The blogger who leaked most of ”Chinese Democracy,” the sort-of long-awaited album from Gun N’ Roses, has pleaded guilty to copyright infringement and will cooperate with the Feds in order to stay out of jail.

But he isn’t the only one who’s in hot water over the album. Someone at Best Buy (BBY) has to explain why they thought it was a good idea to buy 1.3 million nonreturnable copies of the album, most of which look destined to become drink coasters.

Before anyone gets tempted to put two and two together here and blame the Internet for poor music sales, be warned: The music that is most popular among file sharers is the music that is most popular among buyers. In retrospect, it was easy to tell that this album would stiff, based on the reactions of MySpace browsers who came to check out a legal stream of the album–they listened to one track and bailed out.

The Wall Street Journal floats another theory: That Axl Rose, who is the only person left from the original band and whose cloistered neuroticism/paranoia became legendary during the gazillion years it took for the album to come out, didn’t work hard enough to sell the album. He shunned interviews, didn’t make a video for the album, etc.

But just because Axl Rose is turning down a chance to chat with the likes of the New York Times doesn’t mean you can’t find him online. He’s been dropping by fan sites to leave message on bulletin boards, and this weekend did a lengthy Q&A with his followers, who seem to have lots of patience. If you’ve got a similar amount of time, the entire transcript is here via Idolator.

That appears to be the conclusion that visitors to GNR’s MySpace page, where the album is being streamed in its entirety, have reached. Lots of people are showing up at the page, which encourages them to preorder the album, which goes on sale exclusively at Best Buy (BBY) on Tuesday. But few of them are sticking around to actually listen to the whole thing.

Glenn Peoples at Coolfer has actually plotted out the song-by-song streaming results. The numbers in Glenn’s chart, below, are a day or so old at this point, but they’re directionally accurate: Only about 20 percent of the visitors to the page are sticking around to hear the whole album.

What to make of that? Probably an Occam’s Razor answer: People check out the page out of curiosity, hear the first few songs (the title track plays automatically when you load the page), and decide they stink.

More charitable answer: Web music fans in 2008 just don’t listen to entire albums, period. Glenn makes a nod toward this by noting that people who have checked out the MySpace page for the new Paul McCartney album also flit away after a track or two. Perhaps News Corp.’s (NWS) social network just isn’t the place to stream more than a couple songs. (News Corp. is the owner of Dow Jones and this Web site.)

But I’m going with the first explanation: These may be Guns N’ Roses songs, but they’re not good Guns N’ Roses songs.

Remember those? Here’s one, from way, way back in 1991, which as I recall was the tail end of the band’s heyday.

Would you like a professional reviewer’s take on the new album. No problem: Chuck Klosterman takes a crack at it in The Onion. And while we’re addressing all things Axl, a question for MediaMemo readers: Does anyone remember “White Trash Wins Lotto,” the excellent GNR-meets-Gilbert & Sullivan production from about a decade ago? I can still remember the songs, but can’t find them anywhere. Any help, either in comments or via email, much appreciated: peter@allthingsd.com.