GUNS N' ROSES: 'Greatest Hits' Sells 85K Copies In One Week As Part Of 25-Cent Promotion

March 21, 2012

GUNS N' ROSES' "Greatest Hits" collection, which was originally released in March of 2004, saw a huge digital sales increase this week, up 618 percent to land at position No. 3 on The Billboard 200 chart, after shifting nearly 85,000 copies as part of the 25-cent Amazon price-matching promotions from the new competitor Google Play (both Amazon and Google Play were offering the album digitally for only 25 cents for one day only).

"Greatest Hits" has sold more than 5.2 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

GUNS N' ROSES frontman Axl Rose, along with ex-members Slash and Duff McKagan, tried to block the release of "Greatest Hits" with a lawsuit, claiming that the record label had assembled the CD without their input. The band's label, Geffen Records, insisted that it was forced to put out a greatest hits album since Axl Rose had failed to deliver the long-delayed new GUNS album, "Chinese Democracy".

"Chinese Democracy", the 2008 album released by the current edition of GUNS N' ROSES after a 15-year wait, re-entered The Billboard 200 chart in April 2011 after it was made available at BestBuy.com for a reduced price of $1.99.

Best Buy was the exclusive U.S. retailer for "Chinese Democracy", reportedly paying $14 million for 1.6 million copies. But the album was a major sales disappointment, moving just 649,000 copies to date despite the curiosity and hype surrounding its release.

The CD was officially certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on February 3, 2009 for shipments in the United States in excess of one million copies.

Aside from Billboard and Spinner interviews and answering a number of fan questions at a GUNS N' ROSES message board, singer Axl Rose has done no promotion of any kind for "Chinese Democracy".

"Chinese Democracy" came out 15 years after its predecessor, 1993's "The Spaghetti Incident". It took more than a decade to record, during which every original member of the band except Rose was replaced and four different producers were used.

Nevertheless, Rose hinted in a 2002 interview that the lengthy sessions for the record had left him with enough material for two follow-ups.

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