Unfortunately it's sad the way that the music industry has gone.  As many people have said long gone are the days of multiplatinum sales for numerous artists.

Yes I will buy CD and I would expect most people on the GN'R message boards to (hell I even bought Baz's CD even knowing I wouldn't be playing it much).  But the GN'R message boards don't necessarily represent the majority of the music listening public, i.e. the more casual GN'R fan.

For whatever reason today many many people seem to think it's their damn right to be able to download stuff for free without buying it.  The justifications of "if I really like it then I will go and buy a copy" I think is a bit of a cop out.

Imagine me going into a shoe store and saying - let me have that pair of shoes to use for a week and if I like em I might come back and pay for them, if I don't I will just throw em in a bin and you get nothing for em.  I don't care if you put money and effort into the process of putting that shoe on the shelf for me to buy...

To a certain extent the music industry brought a lot of it on themselves by charging so much (it was $30 for a new release CD in Australia for years - and still not much cheaper).  They have also been so slow at keeping up with technological advances and looking at new ways to offer the medium to people (and still make money), so they were caught napping and are now paying the price big time - refer to article re. latest Geffen staff layoffs - ony of many music industry cutbacks in recent times. 

The music industry screwed up by taking a negative view of downloading and invested time and effort into "software protection from piracy, napster litigation etc etc" rather than into innovation to embrace the new technology and try and use it to their and the artists advantage, so they are somewhat to blame for the predicament that they are in for failing to adapt to the new environment.

I have to laugh though when I hear people bitching about the cost of concert tickets, or the cost of the merchandising, or about not being able to bring in their own food and drink to outdoor festivals and as a result having to pay exhorbitant costs for it inside the venue.  Well to a certain extent "suck the puss" you brought it on yourselves.  An artist now has to try and make the lionshare of their income from touring and merchandise - so this is only going to go up.  This is a logical fallout from downloading/stealing.

If you take the downloading thing to an extreme end it makes for some interesting thinking and scenarios.  Assume for a moment that all music released by artists was free and available for download (this is effectively the way it's going based on the current trend whether the artists agreed to it or not their work is available for download - e.g. the full Libertad album was illegally available for download about a week before release), then once it is released there are numerous torrents for albums. 

Ok, so assume for a moment that you could get whatever you want from off the net at no cost - just search for it. - No need to go through those greedy record companies anymore.  This situation may sound perfect for some people but I think it would leave us with a bit of a problem.

How would we possibly search through all the shit on the net to find decent music?  Where is the filter medium?  At the moment radio and to a lesser extent TV are the main filter mediums that supposedly sort out the wheat from the chaff (not very efficiently at times and I know in Oz the radio stations are all pretty stale and "safe" with their playlists).   

But seriously, if there are no record companies paying for airtime to heavily rotate a new single they think has potential (why would they now do this if they can't make anything from selling the artists CD's) - they also won't be financing too many new records either I would suspect (so you end up having to do what Baz did and fund the record himself).

So what are you left with????

If we have largely taken record companies out of the equation, then existing bands would have to finance new records themselves, new bands only if they had the $$'s to bankroll their own CD - or at least a recording to put on the net for free download (why waste time with a CD).  But how do the mainstream find these new bands?  They can't tour until they have some sort of following but how do they develop that and get their exposure?? - Post a clip of their band on youtube (amongst thousands of aspiring others) and hope????

Ok rant over - unfortuantely I don't have the answers.  As soon as I do I will make a fortune putting the ideas in place myself   Just some food for thought.

To anser the original question - yes I will buy CD when it comes out.  I will also buy a copy on vinyl (if they put one out in that format), I will also buy every CD single, 45' and promo item I can get my hands on - but then that's just me I'm a bit fanatical like that.

Thanks for that DTJ I had neverly actually watched that footage before.

Does anyone know if Adler was in the court room as well and did he get up on the stand for questioning also?

Cool thanks they look classic!!!

Nahh - didn't dare ask about CD.  He was actually really cool and in a good mood cracking a few jokes etc. - But I'm sure the guy isn't a big fan of photos!

Yeah, Slash might have bitched and moaned about how difficult it was working with Izzy, but whatever Izzy was doing, it seemed to be pretty effective. 

I agree it would be great to see the effect of input from Izzy on the existing and/or future material from GN'R I think he has a lot to offer.