Dr, Pepper Chinese Democracy

Reported by www.examiner.com :

Axl Rose has been working on his Chinese Democracy album for more than 15 years now. Most had written it off as an album that wasn't going to happen, but it remained in the news, mostly as a running gag. Dr. Pepper took advantage of the buzz by making a bet with the American public.

If Chinese Democracy is released during 2008, everybody gets a free Dr. Pepper. Well, the unthinkable happened. The album goes on sale today at Best Buy and on MySpace.

In this case, Dr. Pepper wins big by losing. You can get your free Dr. Pepper coupon at DrPepper.com, but you'll have to wait in virtual line. Traffic has been huge. Dr. Pepper is also the hottest search term on Google right now, not to mention that for the next several days, perhaps 10's of millions of people are going to be walking around with a Dr. Pepper in their hands. They get a super-sized street marketing team for just a few pennies per person.

As for the album, I've only heard one track. The instrumentals were okay, but I was disappointed in the vocals. I think Axl is going to have to relinquish the title of "coolest voice in rock" to BuckCherry's Josh Todd. No matter, the album will sell like hotcakes anyway, just due to the historical significance: Longest production time ever.