So you become the DLC czar of Rock Band. What do you work on getting out there? It could be something that you’re sure would hit it big, something you know you just want to play, or something you just want to promote.
Here are a few of mine - tell me if you think there would be better choices for these artists, then add your own!
Green Day - casual fan;, but think they would be a good choice
Basket Case Holiday
and as the other song I’d really like to play around with, Good Riddance, would bore the drummer and bassist to death, I’ll nominate the following, though it might not fly either. American Idiot
Lots of different songs. As far as entire albums, some of them I’d release:
Guns and Roses - Appetite for Destruction
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin I
AC/DC - Back in Black
The Breeders - Pod
The White Stripes - Elephant
Metallica - Metallica
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Misfits - Walk Among Us
It’s hard to find songs in my collection that are actually suitable for Rock Band, and not already there. It’s hard to find something that, to me, has good tracks for all 4 possible instruments.
The best I could think of:
Spinal Tap - Stonehenge
Spinal Tap - The Majesty of Rock (I’d love to play this with a full group and see if the singer could keep a straight face while doing some of the lyrics.)
Stray Cats - Rock This Town
Stray Cats - Stray Cat Strut
Alice Cooper - No More Mr Nice Guy
Alice Cooper - Poison
Oingo Boingo - Weird Science
Oingo Boingo - No Spill Blood
A geeky one:
Black Mages - Otherworld (the Black Mages version, specifically, the vocal track is much more interesting than the game version - although the vocals would be a lot harder than the nearly monotone growling of the game version).
The Beatles would be fantastic for rock band. They were a quartet, and most of their songs had interesting parts for all instruments and great vocals. Also some of the best party music.
Some Pink Floyd would be nice - especially “Comfortably Numb”.
Before this week, I would have the obvious omission is the Who, which would be the best band in Rock Band ever (yes, I know they already had Won’t Get Fooled Again, but that just scratches the surface of Who greatness). But this week we got The Who 12 pack, and it’s fantastic. I’ve been playing nothing but those 12 songs since Tuesday. For drummers, you could market this as the “The Who Workout Pack”. Keith Moon was an animal.
The band played a private gig for Harmonix in support of the release.
Pete’s capsule review: “The VH1 Honours show was tricky for me. My fingers felt like they were glued up but by Wednesday, when we played for the Harmonix crowd (the people behind the Rock Band game), I was in gear…”
There was a Spinal Tap song in GHII, but I don’t remember which one. I think it was a hidden track.
Personally, I’ve always wanted to play (on guitar):
Smashing Pumpkins: Zero
Orgy: Platinum
Asian Dub Foundation: Free Satpal Ram
Guns n’ Roses: Estranged
Deftones: Shove It (My Own Summer)
Derek & the Dominoes/Clapton: Layla
Faith No More: Epic and Kindergarten
Queensryche: Damaged, Take Hold of the Flame, and One More Time Around
I always think of good pop songs, not necessarily “rockin’ songs”. I like the idea of playing good melodies and drum fills, not just grinding away at the guitar. Plus, most of these songs are fun.
Paul McCartney - Band on the Run
Peter Frampton - anything from Frampton Comes Alive
Steely Dan - Bodistavha (sp - too lazy to look up right now)
Fleetwood Mac - Almost anything
Plus, what about good acoustic tunes? Something like James Taylor, or much of the “smooth seventies” would be great for singing. I don’t always want to plant my front leg and shred manically.
And, where are all the hair bands? Van Halen, Poison, Cinderella, Whitesnake, et al, would fill an entire setlist, and would probably sell like hotcakes to all of the older gamers. I would wait in line overnight to get a copy of something like that.
And, what about some funk? The bass lines are pitiful in most of the songs, and as mentioned above, a good James Brown disc would make for a fabulous time.
And, what about (further whining deleted at insistance of my self-respect)…
Since they answered my wishlist of The Cars, I’d like to see some Cake in the game.
There’s a disturbing lack of Canadian content in this game as well - I know, I know, there’s Rush, but I frigging hate Rush. The only other one is The New Pornographers. On that front, Born to Be Wild, Go For a Soda, Run to You (shut up, it’s a good song and it would play well in the game), some Hip and lots of Sloan would be great additions to the game.
I’d also like to see 99 Luft Ballons, with German lyrics.
