Chinese Democracy is $1.99 at Best Buy

[jarmo]

Nice!





/jarmo

[Street of the Blues]

Things are gonna change - I can feel it.

[inlikeflynn420]

So i went to Best Buy today and the sticker was still $9.99. I thought maybe they weren't $1.99 at that store so I didn't bother asking anybody. Went online and ordered one to pick up at the same store, for $1.99. What's the deal -- they're $1.99 at the store, but not advertised? If so, I'll probably pick up another one when I go to pick up the one I ordered online.

[Bill 213]

Wow our Best Buy doesn't even sell CDs/LPs anymore.  Maybe just clearing their shelves?  I think a large chunk of retailers are eventually planning to phase out CDs alltogether.

[Bodhi]

Wow our Best Buy doesn't even sell CDs/LPs anymore.  Maybe just clearing their shelves?  I think a large chunk of retailers are eventually planning to phase out CDs alltogether.

yeah the cd section at my best buy is half of what it used to be.

[Lord Kayoss]

My passenger seat after a trip to Best Buy on Saturday.  I now have back ups for life!
  [/img]

Somewhere........Axl is smiling.

[norway]

People still buy cd'`s?

[reayj2003]

Call me a pessimist, but this fire sale from Best Buy essentially will prevent the current lineup of Guns N' Roses from ever recording another album.

There are two sides to every story....most of us here are satisfied with the record, and accept the current lineup in the band. However, judging by the sales of the album, especially here in the U.S., and it has become clear that either people don't want a GN'R without certain former members, and/or they hold a grudge against Axl for believing he destroyed the old band. Another factor is that Chinese Democracy didn't yield a strong single, and there was very little airplay after the title track was released to radio. In addition, nothing on the record bears much resemblance to the "classic GN'R" sound a lot of people came to love the band for.

While the band still can tour and get decent draws outside the U.S., it would appear to me that there will not be another significant tour in America...hard to justify a tour promoting an album that's being cleared out for $1.99.

Really don't think this will be the case! Chinese Democracy secured an IFPI European Platinum Award, having sold more than one million copies in Europe, and had sold 2.6 million units worldwide as of February 2009, according to Universal Music. That is over 2 years ago now....Touring must of bumped sales up a lot sinse then!

[King Axl]

Call me a pessimist, but this fire sale from Best Buy essentially will prevent the current lineup of Guns N' Roses from ever recording another album.

There are two sides to every story....most of us here are satisfied with the record, and accept the current lineup in the band. However, judging by the sales of the album, especially here in the U.S., and it has become clear that either people don't want a GN'R without certain former members, and/or they hold a grudge against Axl for believing he destroyed the old band. Another factor is that Chinese Democracy didn't yield a strong single, and there was very little airplay after the title track was released to radio. In addition, nothing on the record bears much resemblance to the "classic GN'R" sound a lot of people came to love the band for.

While the band still can tour and get decent draws outside the U.S., it would appear to me that there will not be another significant tour in America...hard to justify a tour promoting an album that's being cleared out for $1.99.

Really don't think this will be the case! Chinese Democracy secured an IFPI European Platinum Award, having sold more than one million copies in Europe, and had sold 2.6 million units worldwide as of February 2009, according to Universal Music. That is over 2 years ago now....Touring must of bumped sales up a lot sinse then!

Again, I'm largely talking about the U.S....it doesn't make business sense for any major record label to give Axl/ GN'R Inc a recording contract when the production costs to make Chinese Democracy and the very lukewarm reception upon it's release are now resulting in this fire sale by Best Buy. Axl can't fund a new record by himself, and certainly Geffen records will think twice before determining his future with them.

These exclusive retailer deals have worked for some bands, with the most successful to date being AC/DC's last record, "Black Ice", selling very well through Walmart. On the flip side, you have KISS' "Sonic Boom", which fared poorly despite Walmart's aggressive campaign, as well as Prince's last effort which was sold exclusively through Target. GN'R management will definitely have to look into these larger chains if they were to go the exclusive route with any future recordings. However, I don't see it happening. It's too big of a gamble with the industry taking such a massive hit on sales due to illegal downloads. You can say that the official record suffered from the unfinished tracks being leaked online before it's release, but I think the people who were planning on buying it still did.

