Democracy in China?

After a mere 10 years, Guns ‘n’ Roses is releasing their new album aptly titled Chinese Democracy. For a while, it seemed that the album release had about as much of a chance of being released as the Communist government of China allowing a vote to take place for their next leader. Well, the cd goes on sale at Best Buy on Sunday, November 23rd. This was really great for Best Buy, that is until MySpace Music began streaming the cd in full on Thursday of this week.

As of today, Friday morning the 21st, the first song of the new album had been streamed almost 800,000 times in the time period of just over 24 hours. Not bad. So, the question now is how many people will turn out to purchase the physical cd.

The answer to that question will shed light on a few trends. For instance, will older bands such as Guns ‘n’ Roses continue to sell physical albums to their older listening base? Take the recent success of AC/DC at Wal*Mart. Also at stake, especially in this economy, is if people will want to have ownership of the songs as opposed to only having the ability to stream the songs whenever they want.

It is pretty neat to be able to stream this album after the 10 year wait, and before it can be purchased in the store. My how things have changed since Guns ‘n’ Roses was releasing tapes.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com