China Attacks GNR's 'Democracy' Album, While Dr. Pepper Crashes

A newspaper published by China's ruling Communist Party is blasting the latest Guns N' Roses album as an attack on the Chinese nation.

Delayed since recording began in 1994, "Chinese Democracy" hit stores in the U.S. on Sunday, although it is unlikely to be sold legally in China, where censors maintain tight control over films, music and publications.

In an article Monday headlined "American band releases album venomously attacking China," the Global Times said unidentified Chinese Internet users had described the album as part of a plot by some in the West to "grasp and control the world using democracy as a pawn."

The album "turns its spear point on China," the article said.

Songs from the album could be heard on Internet sites such as YouTube and the band's MySpace page on Monday and it was not immediately possible to tell whether China's Internet monitors were seeking to block access to it.

Monitors use content filters that highlight and sometimes block messages containing words such as democracy. That prompted some Internet users to combine English and Chinese characters in their postings about the album to skirt such monitoring.

China approves only limited numbers of foreign films and recordings for distribution each year, partly due to political concerns but also to protect domestic producers.

It was a day that was supposed to be more fun than Christmas, Hanukkah, and International Talk Like a Pirate Day combined, but as millions of jubilant Americans returned home from Best Buy with copies of Guns N' Roses' much-anticipated new album yesterday and tried to log on to drpepper.com to claim their free bottle of soda, they got only disappointment. Despite repeated promises from its manufacturer to furnish every man, woman, and child in America (Slash and Buckethead excepted) with a coupon for a complimentary Dr. Pepper on the day of Chinese Democracy's release, the Website for the popular tooth-rotting beverage became overwhelmed with demand, resulting in error messages, unloaded pages, and widespread sadness. Was it intentional sabotage on the part of a company that didn't want to follow through with an expensive promotion? Or just general Web-based incompetence? Axl worked really hard to make this happen, but the day was ruined (we see they've actually extended the promotion until 6 p.m. today — and we still can't download our coupon).

The Communist Party Of China: The Party-published tabloid Global Times printed a piece today entitled “American Band Releases Album Viciously Attacking China” that accused Axl Rose of being a pawn of the U.S. government who was helping Washington use the idea of democracy as “one of their game pieces to control the world.” The WSJ is quick to note, however, that this piece technically doesn't constitute any sort of official smackdown of Axl: "The tabloid format newspaper is published by the Communist Party’s official mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, but isn’t thought to always represent official views, like its parent operation and certain other major media." And there's even a site geared toward Chinese audiences that is streaming the whole thing for free, although I'm pretty sure it's unsanctioned by any Axl or any government entity. [WSJ China Journal]

Hinder: "I heard the stuff that was leaked, and I know the mixes weren't there, but, being musicians, you can hear through that stuff—you still hear the songs, and to be honest, the songs just aren't there," drummer Cody Hanson told MTV. "It almost sounds too artsy; there's something about it. It's not what it was. It's just missing something, and it sounds overproduced.... I guess that's what happens whenever you've got 20 years to sit in the studio." And when you've lost Hinder, you've lost... uh, how many people bought Take It To The Limit again? Oh, right. Carry on. [MTV]