It's a battle of the bands, as AC/DC's Black Ice slugs it out with Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy.

It's a battle of the brands, as Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) and Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) have respective exclusivity of the recently-released studio albums.

The Wall Street Journal took a look at both releases earlier this week. It's not even close.

First two weeks on the market

CD Sales

Black Ice

1,055,000

Chinese Democracy

318,000

Source: Nielsen SoundScan.

The rub for Best Buy is that it already paid for 1.3 million copies of GNR's album in the deal to secure initial retail exclusivity. Sales fell sharply in the second week and are unlikely to recover unless the record scores a commercial hit. Continued...