It is fascinating, looking at Best Buy's condition and MySpace's position. MySpace was clearly on the outs as not being cool anymore. In 2006? It was passable. Best Buy's problems have only gotten worse since then. If they did Facebook or had a decent website and released (a) track out, like a single (countdown was pretty cool), it would have been seen by more likely buyers.
If they went with WalMart, they wouldn't have probably gotten the big check, but they would have pushed a ton more units, no doubt. WalMart has way more traffic, more impulse buying setups near the door... shoot, they could have even put a real bicycle up against a cardboard wall for the display.

Kinda like Roger Waters being a "terrible bassist and singer" by his own admission and being half tone deaf.

I think Weezer had the catchier hooks...ha.

Better was definitely the song where, post 2002, we all nodded and said "Ahh, he can sing". It's also a song you can play and people would say "ooh, this is what he was doing - this is different, but it's also good."

Sorry sort of sets a tone and tells a story. More of a statement. "Sorry, but Axl's Not Apologizing" ..you can hear that buzzline in the air. But no press, interviews, and they didn't put that out as a single. The song could even been radio and TMZ fodder about it 'being about Slash?'.

What also hurt was NO music videos, of any sort, being out. That knocked out YouTube and Facebook. MySpace streaming was a dead-end and it didn't facilitate building or exploiting curiosity, it just lost the plot.

Axl didn't even do the modern equivalent of a MTV fax explaining the songs or album until forum chats, which, uh, aren't the same thing and happened way too late.

"We're playing the songs we're not considering for singles"
hm