Axl Rose has been working on Chinese Democracy, a music album for his band Guns n' Roses, for over a decade. Word on the street is that the album is done (and that there are actually four albums worth of music). The only problem is that Axl and the record label, Geffen, can't agree on marketing.

LOL.

Now of course, readers of this blog know that what Axl and Guns n' Roses really need is their own ActoWorld -- a content-centric social network for Gn'R fans; essentially a community portal to all things Guns n' Roses. Something that allows the fans to take over. Something that allows the fans to, as Alex Wipperfurth put it in his outstanding book, hijack the brand.

Because that's what's happening. And it's happening whether Axl, the record label, or anyone else likes it or not.

I mean, one could say that the fans have ALREADY released the album themselves. Below are links to YouTube videos for *studio versions* of the forthcoming album.

Madagascar
The Blues
Catcher in the Rye
IRS
Better
There was a Time
Chinese Democracy

Fans have even made music videos. Here's one for The Blues.

One person even designed a bunch of artwork for the album. Another fan made the image below.


Play guitar? Here's the tab for Chinese Democracy.

For music marketers, the new game -- the game beyond the collapse of big media music -- is to encourage all this stuff; to encourage a passionate community, one with a real culture. This is how you build a brand online, and how you build the engine for an army of grassroots marketers -- aka customer evangelists.

ROI = Return on Influence

But if you give all the media away, how do you make money?

For record labels, the game isn't about selling media. It's about selling influence. (And using media to get influence ).

People want the stuff of musicians they love. Want the Guns n' Roses sound and/or look? Gotta get the Guns n' Roses music gear -- the same microphone Axl uses, the guitars and amplifers used, etc. As music is largely a symbol of fashion as well, this is a natural segue to sell fashion-related stuff -- i.e. clothes, technology gadgets (remember the U2 iPod?), political/humanitarian causes, or whatever else becomes a vessel for the mysterious force of fashion.

This all presents an opportunity to make sales, and is, in my opinion, a key part of how the next wave of record labels -- the record labels that emerge after our coming economic collapse -- will make money. For business students, the new ROI is return on influence. For better or worse, this new metric, like many of the other new metrics that will emerge once the matrix collapses, cannot be quantified.

The Internet Killed the Video Star

Part of the catch here is that artists need to become more "web friendly" -- meaning they need to invest in interacting with their community online. Well, they probably don't need to -- but they will be missing out on a lot of opportunities, some of the biggest and best ones, by not directly embracing the interactivity of the web. I think we can view how video changed music -- how it made being "video-friendly" a huge part of marketing a musical act -- as a historical precedent of sorts. While part of me thinks this kinda sucks, I know it is a part of the inevitable changes that will take place as the music industry rebuilds itself in a more economically efficient way. And economic efficiency is the most important thing, so I guess these changes are ultimately good.

Anyway, somebody tell Axl and Geffen that all they need to do is hire me to build an ActoWorld for them, so that they can build a passionate community, and thus, an engine for grassroots marketing and for maximizing profit opportunities in the world where content is free and shared. Because in the world beyond the matrix, the virtual world is the real Paradise City!