Chinese Democracy Out December 5th??

[The Legend]

AFD was also a flop initially.

AFD was one of those albums that started slow, and gradually got better and better.

But it wasn't because they CHOSE no promotion, it's because NO ONE would promote them. They were considered sleazy. Hell, David Geffen had to ask MTV as a personal favor to him, if they'd play the WTTJ video, and they did, and even when they played it the first time, it was like 5am in the morning, when they figured no one was watching.

Titanic? I don't get that analogy. Titanic was a huge smash when it was first released, and stayed on top to become the most successful film of all time.

I don't see why a band whould CHOOSE to make less money. This isn't 1987, this isn't GN'R trying to kickstart a career. They are already an established franchise of a band. Publicity does nothing but milk the cash cow that's already dripping.

[destroier]

A bunch of publicity makes it fizzle out fast. If you sell two million copies the first week people are talking about it for a week and that's it sales dry up after a couple weeks and it disappears. If you have no promotion and sell 500k a week, you keep people talking about and end up with a bunch of free promotion.

I wasn't talking about the Titanic DVD, I was talking about the movie. If I remember right that started off slow and continued at a mediocre pace for a long time. Star Wars and Spiderman 2 both had HUGE opening weekends and then fell off a cliff despite excellent reviews.

[crthiel]

Actually I'm pretty sure spiderman had a few phenomenal weekends. I'm pretty sure its second and third weeks were the best second and third weeks of a movie ever...or at least its up there. I don't feel like checking box office mojo right now.

[The Legend]

A bunch of publicity makes it fizzle out fast. If you sell two million copies the first week people are talking about it for a week and that's it sales dry up after a couple weeks and it disappears. If you have no promotion and sell 500k a week, you keep people talking about and end up with a bunch of free promotion.

I wasn't talking about the Titanic DVD, I was talking about the movie. If I remember right that started off slow and continued at a mediocre pace for a long time. Star Wars and Spiderman 2 both had HUGE opening weekends and then fell off a cliff despite excellent reviews.

I know what you were talking about. Titanic cost $200mil to make. It's opening weekend it made $28mil. That's about what films were opening at in 1997, not to mention the fact at that time Leo DiCaprio was a relative no-name, who most only remembered from 'Growing Pains'. It put him back on the map. At the time, the bigger stars in the film had mediocre to small roles.

As for CD, i'm not saying this isn't a cool idea. I think it's very unique to just drop it in stores, if that's what they're gonna do. Very mysterious, and very Axl.

But i'm just interested to watch how it plays out financially. If it's a masterpiece, sales will reflect that, and the album will be big. But personally i'm wondering if the hype is just that... hype.

Personally people were hating back before the Illusions came out, and both of those albums contained the best GNR songs ever done, surpassing songs on AFD. Of course, i'm speaking of Coma & Estranged.

Who knows, maybe CD will do the same...

[grog mug]

I say we wait until next week to see if the single rumor is true.  If it is, then the album will be here in a months time.