651: The non-release of the Guns N’ Roses album, Chinese Democracy
All of the 885 most memorable musical moments in the countdown are all moments that have actually already happened. There has been one “ongoing” moment in music history -– particularly over the last decade — that we felt needed to be included in this list and that’s the non-release of the forthcoming new Guns N’ Roses album, Chinese Democracy, a record that has been slated for release and then taken off the record release schedule seemingly dozens of times in the last several years. So, we think the “non-release” of Chinese Democracy is worthy of a place in this year’s countdown.
Chinese Democracy has been in the works since 1997. False starts, stop downs in recording and ongoing leaks of the most expensive record ever made (rumors have it nearing $15 million) have peppered the story of the problems surrounding the non-release of the album. In early May 2007, five songs from the album leaked and WXPN got hold of one of them. After playing the song on the radio once, Bruce Warren and Dan Reed received cease and desist e-mails from Guns N’ Roses to stop playing one of the songs on the radio.
The latest news is that Chinese Democracy is once again slated for release on February 12, 2008.