rock band
Rock Band has come through again for introducing me to music I might not have otherwise have come across; this week’s DLC included ‘Typical’ by Mute Math: It’s a great track, and I’m definitely buying it - the drum chart in particular is really interesting, very Reni-like. The video was deservedly nominated for a Grammy, but I totally missed it at the time and I don’t remember hearing it on the radio.
Via CrispyGamer, Harmonix have confirmed what I pretty much suspected, that there will be no Rock Band 3 in 2009. I’m not surprised, they already have the Beatles game in the making for 2009, and unlike Activision, Harmonix aren’t in the business of spamming the world with as many rushed sequels as they can manage before the general public gets bored. To be honest, I don’t think there’s much they could do to improve Rock Band 2 anyway, it’s a highly polished game and DLC keeps it fresh (and to be honest, I have so many tracks that we already have almost too much choice when we play - not that it will stop me buying more).
Yay, I can tick another artist off my wish list for Rock Band DLC, since it’s been leaked that during January Lenny Kravitz will finally be appearing. Despite petering out a bit around the ‘Baptism’ album (which I thought was a bit weak and self-indulgent), and something of a bounce back with last year’s ‘It Is Time For A Love Revolution’, his 90’s classics are still the best, and that’s where the upcoming RB tracks are picked from.
Yay, almost as if they read my last post on the subject, Harmonix have stopped overlooking Snow Patrol! Next week on DLC we’ll get ‘Take Back The City’ from their new album, A Hundred Million Suns. I’d post a video of it here, except that YouTube says that it’s ’not available in your country’. You know, that same country the damn thing originated from. Grr, getting really irritated by that message these days.
They seriously do. Next week, while predictably there’s a 3-pack of slightly toe-curling but at least somewhat unusual Christmas numbers (and with no Slade, thankfully), they’ve also lined up 3 more Foo Fighters tracks: This is a Call (from debut album ‘Foo Fighters’, 1995) Times Like These (from ‘One by One’, 2002) DOA (from ‘In Your Honor’, 2003) I’ve been crying out for DOA for ages, so this is great news.
This week’s Rock Band DLC has gone a little bit country, which induces me to grimace at horrible, horrible memories of when Shania Twain and Billy Ray Cyrus were on the radio every other day - thank goodness that particular fad has passed before I was forced to go all Van Gogh on myself. But still, music is personal after all, and if you want to listen to hokey tunes with madatory banjo solos, that’s your business.
Hmm, I really haven’t had a lot of time to blog lately, I seem to be playing catch-up with something or other whenever I’m at the keyboard (due in part, of course, to the fact that I’m at the keyboard less than I used to be). However, I thought I’d take a few minutes to share my opinion of Guitar Hero : World Tour now I’ve had a chance to play it 4-player at a friend’s place.
This is so funny: It’s good to know that if you’re a Rock Band nut who has already bought the Ion kit but still have too much money to realistically stuff in your pocket at one time, there’s something highly entertaining you can do with it.
When Harmonix promised at E3 that 500 songs would be in Rock Band by the end of 2008, that seemed an awfully ambitious number. But over the past few months the DLC release schedule has been going nuts, including many full-album releases, such as the very welcome The Colour and the Shape, and the not so welcome (in our house anyway) Peace Sells… but Who’s Buying? . So it seems that 500 songs wasn’t so much of a challenge after all - as of right now, according to rockbandcontent.
I haven’t been able to get Journey’s ‘Any Way You Want It’ out of my head for 2 days now. That’s one of the more nefarious results of picking up Rock Band 2 this week. It’s had to fight tooth and nail with Left 4 Dead for play time, especially since it’s another primarily co-op game (and the other major one, Gears 2, has already been relegated to the Xmas list), but we’ve squeezed a few hours in so far.