Chinese Democracy wobbles the ground, but doesn't shake the earth

The first week sales of Chinese Democracy suggests that, perhaps, it might have been better to release the album before most of your fans died of old age:

New reports claim first-week US sales of the long-awaited Guns ‘N’ Roses album, ‘Chinese Democracy’, have reached between 300,000 to 500,000 copies.

The report also claims the album has seen 25,000 downloads through the iTunes Store in the US, though the album won’t show up in the charts until next week.

It's not a bad sale for a new album, but given the circus surrounding the release, and the sort of publicity campaign press people would boil their own feet for, it's not exactly historic.