"We're launching with a monumental campaign"

[jarmo]

I want my favorite band to succeed.

Ironic.

The way to make them succeed is to put them down and all those who truly try to make them succeed.

The bizarre thing is, that they don't seem to want to, at least commercially.

From my experience, GN'R is the ultimate rock band. They do things their way.

Always been like that.

Can you, Jarmo, honestly say you feel Axl (I won't say the band, because of BBF's travels) has put in more promotion than Best Buy? If not, why do you think that's the case so far?

The promotion hasn't been what it should've been.

Reading Axl's answer it's clear that things didn't go as he had hoped.


But, Axl did something he's never done before. He took questions from fans for hours and hours and answered them.

Maybe you don't see it as promotion. But he spoke directly to us. We didn't have to buy a magazine to read somebody else's questions or watch it on Youtube....




And also, I think there's still plenty of time for promotion.

Just because we haven't seen much yet doesn't mean we never will.




/jarmo

[TomFriend]

I want my favorite band to succeed.

Ironic.

The way to make them succeed is to put them down and all those who truly try to make them succeed.

The bizarre thing is, that they don't seem to want to, at least commercially.

From my experience, GN'R is the ultimate rock band. They do things their way.

Always been like that.

Can you, Jarmo, honestly say you feel Axl (I won't say the band, because of BBF's travels) has put in more promotion than Best Buy? If not, why do you think that's the case so far?

The promotion hasn't been what it should've been.


Reading Axl's answer it's clear that things didn't go as he had hoped.




And also, I think there's still plenty of time for promotion.

Just because we haven't seen much yet doesn't mean we never will.




/jarmo

I really don't see where I put them down, other than saying Axl hasn't done any visible promotion, which he sure as hell hasn't, unless you count talking with fans who'd all already bought the album. (Which I'm not devaluing either. That was amazing for us diehards, but of course we're not the ones who need convincing to buy.)

R.E. ultimate rock band thing...agreed - almost frustratingly so at times, but fuck it. Rather have them be frustrating than have no integrity.

'Just because we haven't seen much yet doesn't mean we never will.' - True, but the longer they leave it, the more of an uphill battle they have. I'm in Europe at the moment, and have not seen or heard jack shit to indicate that 'Better', possibly the most commercial song on the album, has been released as a single. You know as well as I do how the press are about GNR. People are literally queuing up to yell "failure". I'm sure you also know that in order for an album to be a big hit, it has to sell well outside of the core fanbase, and as terms like 'commercial flop' start to be bandied around, the chances of that decrease.

Don't get me wrong - I'd take a creatively stunning and commercially underwhelming album over the reverse any day. That's what we have at the moment.

One things for sure. For better or worse, I'm sure few people pictured the wake of the album release being like this.

On a superficial level, like a lot of fans I don't have any reason to care if the album sells well or not. But the worry of whether disappointing figures will affect future releases or tours does play on our minds, I think.

[jarmo]

I really don't see where I put them down, other than saying Axl hasn't done any visible promotion, which he sure as hell hasn't,

From my experience, a majority of complaints from fans aren't aimed at the record company, promoters, Best Buy and so on. Even though that's where the complaints might need to be aimed at.

It's always "they should do this, they should do that" or "Axl should...". Nobody takes into consideration that there's probably a bigger equation that you need to consider before you can even start making comments like that.



In this case, Axl explained himself so going on and on about it after we got an explanation doesn't serve a real purpose. Does it?

Well unless pointing out, that Axl didn't promote the album as he originally had planned, makes you feel better...




/jarmo

[oldgunsfan]

I got the overall sense from Axl that the marketing plans/campaign were excellent (emphasize plans!) but the execution of those plans sucked; and pretty much disregarded-or did I read that wrong

[duga]

I got the overall sense from Axl that the marketing plans/campaign were excellent (emphasize plans!) but the execution of those plans sucked; and pretty much disregarded-or did I read that wrong

I read that too.

[cineater]

Me too.

[King Axl]

I think an Axl cover story with Rolling Stone or Entertainment Weekly certainly could have helped gain exposure for the new lineup and the CD's release.

I mean, sure, Axl's a reclusive guy, but maybe just a print story to mark the arrival of the infamous Chinese Democracy? It probably would have helped with the initial wave of sales, for sure.

[cineater]

I think it's time to leave this whole mess behind and move.  Go back to what GNR do best and tour.  Sold out shows means somebody can sell a few cd's if they get their shit together, take advantage of it if they want.  Start with South America and tour the world.

