Can Chinese Democracy Survive…

Word is out that Guns N’ Roses will be included in the all-star lineup of bands featured on Rock Band 2, MTV’s musical video game. However, the GNR track featured isn’t “Paradise City,” but a track from Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy, the album that has been forthcoming for over a decade now.

Word is out that Guns N’ Roses will be included in the all-star lineup of bands featured on Rock Band 2, MTV’s musical video game. However, the GNR track featured isn’t “Paradise City,” but a track from Guns N’ Roses Chinese Democracy, the album that has been forthcoming for over a decade now.

The featured track, “Shackler’s Revenge” will be featured on MTV’s Rock Band 2 due out in September. Including the track gives GNR fans hope that their long-awaited album might finally be released this fall after 14 years in the works, but frontman Axl Rose can’t commit. Rose claims the album is complete, yet a release date for Chinese Democracy remains unannounced. 

It may seem odd for a band to allow an unreleased track to be included in a video game centered around classic rock songs, but rising popularity of the games gives bands great exposure and could potentially double their income. Rock Band and Activision’s Guitar Hero have benefited musicians by licensing their songs and selling the tracks through online networks for gamers to buy and play on their Rock Band or Guitar Hero sets. The tracks for the video games normally sell for $2, while they’re sold on iTunes for only $1.

MTV has been especially aggressive with selling the online tracks for Rock Band, reportedly selling over 15 million tracks for the game to date—a hefty amount for the hard-rock genre. Rush, another group featured on Rock Band, experienced so much success with the video game that they are considering releasing an album exclusively throughRock Band. Mike Davis, executive vice president of Universal Music Enterprises said of the $1 billion per year product category, “These games absolutely have an impact because the opportunity to hear these songs on the radio is dwindling…This is becoming an important piece of the marketing puzzle.” We’ll see if Chinese Democracybenefits from the game’s success.