Bruce Springsteen may have gotten some major love at the Golden Globes last night, but he wasn't the only musician who helped make "The Wrestler" such an amazing movie. As Mickey Rourke reminded everyone during his acceptance speech for Best Actor, fellow bad boy Axl Rose provided "Sweet Child O' Mine" at a severely discounted price.

Rourke "Wrestler" director Darren Aronofsky recently stopped by the MTV News offices to talk about the movie, and told us a bit about how they managed to get the GNR song. ...

Of course, this isn't the first time Rourke has given Axl and GNR their due props: There is a shout-out in "The Wrestler" itself when Randy "The Ram" Robinson (Rourke) and his stripper friend Cassidy (Marisa Tomei) are hanging out at a bar listening to '80s metal:

Randy : They don't make 'em like they used to.
Cassidy: F---in' '80s, man, best sh-- ever !
Randy: Bet yer a--, man, Guns N' Roses rules!

For more from our sit-down with Rourke and Aronofsky, check back in later this week for our full Rough Cut!

It was a very exciting 2008 here in the MTV Newsroom. It was a year of triumph and tragedy, a year of secret weddings and pregnancies, a year of overcoming adversity and a year of inspiration and change.

2008 brought us everything from the shocking death of Heath Ledger and the tragedy that befell Jennifer Hudson and her family, to the reinvention of Britney Spears and the successes of "The Dark Knight" and Tha Carter III. Your favorite artists and celebrities eloped (is it legal yet, Speidi?), married overseas (nice tats, Mariah and Nick) and got hitched in secret (thanks for finally admitting to that, Jay and B). They had babies and — in true Hollywood style — named them strange things (I am available to babysit when Bronx befriends Brooklyn and they have a play-date in Manhattan. Just saying.). And, Chinese Democracy actually materialized, to the delight of Dr. Pepper fans.

As 2008 reaches the finish line, we have compiled a collection of the best photos of 2008 that represent the stories that filled the pixels of our Web site all year long. We look forward to all the excitement and insanity 2009 will bring!

Two weeks ago, GN'R's latest was considered a strong contender for the chart's peak position, with some predicting the album would outperform West's 808s in a close race for #1. Instead, history may show Chinese Democracy's first-week sales as an epic failure.

So, what exactly went wrong? Was it a byproduct of an exclusive deal with Best Buy? Recent albums by the likes of AC/DC and the Eagles were both released exclusively through Wal-Mart (which boasts more locations than Best Buy), and both debuted at #1 with more than 700,000 sold. Did Rose sign an exclusive deal with the wrong retailer?

Did the complete lack of music videos and mainstream press (Rose had not granted any media interviews around the album's release) hurt the album's sales? Or did the LP's extensive delay stymie interest? After all, 17 years is a long time to wait; some spouses don't even wait that long for incarcerated loved ones.

Was it the innumerable online song leaks over the years, or will the economy be blamed for the album's third-place finish? Perhaps, for a band that was popular 20 years ago, selling 261,000-plus records is a real achievement — especially in this day and age, when albums aren’t always bought, but illegally downloaded.

What do you think hurt first-week sales of Chinese Democracy? Share your thoughts below.

Rose's lawyer took a swipe at Dr Pepper last week, saying the drink maker didn't deliver on its pledge to give out the free sodas. Keep in mind, GN'R had nothing to do with the stunt. (Though wouldn't it be great if somehow this were all some bizarre viral campaign and you could hear Dr Pep jingles when you played the CD backwards, if that's even possible?)

Los Angeles-based lawyer Alan Gutman penned a poison letter to Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. President and CEO Larry Young, calling the company's online coupon-redemption scheme an "unmitigated disaster, which defrauded customers." Gutman also insisted that the beverage maker extend its offer and place full-page apologies in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal.

Again, GN'R was not involved in the original campaign, but now that it has allegedly tanked, the attorney says he originally saw it as an "exploitation of my clients' legendary reputation and their eagerly awaited album," adding that the promotion "brazenly violated our clients' rights."

But here comes the kicker: The band is now seeking "appropriate payment ... for the unauthorized use and abuse of their publicity and intellectual-property rights," threatening to take legal action if Dr Pepper doesn't clean up the sticky mess. Gutman argues that the whole idea of the campaign was to use interest in the album to hype sales of the drink, but now he's upset that the "mocking undertones" of the online promotion represent a "raw and damaging commercial exploitation of our clients' rights," and that the whole thing is even more detrimental to the GN'R name because the soda scheme was botched.

Dr Pepper put out a press release in March offering a free soda to any American if Democracy came out before the end of the year. The notoriously litigious Rose didn't take any action over the promotion, likely because he was busy remixing the album for the 900th time.

According to reports, the Dr Pepper Web site's servers crashed under the crush of demand for the coupons, so the soda maker extended its offer one more day, though some fans still weren't able to claim their soda via the site or a toll-free phone number.

"Dr Pepper was completely unprepared for the traffic to its site," Gutman wrote in the letter, describing the promotion as a "complete fiasco." Dr Pepper could not be reached for comment at press time. But just to summarize: Dr Pepper made the offer (mockingly, we suspect), and GN'R didn't care. Dr Pepper allegedly dropped the ball, and now GN'R are pissed that their image has been damaged. Welcome to the jungle.

MTV has had quite a lengthy and, um, interesting relationship with Mr. W. Axl Rose — one that has spanned decades, musical genres (metal, pseudo-industrial, sorta rap-rock) and, of course, cornrows.

