a lot, in case you are new here),

Haha, actually I just have to laugh when I read his double standards.

[dalsh327]

Best Buy didn't do a good job promoting the album for all the money they put towards it, but you have to remember the store makes its money in electronics, not music. At that time people were sitting on their money because waves of people were being let go from their jobs, so people were reluctant to go shopping that fall. I'm sure ChiDem wasn't the only "casualty".

GNR did 4 years of touring in front of all types of audience so there's probably people who liked the new songs and bought the album after seeing the concert, but they probably had a hard time finding a CD by then. I'm sure some of the dollar store copies (and anyone who got them in bulk for less like some mom and pop record stores did) have been resold for a higher price online.

[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

Classic and I disagree on just about everything. Especially if you extrapolate the numbers over a three year period. We disagree on about 85% of all topics.

But I will gladly say that he is 100% correct here.

Classic and Rusty are posting with logic and common sense. Thank you guys, it's nice to see people posting that way instead of just t-rolling or some weird need to be a contrarian.

85%? who is exaggerating now Apollo?............................................. more like 95%..............

But your o.k. for a Republican.

[BreakDown2014]

Guys if you keep whining about this kind of subjects, Fernando's big announcement will end up being THE OFFICIAL CD SALES AS OF 2015.

Seriously, who cares ff it sold 500.000 or 10.000.000?

[Rustycage]

Guys if you keep whining about this kind of subjects, Fernando's big announcement will end up being THE OFFICIAL CD SALES AS OF 2015.

Seriously, who cares ff it sold 500.000 or 10.000.000?

Anyone that would be releasing CD's follow up.

[J Dog]

Better should have been the first single instead of CD. That would have helped. CD was just such a run of the mill song. Better would have maybe gotten some people's attention.

[Apollo]

Better should have been the first single instead of CD. That would have helped. CD was just such a run of the mill song. Better would have maybe gotten some people's attention.

Totally agree.

CD is a generic rock song. Boring.

Better is a great pop rock tour song. Very catchy.

Catcher and Twat have that epic Axl feel.

Street of Dreams and Madagascar sound like classic GnR.

Shacklers would have made people say "wow, this is different from what we expected. What's the rest of the album sound like?"

And even IRS is a catchy pop song.

But instead they chose the most generic rock song on the album. And used another throw away song in the Russell Crowe movie.

IMO two horrible choices.

I think Better, Catcher, Twat and SOD really should have been pushed. Not CD and ITW.

[Bono]

Better should have been the first single instead of CD. That would have helped. CD was just such a run of the mill song. Better would have maybe gotten some people's attention.

Totally agree.

CD is a generic rock song. Boring.

Better is a great pop rock tour song. Very catchy.

Catcher and Twat have that epic Axl feel.

Street of Dreams and Madagascar sound like classic GnR.

Shacklers would have made people say "wow, this is different from what we expected. What's the rest of the album sound like?"

And even IRS is a catchy pop song.

But instead they chose the most generic rock song on the album. And used another throw away song in the Russell Crowe movie.

IMO two horrible choices.

I think Better, Catcher, Twat and SOD really should have been pushed. Not CD and ITW.

Better would have done ok maybe and that's a BIG maybe. TWAT would've sucked, people would laugh at Catcher, IRS is a terrible song if the general public is your target audience. SOD would be absolutely pathetic as a single, Madagascar could've been good if Axl didn't sound constipated and they edited it to get rid of the lame MLK quotes and samples. Shacklers although one of he songs I like on CD would not have people thinking 'Wow that's different, I wonder what the rest of the album is like?", It would've had them thinking "wow that's shit GnR sucks now" And if you think CD is the most generic song on the album then they picked the right single. It was 2000 and fucking 8. Generic rock radio was at it's peak. CD should've fit in nicely and still people ignored it. Jarring them with Shacklers or giving them some whiney ass cheesy ballad like SOD or Catcher would've made people dislike CD even more.

there isn't one good single on CD and that's the bottom line really. Not one song on that album would've changed the fortunes of CD had it been released as the lead single.

[oktayyaxl]

İt is so easy to say how much has cd sold

1.6 million in usa best buy bought it

1 million has sold all through europe (cd received ıfp platium award in europe)

İn canada 4*platinium 80*4 320k

İn japan more than 250k sold and it went gold

İn australia more than 150k sold

İn south america more than 250k sold

And when you add rest of the world

Nearly 4 million copies has sold

This is the true number ı think

[BetterDay7]

Dunno how many copies it has sold but I am a CD (album) evangelist! Okay, I am a newish fan of GNR and the novelty hasn't worn off but I play that thing every day.

As for singles - it's not really a singles-oriented album, is it? It's more a complete work - or was intended to be. I see it as being like Tilt is to Scott Walker and albums like Outside (David Bowie). Not as popular as the best-known work, a bitout there, but still great in my humble opinion. I LOVE CD.