Guns N' Roses' long-delayed Chinese Democracy, reported Billboard.biz today, will be sold exclusively at Best Buy and will be released before the end of the year. And so the debate about retail exclusives continues. And it continue after the next exclusive, and the one after that. It will continue because exclusives offer artists and labels (if involved) less risk, greater album sales and, on occasion, the ability to secure buys for other CDs, DVDs and merchandise. The deals work well for older artists less concerned about image -- their images are already well established -- and more concerned with money. No business-savvy manager or label would pass up such a deal.

Guns N' Roses is managed by exclusive-friendly Front Line Management. The Eagles, also Front Line clients, have done very well selling Long Road Out of Eden exclusively at Wal-Mart. AC/DC's new Sony Music release, Black Ice, will be released exclusively through Wal-Mart stores in the U.S.

Exclusive deals with retailers goes against the standard advice of selling just about anything: put it in as many places as possible. For the average artist, that strategy still stands as the best. For those handful of rare, superstar artists that can successfully negotiate a retail exclusive, it's hard to turn down. AC/DC's deal with Wal-Mart, for example, gives the retailer an exclusive on an album and video game. In return, the band and its label get the royal retail treatment: a special area in the store with the band's back catalog as well as merchandise. And then there's what can be called "the Wal-Mart Effect." The publicity surrounding the release of the album has been nothing short of incredible.

The cost of getting CDs into retailers is an incentive to take an exclusive if a deal can be reached. Just as grocery stores charge slotting fees for the products its carries, entertainment retailers charge for prominent placement and related marketing. A spot on stores' end racks and an ad in a weekend circular costs tens of thousands of dollars for a national chain. An exclusive at Wal-Mart comes with in-store merchandising and external marketing that is worth far, far more than the typical national marketing campaign. In a nutshell, the label is transferring much of the risk to the retailer. That alone is incredibly valuable.

Finally, when traditional CD distribution bears a certain amount of risk that product will be returned, an exclusive can guarantee a minimum amount of guaranteed sales. According to a report on "60 Minutes," Wal-Mart's initial purchase of three million units of The Eagles' Long Road Out of Eden was non-returnable and the retailer pledged to spend millions to promote it. It has been reported that Wal-Mart has guaranteed AC/DC sales of 2.5 million units.

A parallel debate on exclusivity surrounds decisions not to sell individual tracks or not sell downloads at all. As we saw with Estelle's Shine, which Warner Music Group took off iTunes in hopes of encouraging CD sales and did not get good results, only a select group of artists can deviate from traditional sales and distribution strategies. For every Kid Rock that can have a hit single without the album on iTunes, for every AC/DC that can forgo digital sales for a well distributed catalog of CDs, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of artists without enough fan capital to narrow the choices for where and in what format their music will be sold.

Even though retail exclusives are being denounced as harmful to the industry, the issue is not one of the more serious within the industry. Retailers and fans can live with a few high-profile exclusives per year. Previous exclusives have provided more bark than bite. The irony is that retailers predict a consumer revolt but reduce the chances for a revolt by re-selling exclusive albums at their stores. A revolt will come when consumer frustration reaches a dangerous peak, and that is less likely to happen unless retailers keep other retailers' exclusives out of their stores.

A precious few, the cream of the music crop, are in a position to either land an exclusive retail deal or withhold their catalogs from digital retailers. Digital distribution leveled the playing field for all artists, but it has also lead to greater revenue inequality. The payoff for the most successful artists, it turns out, is now retail exclusivity. Exclusives to Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart and others are not likely to end any time soon. It's all about money, and the money is too good to pass up.