Our cameras have been there at basically every step of Rose's career: from Guns N' Roses' first appearance on "Headbangers Ball" in 1987 to their ascent to legendary status in '91 and then through the bevy of beefs, arrests and in-band bickering that eventually led to their demise. And, for the most part, one man has been in front of (or beside) those cameras: Kurt Loder.

So after combing our vaults to find the most Awesome Axl Moments on MTV, we decided to sit down with Kurt to get his take on the man himself — and luckily, he also had more than a few truly excellent Axl stories to share with us before the release of Chinese Democracy.

(More of Kurt's Axl stories, after the jump!)

On Axl, The Man:

"Well, I think Axl is a little out of control, which is the way you should be if you're going to be a big rock star with the limos and all that," Loder said. "You should be out of control, and you should never know what's going to happen next, so I thought that was great. That doesn't happen at that level any more, because I think bands arrive at that level with all kinds of attorneys and handlers and stuff. They sort of pose as rebels, but they're not dangerous. Nothing's going to happen around them. Whereas with Axl, you never knew. Because I think he was on drugs or something, I don't know. He was a very talented guy. He could be very, very nice, and he could all of a sudden be prickly. So, it was always interesting to be around him."

On Axl's Post-Bail Limo Trip In 1992:

"Oh yeah, it was totally prearranged. Totally corny, totally prearranged. All set up in advance. [Axl] was inside signing autographs for the cops; they loved him. He had started a fight a year earlier, outside of St. Louis, and there was a fugitive warrant out for him, so he was arrested when he arrived at JFK Airport in New York. They brought him down to the jailhouse and kept him there overnight or something, so we went there, got the limo, he got in and we talked to him. It was all preplanned, of course. But he was in a jolly mood, you know? And then he went on to start a tour. ... He also started wearing a lot of Versace [around then]. Maybe it was the Elton John period."

On Axl, The Myth:

"It's a shame that people who claim to be revolutionary and dangerous today, they just aren't. I'm sure there are a million bands at a lower level, but when you reach the big chart level, you're not going to endanger anything. Whereas Axl Rose can take 16 years to make a record, still keep his record label, after 16 years of having various studios on hold around the clock, and make it work. He's finally put the record out. Who else could do that? Nobody." [Editor's note: If there's a band working that angle these days, it's Hinder — check out what they have to say about Chinese Democracy here.]

On Axl's 1992 VMA Performance With Elton John, And His Backstage Beef With Kurt Cobain:

"Axl had that song 'One in a Million' ... and he tried to explain that 'n-----' didn't necessarily mean 'black person,' and he tried to explain the 'f----t' thing, so he got together with Elton John. You know, Elton John got together with Eminem. He's there to save souls, I think. So, the two of them up there, with the pianos — it was a little weird, you know? The backstage thing was the most interesting, because it was Courtney [Love] and it was Kurt [Cobain] and it was Axl. It was like two worlds colliding. That was sort of an important moment in the way fashions changed, and you really saw the culture of music going in a slightly different way. But it didn't last, did it? The guys in the flannel shirts started buying Gucci too."

On Axl's 2002 VMA Performance:

"Well, nobody knew about it. Really nobody knew about it. And then [MTV Executive VP] Dave [Sirulnick] came to me and said, 'You should really come over to see this.' It was the night before the show, and they were doing a rehearsal, and it was Axl. And you just thought, 'Where's he been? What decade are we in?' And he had this big band — and they were a great band, you know — but he was doing Guns N' Roses material, and they were great. It really was a surprise. And when he came out, it was like the Pee-Wee Herman moment."

On Axl, The Legend ... And The Dinner-Party Host:

"I think, even as eccentric as Axl seems, he really is who he is. It's not really an act or anything. I think maybe he had some problems with kind of ... keeping it together in public, which would be storming off the stage or jumping into the pit to wrestle cameras out of fans' hands. But that's just the way he is. He's not at all pretentious. And it's good to have him back. I think Sebastian Bach was telling me that he thought Axl should get out of the house more, because he spent years just giving dinners — he had a big long table and people would come eat. But I had heard that Sebastian told him 'Axl, you're Axl. Why don't we go out occasionally?!' And he started getting him to go to nightclubs occasionally, which was probably a good thing."

People, I wouldn't believe it if I weren't actually thumbing through the liner notes, but Chinese Democracy is real. It arrived via messenger from Geffen's offices about an hour ago, and so far, I'm not even halfway through the music — the music I've already heard over the years, thanks to the myriad of leaks that have occurred. I'm more interested in the artwork and what's inside the CD booklet.

What I can tell you is that this booklet cost a lot of money to produce. It's got fancy gold ink throughout, and pictures of Axl Rose, Buckethead and everyone else who worked on the album the last 16 years. The 22-page book features all of the songs' lyrics, and three pages are devoted just to the album credits. One whole page was allotted to Axl's many "thank yous," which include shout-outs to Kid Rock, Avenged Sevenfold, Papa Roach, Weezer, Alice in Chains, CKY, Korn, Helmet, Hoobastank, Mickey Rourke, Billy Howerdel of A Perfect Circle, Lars Ulrich and the rest of Metallica, Donatella Versace and, of course, Sebastian Bach. What — no love for the Eagles of Death Metal?

I've got to admit, there was some small part of me that thought maybe, just maybe, Axl would do something at the 11th hour to prevent this album from coming out ... again. But now that it's in my hot little hands, I stand corrected — shame on me for not getting my hopes up prior to today.

[This entry was originally posted at 5:16 p.m. ET on 11.18.08.]