Sluggish sales for Guns N' Roses

It was more than just a Black Friday for a number of new rock releases making their debuts on Wednesday's (December 3rd) Billboard album chart. Although overall U.S. music sales were up 29 percent from the week before and down less than one percent from the same week in 2007 thanks to the post-Thankgiving shopping binge, new releases from Guns N' Roses, Coldplay, Linkin Park and the Killers failed to post spectactular numbers.

The most closely watched release was the long-delayed new Guns album, Chinese Democracy, which sold 261,000 copies in its first week to land at Number Three behind Kanye West and Taylor Swift. The Best Buy exclusive was the first set of new Guns material in 17 years and followed a wave of hype and mystery. By contrast, 1991's Use Your Illusion I and II sold 685,000 and 770,000 copies respectively in their first week to take the chart's top two spots.

Meanwhile, the Killers debuted at Number Six with their third effort, Day & Age, selling 193,000 copies. 2006's Sam's Town entered at Number Two with sales of 315,000.

Coldplay's Prospekt's March, an EP containing six new songs and two remixes, moved 78,000 copies to finish at Number 14 on the chart, while Linkin Park's new live DVD, Road to Revolution, landed at Number One with 31,000 copies sold.

Scott Weiland is probably feeling sad: the Stone Temple Pilots singer's second solo effort, Happy in Galoshes, moved only 10,500 copies to debut at Number 96.

Rob Zombie has said he's moved on from his previous band, White Zombie, and it seems the rest of the world has too: only 2,500 fans doled out the cash for the new White Zombie boxed set, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie.

Nickelback's Dark Horse slipped from its Number Two debut last week to Number Seven this week, selling another 178,000 copies and going gold for total sales of more than 500,000 copies in just two weeks.