Posts Tagged ‘chinese democracy’

80 ‘08 (and Heartbreak): Announcing Idolator’s Year-End Extravaganza

What were the 80 most important musical recordings, artists, trends, events, and performances of 2008? What were the eight things this year that broke our hearts—or, at least, our ears? We’re happy to announce 80 ‘08 (and Heartbreak), Idolator’s year-end overview. The list is below the jump. MORE »

Ah. Guess I'll stop waiting for my ballot then.

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Heartbreak No. 7: Axl Rose Finally Brings Democracy To China

I was never much of a Star Wars fan, so the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments that accompanied the forever-awaited release of The Phantom Menace passed by me at the time. But when I finally sat down with Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy—a long-awaited follow-up to a cultural moment that, for better or worse, defined my adolescence—I finally got what my Star Wars friends were all up in arms about, namely the casting of a newer, harsher, and daresay aged light on a once-cherished talisman. MORE »

@mackro: Don't forget to add into the lore that Axl included that track unbeknownst to the rest of the band. They, and all of us, really should have known better.

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Axl Rose: Taking Questions, Taking Names

Axl Rose’s foray into handling his own press continued on Sunday, when he dropped by the Guns N’ Roses fan site MyGNRForum.com to answer fans’ questions. The end result is half extended rant, half one-sided interview (he picked out questions from a list), with lots of talk about his tussels with Slash, how the real inspiration for “Sweet Child O’ Mine” was Lynyrd Skynyrd, and how a W. Axl Rose solo album would be “much more experimental and instrumental.” There’s a lot more, including some talk about the legal wrangling over the GNR name: MORE »

@okiedoke: pet sounds!

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The highlight of today’s otherwise dull WSJ… MORE »

Strip Clubs are the Gay Clubs of the 21st Century.

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Axl Rose (Or Someone Who Hijacked His Password) Hits The Message Boards

AP06063002126.jpgHey, Axl Rose sat down for an interview last night! Well, it wasn’t an interview as much as it was lots of posts on two Guns N’ Roses-related message boards—mygnrforum.com and Here Today, Gone To Hell—and who knows whether the poster was really Axl, or whether it was someone who just figured out that his password was d0lphin1 and who decided to have some fun, but either way, I’m sure Rolling Stone is fuming over not getting the exclusive. After the jump, a few highlights from Axl’s late-night posting spree, which, we learn, was transmitted via PC, although he sometimes uses a Mac as well. MORE »

@Chris N.: Oh, I can!

This is totally cool, if authentic.

Do you think it's a bummer to come into contact with your fans like this? I've seen some video livechats where the intelligence gap between fans and star was just depressingly (for the star, I would think) stark.

Or is this just always so?

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Five Reasons Why Strip Clubs Won’t Save “Chinese Democracy”

So, last week’s 79% drop in sales (261,000 to 57,000) for Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy seems like kinda-bad news for Axl Rose, Best Buy, and anyone who was hoping that gobs of free press and a long-awaited record would add up to sales, no? Well, Bob Chiappardi, a marketing consultant who claims to be one of the few people who’s worked with GNR since the Live?! Like A Suicide days, thinks that the album’s best days are actually ahead of it! Chiappardi believes that Chinese Democracy is going to be a slow-burning hit like Kid Rock’s Rock N’ Roll Jesus, which overcame sorta-soft initial sales to move 2.5 million copies. Reason 1? He just serviced Chinese Democracy to strip clubs! But I’m not so sure about Axl’s long-awaited opus overcoming its Thanksgiving-turkey status anytime soon. MORE »

@porkchops:
I was in a BB this weekend-they had piles of CDs & LPs gathering dust...

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Dr Pepper Continuing To Operate In “All Publicity Is Good Publicity” Mode

So, after all the advance hype which led to disappointing sales numbers which led to people pointing their fingers toward Axl Rose for not promoting Chinese Democracy at all, the blame game surrounding the long-delayed Guns N’ Roses album has finally focused in on… Dr Pepper! Yes, the soft-drink pushers, which offered the world a (coupon for a) free sample of its beverage in honor of Chinese Democracy’s release date, got into a bit of (uncarbonated) hot water when the Web site it created for the promotion crashed under the stress of all those people who weren’t buying Axl’s album trying to wring their free soda out of it. Axl’s lawyers whipped off a letter saying that the stunt was “a complete fiasco.” (I’d think that in the grand scheme of things, the decision to go with the clowns at Best Buy for the exclusive distribution of a piece of recorded music, and not, say, a flat-screen TV, was the biggest fiasco of all, but who asked me, right?) What does Dr Pepper have to say about it? MORE »

@Marth: Hey, I can only drink about TWO Dr. Peppers a week.

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The Record Business Celebrates The Bad Kind Of Black Friday

If anyone in the music business was hoping that the one-two punch of a holiday weekend and big-name releases would magically convince people to pay for music one last time, they may want to pour themselves a stiff drink, or at least spike their morning latte: Billboard is reporting that the No. 1 album, Kanye West’s 808s & Heartbreak, sold 425,000-450,000 copies over the course of last week, while Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy woefully underperformed, moving between 250,000 and 260,000 copies during its first week on Best Buy’s shelves. And that’s not all: Depending on who you ask, overall music sales were down anywhere between 10% and 30% when compared with last year’s holiday weekend, although online numbers were OK. Meanwhile, a UK tabloid is claiming that bigwigs at Universal Music Group are blaming the soft landing of Chinese Democracy squarely on Axl, because he didn’t do enough press for the album. Even though it probably received more free press than any other record this year. Yeah, it couldn’t be that people currently see Guns N’ Roses as something of a novelty act, and that people who liked Appetite probably aren’t so into the new sound, and that even those people who wanted to give Axl a shot were a bit weirded out by the whole preserved-in-1999-amber feel of the final recorded product, could it? MORE »

As far as Guns goes, they should have sold the album everywhere. This exclusive crap is not good for anybody except giant corporations. The reason AC/DC sold as well as it did, is because their fanbase is basically the typical Wal-Mart shopper(read between the lines). Believe it or not, most rock fans would rather buy their music from a local music store or a small chain, even though the few stores left are struggling because of this great economy. Downloading isn't as much of a factor for people over 25(Guns fanbase) in most rural areas of this country.

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Is Best Buy Already Over Promoting “Chinese Democracy”?

While flipping through the Best Buy circular that came with this weekend’s New York Times, I noticed something kind of odd: There wasn’t one mention of Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy anywhere within, despite the album still being exclusively available at the big blue retailer. All the premium music-selling real estate—the album-cover shots in proffered iPods, etc.—was instead given over mostly to Britney Spears’ Circus, which I can understand on one level (a pretty girl being like a melody and all), but which doesn’t make sense given that the Guns deal was supposedly a big-money transaction for Best Buy, and that the endlessly speculated-about album reportedly didn’t break the half-million mark as far as its first-week sales went. MORE »

Those ad circulars have to be put together weeks and weeks in advance. That's why the Circuit City one was advertising the new Fall Out Boy album for $9.99 at the beginning of November.

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Idolator Presents The Totally Not Made Up Tale Of “Chinese Democracy”

A.K.A the secret story of how you almost didn’t get to hear the new Guns N’ Roses album, after all. As told to Jess Harvell by Axl himself. (No, I swear.) MORE »

I had a feeling that "Oh My God" was about Gamera all along.

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