[oldgunsfan]

I want my favorite band to succeed.

Ironic.

The way to make them succeed is to put them down and all those who truly try to make them succeed.

The bizarre thing is, that they don't seem to want to, at least commercially.

From my experience, GN'R is the ultimate rock band. They do things their way.

Always been like that.

Can you, Jarmo, honestly say you feel Axl (I won't say the band, because of BBF's travels) has put in more promotion than Best Buy? If not, why do you think that's the case so far?

The promotion hasn't been what it should've been.

Reading Axl's answer it's clear that things didn't go as he had hoped.


But, Axl did something he's never done before. He took questions from fans for hours and hours and answered them.

Maybe you don't see it as promotion. But he spoke directly to us. We didn't have to buy a magazine to read somebody else's questions or watch it on Youtube....




And also, I think there's still plenty of time for promotion.

Just because we haven't seen much yet doesn't mean we never will.


/jarmo

several days after, I  read various online "news sources" that twisted Axl's words with misleading headlines that would lead someone that hadn't read the entire Q&A section to have quite the negative view on Axl.  After reading the Q&A and then the reporting of the Q&A; I can see why Axl wouldn't want to do interviews with anyone

[Axl Z]

"Dr Pepper and Mickey Rourke are launching a monumental campaign" should be the title of this topic!

[GNR4L]

Sounds like to me their gonna re release this baby with new covers and correct booklets.  Axl said that he's scheduled interviews at a later date on intentionally.

[marknroses]

People can say that GNR "has always done things their way."

But the GNR way has always been to promote the music. If GNR doesn't promote the music, then they're doing things a new way, and which wasn't the way it was done before. I mean, GNR was touring extensively before they were signed by Geffer between 1985-1986 and were touring for half a year in 1991 before UYI. If you want to count the 2000 wake-up, 2002 disaster and 2006 redemption tours, fine, but that was 2-6-8 years before the album was released. And a majority of the shows featured the vintage GNR songs and only 5-6 of the new ones.

If a spring / summer tour is not announced by next month or March, then CD might as well hang it up for any successful promotion and a monumental campaign will never be known nor will a setlist of mostly new GNR songs. This is not 1987 where GNR can hang around for a year before making a breakthrough. They're already a known band and people know of the record and are wondering when this fucker is getting off the ground.

MNW

[jarmo]

And a majority of the shows featured the vintage GNR songs and only 5-6 of the new ones.

That whole complaint is a lose/lose situation for the bands.

Look at the setlists from recent Metallica shows. 5-6 new songs. With the album out.

Same with AC/DC.


The "only playing 5-6 new songs" is used as something negative in your post, in others it's been about how people already knew half the album due to them hearing so many songs at concerts....

So in your opinion more new songs would've been good, on the other hand people would've known even more of the album!


In other words, the band can't win.

It's impossible to make everyone happy.

This is not 1987 where GNR can hang around for a year before making a breakthrough. They're already a known band and people know of the record and are wondering when this fucker is getting off the ground.

I'm glad you were there to tell Kid Rock to move on after his album had been out for less than two months.....

 



/jarmo

[LunsJail]

And a majority of the shows featured the vintage GNR songs and only 5-6 of the new ones.

That whole complaint is a lose/lose situation for the bands.

Look at the setlists from recent Metallica shows. 5-6 new songs. With the album out.

Same with AC/DC.


The "only playing 5-6 new songs" is used as something negative in your post, in others it's been about how people already knew half the album due to them hearing so many songs at concerts....


/jarmo

I would think this GNR would want to play more than 5-6 new songs now that the album is out.  It's a little different with AC/DC and Metallica as they are playing all songs (old or new) that the majority of the band wrote and recorded.

[adman2374]

And a majority of the shows featured the vintage GNR songs and only 5-6 of the new ones.

That whole complaint is a lose/lose situation for the bands.

Look at the setlists from recent Metallica shows. 5-6 new songs. With the album out.

Same with AC/DC.


The "only playing 5-6 new songs" is used as something negative in your post, in others it's been about how people already knew half the album due to them hearing so many songs at concerts....


/jarmo

I would think this GNR would want to play more than 5-6 new songs now that the album is out.  It's a little different with AC/DC and Metallica as they are playing all songs (old or new) that the majority of the band wrote and recorded.

