Dr Pepper's Pay Out

by Alex Allen

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It's taken fifteen years, and you can only wonder why, but Guns 'N' Roses (or least one of them) are finally releasing Chinese Democracy. Frankly, you might be wise to not completely believe it until it's wrapped in celophane and sitting on the shelves, but it's looking in severe danger of actually happening. This unpredicatble turn of events is particularly bad news for Dr Pepper, who promised to buy every American a Dr Pepper if there was a Guns 'N' Roses release in 2008. Fair play to them, they're actually going to honour that promise, but it's going to be done using a voucher system where you have to register online and blah blah blah etc. I think that sort of lavish, grandiose promise should be honoured in the same over the top fashion that it was conceived. There should be no vouchers, there should be double decker buses roaming the streets, decandently dispersing cans to passers by, or better yet, Dr Pepper water cannons. Sure, they'd have to turn down the pressue from what they use to disperse unruly crowds, but we have the technology!

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Personally, cinic that I am, I don't believe for a second that Dr Pepper were ever in any doubt that there would be an album release this year. Generally, massive companies don't make snap promises to dish out millions of units of their product for free on a whim. I suspect that this giant PR stunt could go all the way, perhaps even a stop the presses, last ditch album renaming, 'Chinese Democracy: What's the worst that can happen?' Perhaps a mass pay out from a giant beverage coporation was the only way Axel Rose thought the general public could take the idea of the new album actually being released seriously. Either way, a few million people will get a free drink out of it, can't complain about that.