“Chinese Democracy,” the first album of new Guns N’ Roses songs since 1991 is being released on Sunday, with CDs sold exclusively at Best Buy. On Sept. 26, Billboard broke the news that the album would be released solely to Best Buy in the United States. It would be three full weeks before a press release made it all official.

In the meantime the band has released the complete album to social networking site MySpace. However visitors to the band's MySpace page can listen to the entire album, but will not be able to download the 14 songs.

But rumor that the album deserves to be celebrated came out long before. It is a monumental studio production. The album has been in the works for quite awhile while Axl Rose figured his band out and got his issues under control. Earlier this year, 9 tracks were leaked and the person who leaked them is currently on trial. "Chinese Democracy" has aroused interest because of its notoriety; it is the first album of new Guns N' Roses material in more than 17 years, and has taken nearly as long to finish.

The original band, particularly the guitar team of Slash on lead and Izzy Stradlin on rhythm, contributed to a combination of glam, punk and metal that made the rock band so different from everything else. Unfortunately one can notice their absence for the current material.

Amid tours, band members’ addictions and liaisons with models, Guns N’ Roses went on to make an EP and the multimillion-selling albums “Use Your Illusion” I and II, which were released simultaneously in 1991. Those were followed by a desultory collection of punk-rock remakes, “The Spaghetti Incident?,” in 1993, before the band splintered and left Mr. Rose as the owner of the Guns N’ Roses brand. Clearly it would be a very different band, and everyone’s fears turned out to have been future telling.

This September, the band chose to debut the song “Shacklers' Revenge” as part of the video game Rock Band 2. Last month, the album's title song made its radio debut. "Electric Arguments" is due to be released on November 25.