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Re: GNR go Gold
GUNS N' ROSES: 'Chinese Democracy' Officially Passes 500,000 Sales Mark In U.S. - Jan. 7, 2009
GUNS N' ROSES' new album, "Chinese Democracy", sold 21,000 copies in the United States in its sixth week of release to land at position No. 30 on The Billboard 200 chart. The CD has shifted 502,000 units since it was released on November 23, 2008 as a Best Buy exclusive after a wait of more than 15 years. (Note: An album is eligible for gold certification by the Recording Industry Association of America after it has shipped 500,000 copies in the U.S.)
Analysts have been going over what happened to "Chinese Democracy", which sold 261,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 3 on The Billboard 200 chart. The most immediate comparison has been to AC/DC's new "Black Ice", which also came out through a single retailer, in this case Wal-Mart, and sold nearly 800,000 copies in its first week after an eight-year gap between albums.
But AC/DC did interviews, online initiatives and TV appearances to promote their album, also launching a major North American tour days after its arrival. GUNS N' ROSES has not scheduled any live dates, and frontman Axl Rose — the band's sole remaining original member — has not granted any official interviews although he did take part in two question-and-answer sessions on GUNS N' ROSES fan boards last month. He also responded to further questions about the breakup of the original lineup and other issues in a lengthy, nearly 5,000-word post at MyGNRForum.com. In the post, Rose gives his side of the story, in sometimes hard-to-follow fashion, regarding how he came to own the band name, why all the other original members left the group and whether it's right for him to keep using the name when he's the only founding member left.
Some have also suggested that Best Buy was far less experienced at this sort of release, while Wal-Mart pioneered it with albums from the EAGLES and GARTH BROOKS. The retailer paid $14 million for 1.6 million copies of the GUNS N' ROSES album, according to Hits.
Kevin Cogill, who was arrested in August for allegedly leaking nine tracks from the then-unreleased "Chinese Democracy" album online through his blog, pleaded guilty violating federal copyright laws in a Los Angeles court on December 15. According to the Associated Press, Cogill's plea deal requires him to cooperate with investigators and may lead to a sentence of up to a year in federal prison, probation and a large fine.
Re: GNR go Gold
The album has now sold approximately 1,6 million copies worldwide. As the combined US sales have been a half a million, 1/3 of the BestBuy stock has been shipped. As for Universal, the complete sales (with the BestBuy deal) currently stand at 2,7 million worldwide.
Pretty much fits the picture that Uni and Ax decided to just drop the album out in the open once Azoff'd made them a far better deal than they'd deserve after all these years. Just sit and wait for it to break even, see if there's a demand for CD out there anymore.
There's a reasonable market and CD seems to have temporarily stabilized a presence in the charts, a task usually aided by active promotion. The band name still carries a pretty significant trade value and that's the only thing keeping the album from dropping into obscurity. If they'd be planning on building it into a moderately successful sleeper, I'd say they'd better step on it.
= platinum
Re: GNR go Gold
2.7 million to eventually be shipped, guaranteed and with no post release promo. add the future purcahses and it's not gonna turn out as bad as some thought it would.
a 2009 tour would help make this a moderate success but, if released in the vicinity of late '09 (as hinted it would by axl), a second album of more modern sounding music could use cd's sucess (which may be triple platinum worlwide by then) as a stepping stone toward achieving increased success and would also spike cd sales a bit more.
a reunion, ofcourse, would spike cd sales and jettison any future work the band did toward numbers a little more familiar to the gnr name but this scenarion seems less likely if you take dexter's words as scripture.
- BurningHills
- Rep: 15
Re: GNR go Gold
Also - just a random thought here, but it's pretty cool regardless:
Best Buy bought roughly 2 million copies up front, right?
502,000 of those copies have been sold since November 23rd.
So, that means that in it's first month and a half of release, Best Buy has sold roughly 1/4th of it's entire stock.
That's pretty damn impressive.
Re: GNR go Gold
Also - just a random thought here, but it's pretty cool regardless:
Best Buy bought roughly 2 million copies up front, right?
502,000 of those copies have been sold since November 23rd.
So, that means that in it's first month and a half of release, Best Buy has sold roughly 1/4th of it's entire stock.
That's pretty damn impressive.
At a discount and over a 6-7 week period when it was the ONLY place you could purchase it in the US. Not so impressive.
Re: GNR go Gold
Also - just a random thought here, but it's pretty cool regardless:
Best Buy bought roughly 2 million copies up front, right?
502,000 of those copies have been sold since November 23rd.
So, that means that in it's first month and a half of release, Best Buy has sold roughly 1/4th of it's entire stock.
That's pretty damn impressive.
When you look at it from that perspective, its not too shabby.
However, I think we're gonna see a huge price drop in the coming weeks because Best Buy is going to want to unload these while the iron is still lukewarm. They risk getting stuck with hundreds of thousands of copies if they don't make a move soon.
Lower the price to $5.99-$7.99 and actually advertise it, they'd probably sell every last copy.
- BurningHills
- Rep: 15
Re: GNR go Gold
BurningHills wrote:Also - just a random thought here, but it's pretty cool regardless:
Best Buy bought roughly 2 million copies up front, right?
502,000 of those copies have been sold since November 23rd.
So, that means that in it's first month and a half of release, Best Buy has sold roughly 1/4th of it's entire stock.
That's pretty damn impressive.
At a discount and over a 6-7 week period when it was the ONLY place you could purchase it in the US. Not so impressive.
How do you figure?
It was available at ONE store. It's been out for only 6 weeks, and 1/4th of the entire stock was sold. How is that possibly bad in any way, shape, or form?
- Bright Eyes 2005
- Rep: 27
Re: GNR go Gold
--let's clear a few things up. Best Buy bought 1.3 million copies.
--It's sold about 1.7 million worldwide .
--1,700,00-500,000=1,200,000
--1,200,000 + 1,300,000=2,500,000
UMG has sold 2,500,000 copies worldwide, and 1,700,000 have been sold by retailers. This in 6 weeks. These are good #'s in the current climate, for a band who had over 50% of the press and DJ's raping them for the past ten years, and then pouncing on them when the release hit. There were many elements licking their lips to rip Axl and this band a new one. Some say this album had a ton of hype--maybe so. It also had more negative spin and hype than any album ever released. I've never seen so many people write something off they had no familiarity with--many attacked and claimed it "sucked" without hearing a lick of the album. It is amazing how quickly people are swayed by peer pressure. If someone else say's "it ain't cool" they just go along with it, and rip it, repeating the same ol same ol. One of the local DJ's I listen to , said the album was great when it first came out. Claiming is was an 8.5 out of 10 or better when it first came out. Then, after seeing the charts for a few weeks, he now not only refuses to play the CD but will play old songs, when people request the new stuff. What happened to rugged individualism??? The industry, radio, and the press have no balls--little do they know, they are all on a self-inflicted, methodical death march. It's not just this album, or this band, but at this time there is no better example of "herd-follow the leader" behavior on a mass level I can think of.
With that off my back--to hell with the herd--I am building my own castle!
