According to Hits Daily Double, the long awaited, 17 years in the making, Guns 'N Roses album ("Chinese Democracy") won't claim the expected number one spot on the Billboard 200.

That honor belongs to Kanye West.

My how times have changed....Today, past success is no longer a rock solid guarantee of a successful future. #2 is honorable, but not the numbers expected for this highly anticipated and assumed to be legendary release.

Happy Thanksgiving.

jamie

ps- Those SD Card album releases I saw at Wal-Mart today? DOOMED! No one wants to pay 30% more money for an SD card than a traditional CD. More of the failing old school music industry mindset. Trying to get the consumer to respond to their technology. They should be searching to implement technology that responds to the consumer!

From Hits Daily Double:

November 26, 2008
Kanye’s the king of Thanksgiving week.

West's Roc-a-Fella/Def Jam album, 808s and Heartbreak, in which he tackles the Auto-Tuner and his own inner demons, will be #1 on next Tuesday’s chart with a total that looks to be between 450-500k.

That’ll be more than enough to beat back Axl Rose and his first Guns N’ Roses album in some 15 years, Chinese Democracy, which will move around 300k, more or less, out of Best Buy outlets. And that’s including the 25k or so not counted opening week at iTunes for the Sunday release.
Ludacris’ Island Def Jam album, Theater of the Mind, looks good for 225k, followed by the other one of IDJ’s big holiday power trio, The Killers’ Day and Age, clocking in with 200k more or less.

Finally, what would the turkey shoot be without Barry Manilow? The "Copacabana" guy scores 85k for his new Arista/RMG album, The Greatest Songs of the Eighties, thanks to huge QVC sales.
Coldplay’s Prospekt’s March EP on Capitol will chalk up between 75-80k, while Capitol Nashville’s Trace Adkins appears headed for the 40-45k area for his new album, X.

After some Monday confusion over release dates (all three major circulars advertised the IDJ albums coming on Tuesday), the numbers seem back to normal.
Meanwhile, the market was up 6% vs. last week, down 32% vs. same week last year and now down 14% year to date. Feels like a tryptophan hangover even before the turkey is served.

¶ 11/27/2008