The irony is, dare I say it, is that if some pieces of the old Guns came back into the fold, you wouldn't have just interest from all the big labels, but maybe even an outright bidding war. Believe me, all the marketing execs in the industry know that a Guns reunion record would bring in megabucks to them.

[Street of the Blues]

I don't think it'll be too long before we hear songs from Chinese Democracy at Major League Baseball games

[GypsySoul]

So i went to Best Buy today and the sticker was still $9.99. I thought maybe they weren't $1.99 at that store so I didn't bother asking anybody. Went online and ordered one to pick up at the same store, for $1.99. What's the deal -- they're $1.99 at the store, but not advertised? If so, I'll probably pick up another one when I go to pick up the one I ordered online.

I went to a Best Buy today and they only had 3 copies of CD (no vinyls).  They still had the $9.99 sticker on them and there wasn't any signs or anything saying they were on sale for the $1.99.  They were in the main racks where all the regular priced cd's are, NOT in the sales bins or discount racks.

Wonder why BestBuy doesn't mark them with the discount price and place them somewhere to catch the eye of the casual fans??  (well this store doesn't have to worry about that any more cause I took those last 3)

[GnR-NOW]

The put the copies close to the front of the store at the best buy I go to and have them listed as 1.99. There are far less copies now then there was 3 weeks ago. So someone is buying them which is good !

[Street of the Blues]

Good news!

This $1.99 "Fire Sale" has put Guns N' Roses back on BEST BUY's best-selling CDs chart!

Chinese Democracy is currently #4 and climbing! 

[IKnowWhereIAM]

Couldn't resist...all copies still marked $11.99 with no advertising visible...but sure enough, $2.16 with tax!!  Can't pass that one up, even if I just use them for drink coasters.

[axlrosegnr]

Picked up 7 copies this weekend. All they had. They were out of vinyl though, which is what I really went there for.

[D]

Once again, only reason the album is marked down is because Best Buy had the exclusive.


Most albums have tons of surplus but where each store has a small amount, they never get marked down.

I was in Target recently, and they had the exclusive on Prince's last album "Lotus Flower" and they had it marked down also for 1.99.

So its just via the exclusive they have EVERY single unsold copy. I'm sure most released albums have the  same surplus just spread around way more stores.

has no bearing on the quality,popularity or greatness of the band.

[Mysteron]

It is a sign of the times, pardon the Prince mention.

Guns could have released an amazing retail album back in 2000/2001, when downloading was limited to ftp, which was relatively unknown at the time. They could have made amazing videos for singles off CD and I am confident that the album would have produced top 10 singles during that era. Unfo, that did not happen.

The main income they will get now is through touring.

[jarmo]

Guns could have released an amazing retail album back in 2000/2001, when downloading was limited to ftp, which was relatively unknown at the time.

One word: Napster.

Was definitely around in 2000-2001.

It peaked in February 2001.


So downloading wasn't limited to FTP and it wasn't something only a few geeks did. Everybody used Napster.



/jarmo

[norway]

So downloading wasn't limited to FTP and it wasn't something only a few geeks did. Everybody used Napster.

A bit exaggerated imo and people still used CD's.

One big thing with the decisions back then was that they (industri) got greedy and inflated the price on burnable cd's and at the same time made some big releases have those copylimitations or cd's with extra playersoftware. Therefore people used the internet more and more to just get the mp3/file without the limited usage.

Pretty big infringement to personal freedom was it too.

I really think working closer together with the artist, that again are connected to their own audience would create a more stable economy for the buisness in it's full scope. My 2 centz

[jarmo]

Yes, people still bought cds.

But the point I was trying to make was that illegal downloading exploded around 2000-2001 when Napster started becoming popular.

Why do you think they wanted it shut down? Because nobody used it?

Albums leaked and were available for the masses and for free back then too.


The big difference probably is that the teenagers today have grown up with using the Internet to get stuff.




/jarmo