In two of the earliest charts to show up Guns n’ Roses, `Chinese Democracy` has had a poor showing in both. The album has failed to hit the top of both the Australian and the New Zealand charts.
In Australia, ‘Chinese Democracy’ failed to dislodge Pink and Kings of Leon. The Pink album ‘Funhouse’ after 5 weeks and the Kings of Leon album ‘Only By The Night’ after 11 weeks have had better traction this week in Australia than the much-publicized release of ‘Chinese Democracy’.A number three debut is normally considered an excellent result, but with the newsworthiness of the Gunners release, the expectation was far greater than the result.
The weak debut became obvious a week ago when pre-release first day sales came in the lukewarm figure of 3,454 units.
Stores put the ‘Chinese Democracy’ album on sale as soon as they received it, breaking the official release date embargo. For the core fan, that is pay dirt. They spend up fast so they can hear the album first.
In similar instances, when stores broke embargo for Pink, ‘Funhouse’ sold 7,120 units. Early sales for Kings of Leon ‘Only By The Night’ were 4,751. AC/DC ‘Black Ice’ sold 7,265 pre-release and Metallica ‘Death Magnetic’ moved 4,849 units before it was meant to be sold.
The broken embargo trend has given the industry a new benchmark for determining the next week sales. It became obvious with the ‘Chinese Democracy’ pre-sales that it was going to struggle in the first full week’s chart.
In New Zealand, the album debuted at number two, but failed to topple the greatest hits album ‘The Best’ by The Feelers.
The UK and Irish charts will be published tomorrow.
