Free Dr Pepper for everyone! Or not. (updated 12/2/08)
December 2nd, 2008 by Gabe Loewenberg in NewsWith Sunday’s release of the long-awaited (by some, not all) Guns N’ Roses album, Chinese Democracy, Dr Pepper will make good on its promise of a free Dr Pepper for everyone in America. Starting at 12:01 a.m. on Sunday November 23rd, Dr Pepper, for 24 hours, will offer a coupon on its website for a free 20-oz. soda. Will getting a $1.50 soda for free make spending $10 to $15 on a CD from a Hughesian, irrelevant, washed-up rocker a little easier to take in these hard economic times? Probably not. You could always do what you were probably going to do anyway and just download the damn thing for free from a torrent site. But be careful; it seems Axl needs all the money you could possibly give him and he may have you arrested for that! I vote for taking the Dr Pepper $1.50 economic stimulus package and not even bothering with Chinese Democracy.
Look deep inside yourself.
Search your feelings.
Do you really even care about Guns N’ Roses anymore?
I didn’t think so.
UPDATE 12/2/08
From CNN.com
So many GN’R fans — and, no doubt, fans of free stuff in general — tried to get the coupon that they choked the site and it crashed. Disgruntled and downright ticked off, some blamed the band.
“When you go on the blogs and you read the responses from the fans, they associated Axl with this promotion … and blame him for the fact that they didn’t get their free soda,” said GN’R lawyer Laurie Soriano.
Really? Really? People are getting pissed off about not being able to get a free Dr Pepper? And Axl Rose is coming to their rescue? Maybe his attorney will have one of those class action lawsuit ads running on latenight basic cable next week. Maybe the economy is worse than we all thought. Maybe GN’R is slumming for any press they can get for this very lackluster album. Maybe people really love Dr Pepper that much.
What makes this all the more amusing is CNN’s fine writing. Really.
That’s when GN’R became GN’RN’L. Soriano fired off a letter to Dr P. No one is LOL.
Our Copy Editor was miffed at Rick Reilly yesterday for his eloquent prose (”xanaxed ferret” is already taken as a band name), but I think Kareen Wynter at CNN is giving him a run for his money.
Send to a friend:
November 21st, 2008 at 2:21 pm
I don’t see how Guns N’ Roses will ever top their crowning acheivement- a slot on the End of Days soundtrack. Don’t you remember Schwarzenegger’s 1999 end of the world Apocalypse Satan weirdly Catholic crapfest!? At one point Ahhnold actually chucks Satan out of a 20 story window!
November 21st, 2008 at 3:18 pm
chris,
devil’s advocate here… sonic youth were also on that soundtrack; but the song, sugar kane, was not in the movie. best guess is that interscope/universal needed to fill a slot on the disk and just used something they had the rights to.
November 24th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Axl should audition for the vacant lead singer position in Velvet Revolver. Oh wait… never mind.;)
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Chinese Democracy WAS worth the wait, its a killer album! The best album in the past decade for sure.
December 2nd, 2008 at 10:39 pm
bri,
reslly? I tried to listen to the album and I couldn’t. It is, frankly, horrible. Even the snarky assholes at Pitchfork weighed in with one of the most insightful reviews that they’ve ever given…
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/147782-guns-n-roses-chinese-democracy
They gave it a 5.8 out of 10, which was on par with what Wade gave it over here. And he really likes GN’R. I know he was hoping for something more…
http://tampa.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/guns_n_roses_chinese_democracy/Content?oid=567798
For the most part, folks who thought this album would be life changing were sadly mistaken.
“best album in the past decade for sure” seems like a bit much.
Ok, that last sentence isn’t correct… “best album in the past decade for sure” is the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard.
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:33 am
Kareen apparently thought she was writing for Shortlist.
December 3rd, 2008 at 9:59 am
I was disappointed but there are several rewarding tracks on the album — “Street of Dreams,” “I.R.S.,” “Catcher in the Rye” and “Madagascar,” come to mind — making the disc much better than the vast majority of mainstream hard rock releases I’ve come across in 2008. Granted, when the competition includes clown acts like Mudvayne the bar is set pretty damn low.
December 3rd, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Why does mainstream pap have to be compared to mainstream pap? Who cares if the new GNR album is better than other mainstream garbage? The point is that underground bands are making more engaging (loaded word 1) albums with less money and resources but more inspiration (loaded word 2 and AUTHENTICITY (loaded word 3). What about comparing the new GNR album to the new Bad Brains album? Both hard rock bla bla bla etc- Bad Brains “Build a Nation” completely obliterates “Chinese Democracy” and comparisons don’t mean anything! They are a product of our competitive capitalist (loaded word 4) upbringing.
Now, we can keep talking in terms of comparisons and lists and rating arbitrary factors against each other, or we can discuss what our words mean.
December 4th, 2008 at 10:16 am
from Fugazi’s “Promises”:
We speak the way we breathe
Present air will have to do
Rearrange and see it through
Stupid fucking words
They tangle us in our desires
Free me from this give and take
Free me from this great debate
There were no truer words than when spoken
Let that stand as it should
December 4th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
cnadeau:
Thanks for giving me ideas for several blog posts and think pieces that only the nerdiest of us music lovers would appreciate. Maybe when I return from vacation I’ll try and tackle one of the interesting points you raise. Maybe.