Exactly right. It's a lot different b/c "Chinese" is with a new line-up, plus, AC/DC and Metallica have a much larger catalogue of songs to choose from since they have put out more albums than gnr, so 5 or 6 new songs on their tour is a lot considering how many songs they have to choose from. gnr should do more new songs b/c they dont have as many songs to choose from.

[adman2374]

And a majority of the shows featured the vintage GNR songs and only 5-6 of the new ones.

That whole complaint is a lose/lose situation for the bands.

Look at the setlists from recent Metallica shows. 5-6 new songs. With the album out.

Same with AC/DC.


The "only playing 5-6 new songs" is used as something negative in your post, in others it's been about how people already knew half the album due to them hearing so many songs at concerts....

So in your opinion more new songs would've been good, on the other hand people would've known even more of the album!


In other words, the band can't win.

It's impossible to make everyone happy.

This is not 1987 where GNR can hang around for a year before making a breakthrough. They're already a known band and people know of the record and are wondering when this fucker is getting off the ground.

I'm glad you were there to tell Kid Rock to move on after his album had been out for less than two months.....

 



/jarmo

That isn't a "complaint" about playing 5 or 6 new songs. He is just stating what was actually played during the tour!

[jarmo]

I would think this GNR would want to play more than 5-6 new songs now that the album is out.  It's a little different with AC/DC and Metallica as they are playing all songs (old or new) that the majority of the band wrote and recorded.

It's possible.

But the thing I was pointing out still remains.

New album release doesn't automatically guarantee a lot of new songs in the set.

And also, pointing out how they played "only 5-6 new songs" before the album was out. It just happens to be quite normal to play that amount of new songs, or so it seems.

So to expect them to play more new songs, on the 2002-, 2006- and 2007-tours, seems kinda weird. That was the whole point.



A band has a big catalog and it prevents them from playing 15 new songs per set? Not really... Maybe it's got more to do with the audiences expecting to hear 75% hits/known material?



Playing new songs in concert isn't necessarily the biggest promotion of a nationwide tour. Sure, playing new songs at a concert will make some go out and buy that album.

But a tour also generates news and publicity.

How often do you see articles have something like "and their new album is in stores now" added when writing about a upcoming concert? 






/jarmo

[Layne Staley's Sunglasses]

I hope they dedicated AT LEAST 45 minutes of a two hour set to new songs.

Loooooove those new songs.

Loooooove that chocolate bobka.

[oldgunsfan]

And a majority of the shows featured the vintage GNR songs and only 5-6 of the new ones.

That whole complaint is a lose/lose situation for the bands.

Look at the setlists from recent Metallica shows. 5-6 new songs. With the album out.

Same with AC/DC.


The "only playing 5-6 new songs" is used as something negative in your post, in others it's been about how people already knew half the album due to them hearing so many songs at concerts....


/jarmo

I would think this GNR would want to play more than 5-6 new songs now that the album is out.  It's a little different with AC/DC and Metallica as they are playing all songs (old or new) that the majority of the band wrote and recorded.

Exactly right. It's a lot different b/c "Chinese" is with a new line-up, plus, AC/DC and Metallica have a much larger catalogue of songs to choose from since they have put out more albums than gnr, so 5 or 6 new songs on their tour is a lot considering how many songs they have to choose from. gnr should do more new songs b/c they dont have as many songs to choose from.

I think it depends soley on the artist.  In a different genre of music, I saw Christina Aguilera at MSG  when she was touring Back to Basics (was curious to see if the voice was as big live as it was on disc) and she pretty much played all of back to basics, 2 songs from stripped (beautiful and Fighter) , and one or two from her pop-tart days (Genie and something else).........same thing when I saw Tesla at the Nokia, they played all the more recent music and heavily supported their most recent release and pretty much ignored Mechanical Resonance and The Great Radio Controversy; which was what I wanted to hear   Of course, i saw them when they were touring for The Great Radio Controversy and they played alot of both those albums

As for a potential GnR tour- It would be great if they played the majority of CD, the majority of AFD, and a few UYI tunes.

[warrocks]

I read in the news that there will be a documentary called GUNS N ROSES:THE ROAD TO  DEMOCRACY... well it was supposed to be launched on January 10th...is it true? it's a double DVD with pictures and unknown backstage scenes etc.  http://www.cronica.com.mx/nota.php?id_nota=406634
the news are in spanish. It's weird cuz I haven't read anyhting on the guns n roses website about it.