Maiden-influenced in their early days? Does that mean they turned more towards 80's pop metal later on?

While I agree with you in general, there must be something good about the Terminator movie that is being made because Christian Bale signed on to play John Connor. Maybe he's doing it for the paycheck, but I doubt it. He never signs onto something without knowing that it's a solid project (ie, read the script and love/like the premise). The director for the film is a hack, but maybe the script is very good and the movie will turn out a lot better than the director's reputation would lead us to believe.

100% agreed. It's still early, but that is the most fucktarded article I have read this year...and I'm sure it'll stay near the top all year.

When it comes down to it I might just download it. Axl dug his own grave by not releasing it sooner and I'd rather spend my $15 on seeing The Dark Knight a couple more times.

After all, I can easily download and listen to an album in high quality from a torrent, but I cannot recreate a huge ass movie theater screen. Buying an album is nowhere near as novel as seeing a movie at a theater because you're going to listen to it pretty much the same way regardless of whether you download it in lossless or buy the CD of it.

Linkin Park's newest album has only sold 2 million and it has been pretty popular. They sold 10 million back before record sales completely tanked with their debut Hybrid Theory. That was 2000. The industry has changed a lot since then.

I think it can easily be argued that they don't have similar target customers. GN'R is now a fleshed out version of the UYI epic songs like "November Rain" and "Estranged." Axl has complete control over the band now. Slash, Duff, and Matt took quite a few of the hard rock GN'R fans with them when they formed VR. Do we all love the hard rock by GN'R? Hell yeah, but we also appreciate Axl's unique talent (one of the most unique voices in pop music). However, the GN'R sound is not anywhere near as hard as it was in the 80's or hell even on some of the UYI songs like Perfect Crime and so on. VR is far more similar to AC/DC and Metallica than the new version of GN'R.

Both UYI albums are certified 7x platinum. That's 14 million albums sold at the same frickin' time. Still not as huge as Appetite, which sold 15 million in the U.S. Hell, Sabbath was never even that popular, let alone Ozzy on his own. Still though, I think you are right that Chinese Democracy will struggle. It's a completely different time. The option is available to download stuff for free even if you do want to buy it, just to make sure it's a good product. In the past, you might pay $15 and feel completely ripped off by the album you just bought. That no longer exists, and many people who download don't even bother buying so that causes even more harm to sales in the industry.

Someone in this thread said that GN'R needs to put out music that is ground-breaking in order to reach the heights of old GN'R in sales. All I'll say is CD could be the best album ever made and it won't come anywhere near Appetite numbers or even UYI1 or UYI2. Hell, the Beatles couldn't get an album to sell 15 million copies in today's time. It's just the way of the world now. If you sell 2 million you're doing very good. 3-4 million is the new 10 million in my opinion.