The good news is that Chinese Democracy outsold expectations last week. The prospects were dismal; Billboard had a source saying Guns N’ Roses’ comeback album was going to sell only 250,000 to 260,000 copies its first week out.

It was a little hard to believe; AC/DC and the Eagles, two oldster bands of comparable notoriety (and with whom Guns shares some sales records), had recently done about 750,000 and a million, respectively; the Gunners are a full generation younger, arguably hipper, and had a leader in Axl Rose who still retained some of his lethality.

So, if the band’s comeback could manage only a third or a quarter of their competitors, well … Axl should just hang up his kilt.

As I said, the good news is that the band beat expectations.

The bad news is that Chinese Democracy did … 261,000.

The worse news is that the release is a poster child for as bad a kickoff to the holiday sales season as can be imagined. Ed Christman and Cortney Harding of Billboard report that while sales for the year have been off a not-unexpected 13.6 percent, sales the last two weeks of November were off 17.4 percent.

But there’s some optimism out there—or at least at “Hot Poop”:

Other stores say that an older client base is likely to take them through the season.

“Thank God working adults don’t know how to download music,” says Jim McGuinn, owner of Hot Poop in Walla Walla, Wash., pointing out that his biggest sellers have been Enya, Il Divo and the album “Two Men With the Blues” by Wynton Marsalis and Willie Nelson.

Fortunately, the industry is looking at the big picture, and taking strong action to deal with this situation.

p.s.: One of the factors that contributed to Guns’ dismal sales is Rose’s choice of Best Buy as his retail sales buddy. Best Buy isn’t as big as Wal-Mart, which could sell its Eagles exclusive (a two-CD set) for $12; nor does it have a clientele on which it could jack up the price of the product, which is what Starbucks did for its Paul McCartney exclusive.  Now, for Rose, the alliance worked on one level because he’s getting a royalty much higher than he would have from Geffen back in the day. (That’s why all of these artists do the exclusives.)

But since everyone involved is trafficking in novelty, this isn’t a well an individual artist can go back to. The next Axl project will definitely not be sold in the same place. The Best Buy deal can now be seen as part of the trend I predicted last year:

What is down market, in the end, is these artists’ ever-more-limited options when it comes to selling actual records. … I said above that selling the next Eagles CD through one retailer probably won’t make sense. When Wal-Mart inevitably passes, however, there may be another, slightly grimier outlet looking for a little buzz to liven its image: K-Mart, say, or possibly Linen ‘n’ Things, or maybe 7-Eleven. I hope I live to see the day the new Eagles album is offered for sale exclusively at the Cracker Barrel.

Next release: Axl Rose plays ‘Chinese Democracy’ Live —available exclusive at Hot Topic!