Guns N' Roses Vs. Kanye West: Axl's Got A Secret Weapon In The Race For #1

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p type="articleSubhead"iChinese Democracy/i's label is making a sly move to beat i808s amp; Heartbreak/i in first-week sales.br/By Chris Harris/ppa href="http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1599776/20081119/guns_n_roses.jhtml"img type="photo"src="http://www.mtv.com/shared/promoimages/bands/w/west_kanye/axl_vs_kanye/281x211.jpg"//abr/i type="articlePhotoCaption"Kanye West and Axl Rose/ibr/i type="articlePhotoCredit"Photo: MTV News/ Getty Images/i/pp type="articleText" pIt was shaping up to be an epic battle between two of music's biggest heavyweights, with a href="http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/west_kanye/artist.jhtml"Kanye West/a #8212; the Louis Vuitton Don, and the man we crowned the Hottest MC in the Game #8212; standing in one corner, wearing the gold trunks and white Shutter Shades, ready to drop a href="/news/articles/1597139/20081015/west_kanye.jhtml"i808s amp; Heartbreak./i/a And in the other: Axl Rose #8212; sporting the black trunks, a Los Angeles Raiders jersey, red cornrows and a little album called a href="/news/articles/1597182/20081016/guns_n_roses.jhtml"iChinese Democracy./i/a/ppWho will walk away with the championship belt? Chances are, it won't be 'Ye./ppFans are excited, critics and industry watchers look on with great anticipation, and even oddsmakers have jumped into the fray, casting a href="http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/guns_n_roses/artist.jhtml"Guns N' Roses/a as the favorite. But, at the 11th hour, GN'R are making things a bit interesting in this race toward iBillboard/i's peak position. That's because Axl's got a secret weapon: the Eighth Day./ppAfter years of false starts and broken promises, Geffen Records will finally issue Guns N' Roses' eagerly awaited album this coming Sunday, a day before West's latest hits stores. And a spokesperson for Geffen told MTV News that first-day sales figures for iChinese Democracy/i will not be reported to Nielsen SoundScan until November 30, the same day West's label will report his week-one sales./ppTypically, albums are released in the U.S. on Tuesdays, and SoundScan tracks weekly sales data from Monday through Sunday, meaning that most albums' debut spots on the iBillboard/i chart are based on six solid sales days. At first, most assumed day-one sales of iChinese Democracy/i #8212; which took Rose more than 16 years to complete #8212; would be reported next week and released the morning of November 26. But GN'R's label is holding off on releasing those sales figures until the following week, setting the stage for an extra boost in the chart standings announced on December 3./ppWest's only chance at a third consecutive #1 debut is the fact that iChinese Democracy/i will be available exclusively at Best Buy's Web site and stores, whereas i808s/i will be everywhere./ppThis is a different game from last fall, when Kanye and 50 Cent released solo albums on the very same day. After weeks of hype leading up to their showdown, a href="/news/articles/1570001/20070918/west_kanye.jhtml"West's iGraduation/i pushed 957,000 copies, easily besting iCurtis,/i/a which sold 691,000 copies in week one./ppBefore Geffen's plan was known, MTV News reached out to U.K. betting company Ladbrokes and online-gaming purveyors Bodog Entertainment to see which album they favor for a #1 opening. Despite West's immense popularity, the numerous leaks of iChinese Democracy/i over the years and GN'R's Best Buy deal, oddsmakers from both companies said Guns' LP has the best chance of scoring a chart-topping debut./ppBodoglife.com Sportsbook manager Richard Gardner put the odds at -130 in favor of Guns #8212; which is basically the same thing as saying there's a 56 percent chance that Axl will outsell West. Meanwhile, he put the odds at -110 for a Kanye West win, or a 52 percent chance that his album will enter the chart at the peak position./pp"We would quote 1/3 on Guns N' Roses, and 5/2 on Kanye West," said Nick Weinberg, head of Ladbrokes' novelty betting division. "So we make Guns N' Roses the favorite to top the charts in the week immediately after the release, due to the massive sense of anticipation surrounding the album. A lot of people have been waiting a long time for it."/p/pbRelated Videos/bullia type="relatedVideo" href="http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?id=1599677"Axl Rose's Top MTV Moments/a/lilia type="relatedVideo" href="http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?id=1599789"MTV News RAW: Kanye West/a/li/ulbRelated Artists/bullia type="relatedArtist"href="http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/guns_n_roses/artist.jhtml"Guns N' Roses/a/lilia type="relatedArtist"href="http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/west_kanye/artist.jhtml"Kanye West/a/li/ulbr style="clear: both;"/a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?p=1"//aimg src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=e12526235c5e44325cc6d0039515177b" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MTVNewsLatest/~4/460055619" height="1" width="1"/

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