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From Paste:

GNR delivers Democracy to Geffen amidst conspiracy
Writer: Christina Hansen
News, Published online on 10 Apr 2008

After more than a decade of false promises and speculation, Axl Rose and his Guns N’ Roses bandmates have finally delivered their long-fabled album Chinese Democracy to Geffen Records. The record’s final price tag is estimated to be a cool $13 million.

Many music industry observers thought today’s announcement would never come. The band began working on Chinese Democracy 14 years ago as the follow-up to 1993’s The Spaghetti Incident, but money, copyright issues and turmoil between the band members plagued the project from the very beginning. GNR announced the album’s completion and release dates several times, most recently in March of 2007, but the album never materialized.

Then came an announcement from GNR cheerleader-come-lately Dr Pepper. In “an unprecedented show of solidarity with Axl,” company executives announced in March that every man, woman and child in America would receive a free can of Dr. Pepper if Chinese Democracy was released before year’s end. The only people excluded from the promise of a bubbly beverage were estranged GNR guitarists Slash and Buckethead.

Was Dr Pepper’s announcement the kick-in-the-ass that Axl needed to finish the album? After all, who doesn’t love an ice-cold fizzy beverage, especially when it's free? But what if there are more powerful forces at work here? What if...

...Axl was not waiting for Dr Pepper to jump on board the Chinese Democracy train. What if, perhaps, he was waiting for none other than the International Olympic Committee to approve China’s bid to host the world’s foremost athletic competition?

*cue spooky music*

It all started in 1993 when Chinese officials made their first bid to host the Olympic Games, the 2000 summer games, in the capital city of Beijing. As the IOC vote to determine the location of the 2000 games drew near, China’s only clear competition came from Australia, whose officials were championing Sydney for hosting duties. When the results of the IOC vote were announced, the Chinese were heartbroken to discover that the kangaroo-lovers from Down Under had been awarded the 2000 games by a paltry two-vote margin.

Axl heard the tale of Beijing’s failed Olympic bid, and felt an immediate solidarity with the Chinese. Devastated by the mediocre sales and scathing reviews of The Spaghetti Incident that same year, the GNR frontman understood what it felt like when the whole world craps on one’s dreams. An anonymous official in the Chinese government confirmed that Axl called Chinese President Jiang Zemin the very next day to express his sympathy, and make a vow that Guns N’ Roses would not release another album until China was awarded the Olympic Games.

Axl’s GNR bandmates were unaware of the promise for several years, until Slash overheard a telephone conversation between Axl and Zemin in 1996. An ardent supporter of the Dalai Lama’s crusade for Tibetan independence, Slash confronted Axl and announced he was quitting the band after several hours of bitter arguing. Guitarist Buckethead was also oblivious to Axl’s ties with China when he joined the band in 2000. It was only after he ran into Slash at a Hard Rock Café opening in 2004 that he learned of the frontman’s pact with China. Buckethead, however, was not particularly political; his departure from the band later that year, due to his erratic behavior and unreliability, was merely coincidental.

Axl waited patiently over the next eight years as China prepared to throw its hat into the Olympic ring again. In 2001, Chinese officials again proposed Beijing as a host city, this time for the 2008 summer Olympics. When the results of the OIC vote were announced that July, Chinese officials rejoiced: in a landslide victory, Beijing had crushed its nearest competitor Toronto by 22 votes. Chinese Democracy finally had a release date of August 2008, to coincide with the Beijing Olympics.

Mark our words: The GNR gang will make a show of haggling over money and rights to the new album for the next couple of months, but Axl has known the release date all along. The free Dr Pepper is just icing on the cake. Axl was so excited about the record’s release that he wrote on GunsNRoses.com that he would even share his can with Buckethead.

But then again, what do we know?