Free Dr Pepper

I came across a couple music related articles this week. The first is the Wall Street Journal's bit about how China has banned Chinese Democracy. This album seems to be getting more press because of its title than because of the music, which is just as well because the one song that I've heard is pretty bad. Mind you, I was never a Guns N' Roses fan and I continue to be mystified by their appeal, so maybe this album would be less offensive to your ears. The cynic in me says that Axl dreamed up this title years ago in order to create the kind of artificial controversy that sells records, since his audience is waning and not likely to buy his album simply because it's a Guns N' Roses album. His strategy will probably sell a few more albums, but not enough to offset the amount he would have sold in China. Seems like he would have seen that coming after Björk yelled out "Tibet, Tibet" last spring and got herself banned. No matter to the Chinese, though, because they can just as easily buy a pirated copy in their local hutong. Axl's folly will be a boon to Chinese pirates.

The other article was this New York Times' piece on a Saudi girl band.

This got me thinking that I should tie these two together somehow with an oppression theme. Unfortunately the extent of my experience with oppression is not being able to claim my free Dr Pepper because the Dr Pepper servers were overloaded or conveniently not available when they were supposed to be doling out free pop, so I don't really have much to say about it. Maybe Björk can write a song about that, so she can liberate the Dr Pepper to which we are all entitled.