No, no, I think (assuming we don't have to wait several more years) this will do about two million in sales; like that last Jacko album, it'll draw out the diehards and the curious. Modern rock radio will embrace a single or two, but—like Invincible—it'll ultimately prove to be out-of-step with today's commercial climate, and any heat this album generates will be gone within six months.
I think the difference is Invincible sounded (or tried to sound) exactly like his old stuff, while the songs that have leaked off of Chinese Democracy don't sound much like old GnR.
The real difference is that a lot of people think Michael Jackson is a child molester and don't want shit to do with him.
Michael Jackson and Axl Rose are both famous, extremely troubled celebrities.
Jackson was, at one time, the biggest pop star there was. The allegations of child molestation and the realization that he was a creepy, stunted manchild played a part in his decline, true, but so did his inability to continue to produce music that people gave much a damn about. The 80s became the 90s and Michael Jackson was bound to lose steam, anyway. He no longer fits.
Guns n Roses, while at one time very, very popular, were nowhere near Jackson's level of superstardom. So Axl didn't need to play rubba in a hot tub with 13-year-old boys for his star to fall, but being a egomaniacal asshole who routinely cancels concerts based on his primadonna whim and then taking an enternity to release a new album that still hasn't come out and possibly might not even be released in his own lifetime is more than enough to render him irrelevant to many in today's pop/rock climate. The 90s became the 21st century and Axl Rose may no longer fit.
Well, of course, that much is obvious. The point is that Axl's dickishness isn't as much of a turnoff as the allegations against Jackson. If people heard a song by MJ that they liked, the whole "yeah, but he was charged with child molestation" might be enough to turn someone away from buying the album. Very few people are going to say "Oh, well this is the dick who caused that riot in Philly so I'm not going to buy this album" assuming they like a Chinese Democracy song, because Axl's trangressions aren't nearly as severe in the public eye as those Jackson was accused off.
This stuff pales in comparison to the fact that Invincible's relative failure was largely due to the fact that it wasn't that good. Will Chinese Democracy be good? Well, obviously not to the Incandenzas and Bankys of the world, but if it appeals to a mass audience? Well, then the irrelevance argument fades, because he's no longer "irrelevant" if he's popular with today's fans. But Inc's argument is based upon the belief that modern rock radio and fans of today won't embrace the album because Axl is out-of-touch, which is merely conjecture at this point. I mean, have you heard some of the stuff that is popular these days? Hinder's "Lips of an Angel" is the number 3 single this week, and even though I've never heard it, the AMG review of that album made it sound like the dumbest piece of ass-rock shit ever put on this earth. I'd have a hard time believing that GNR's "The Blues" couldn't reach those heights. No one could say that those songs that are popular today don't have a decade of hype and expectations behind them, but among the dumb 18 to 21-year-old girls who live in my college dorm, I would bet that the majority of them have no idea of the whole Chinese Democracy myth, but I'm sure they all have "November Rain" and "Sweet Child o' Mine" in their iTunes libraries and I could totally see them giving a new GNR record a chance, at least.
