The sales figures are finally in, and after a nearly 17-year wait, Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy scanned just 261,200 copies, earning the album the #3 position on Billboard's weekly albums sales chart — right behind Taylor Swift's Fearless at #2 (with 267,400 sold) and Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak, which opens at #1 with sales of 450,000 and change.

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. Read more...

Let me get this straight. Dr Pepper lays down the gauntlet for Axl Rose and dares him to release Chinese Democracy this year by promising to give everyone in America a free soda if the reclusive rocker can finally pull the trigger on the mythological unicorn of an album. So Axl delivers and ... Dr Pepper doesn't? Nice work, soda jerk.

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." Read more...

By Dan "Monty" Montalto

Long before either album leaked in its final retail form, many of us here in the newsroom were asking the same question: Who will win this week's epic showdown between Kanye West and Guns N' Roses (a.k.a. Axl Rose and a bunch of new guys)?

In this corner, we have Kanye West with 808s & Heartbreak, which comes just 14 months after Graduation bested 50 Cent's Curtis on the charts. He managed to put together 808s in a year marked by lots of touring and lots and lots of appearances at awards shows (seriously, does this guy ever NOT get invited?). Not only has 808s been on repeat in the newsroom all week, but we've been recounting some of our early Kanye memories right here on the blog.

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In late October, MTV News brought you details of Dr Pepper's offer to provide every American with a free can of the pop should Guns N' Roses release their eagerly awaited album Chinese Democracy in 2008. Now, here's an update on the soda maker's vow.

Yesterday — the day the GN'R record hit stores — Dr Pepper's site was flooded with visitors looking to cash in on the deal. Due to overwhelming demand and several site issues, Dr Pepper has extended the offer until 6 p.m. today; the deal was originally set to expire last night at midnight. Participants have until February 28 to redeem their coupon for a 20-ounce can of the drink.
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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!)
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If you've ever had the chance to spend more than five minutes in the company of Jesse "The Devil" Hughes, the gloriously mustached Eagles of Death Metal frontman, then you know he's a ladies man. The mistake I made yesterday — when four of us MTV Newsers met up with Hughes to discuss his thoughts on Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy — was not bringing along a crew full of burly men to shoot the interview.

You see, whenever we do in-person interviews, we send a gang of people to get the footage we need. Usually, this includes a person from production management, a segment producer, a shooter to work the camera and the person who conducts the interview (me). For Hughes' interview, I was accompanied by three of the lovely ladies I work with, and as expected, Hughes couldn't contain himself.

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On September 17, 1991, Guns N' Roses released Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, their last albums of original material to date (we're not counting 1993's The Spaghetti Incident? because it was a covers album ... and also because it's kind of lousy). There is a pretty good chance that you did not read early reviews of either Illusion album on a blog, because the World Wide Web was only one month old at the time. You probably didn't send your friend a text about how awesome "November Rain" was, because the first person-to-person SMS message wouldn't be made for more than two years. And you most certainly didn't import either album onto your iPod, because MP3 encoding was still nearly three years away (and the iPod another 10).

Suffice to say, the last time we had W. Axl Rose in our lives, the world was a very different place. Read more...

Now that the November 23 release date for Guns N' Roses' oft-delayed, more-than-a-decade-in-the-making album, Chinese Democracy, seems to be a reality, Dr Pepper owes every American a can of soda.

Back in March, the beverage company said that it would give every man, woman, and a child in the U.S. a free can of Dr. Pepper should Guns N' Roses release Chinese Democracy before the close of 2008. And now, the event no one — certainly not the folks at Dr Pepper — thought would happen is rapidly approaching.

"We never thought this day would come," Tony Jacobs, vice president of marketing for Dr Pepper, said in a statement issued Wednesday. "But now that it's here, all we can say is: The Dr Pepper's on us." Read more...

Kevin Cogill says he didn't do it. The 27-year-old Los Angeles resident pleaded innocent on Monday in federal court to posting nine songs from Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy online earlier this year. According to Reuters, Cogill, who is charged with violating federal copyright law, will face trial at a yet-unspecified date. The blogger was arrested in August after the FBI claimed he posted nine songs from the long-awaited album on his site, AntiQuiet.com.
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It's been 17 years since Guns N' Roses released a studio album full of fresh material — the one-two punch that was 1991's Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II — and in that long stretch, fans have learned one thing: Axl Rose refuses to rush the creative process. OK, they've also learned that a lot of lies can be told over 17 years and that a band can still tour successfully, even if that band looks nothing like anyone remembers.

Now that Hits Daily Double is reporting a firm November 23 release date for Chinese Democracy, the wait for some fresh GN'R — at least in the way Rose meant for it to be heard — looks like it may soon be over. It also got us to thinking about what's transpired since Guns N' Roses' last studio LPs dropped. And the short answer is "a lot." Read more...