For this week’s Thursday Throwback, we have another new artist to this feature lined up. If one says Saturday Night Fever, John Travolta may spring into mind. One band was heavily involved in the soundtrack of the film, and most of their most successful hits were featured in that film. I am of course talking about the Bee Gees.

Mostly known for having one of the highest pitched male singers in music history, the Bee Gees have had a quite lengthy career. They have recorded 22 albums between 1965 and 2001, selling over 200 million copies, making them the 13th best selling artist ever, putting their popularity on par with AC/DC.

Although its hard to believe listening to the radio, the band did actually record other music than the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. However, my pick ironically does come from that soundtrack, which is You Should Be Dancing. Released in 1976, it was a number one hit in the US and Canada, number five in the UK, and it was mainly responsible for launching the Bee Gees in the disco scene. The song was released for Rock Band in November 2010 with another five songs including their most recognizable hit Stayin’ Alive.

Simply put, this is one of favorite Rock Band tracks ever, with each instrument extremely fun to play! 4-tier guitar is probably the weakest, with the majority of the song featuring lots of alt-strumming. However, if you drop down to hard, it doesn’t feature such fast strumming. 5-tier bass is one of the funnest bass charts you will find in Rock Band. It’s never repetitive, and adds some great feeling to the song. 4-tier drums is super fun on Pro drums, with a great intro and few fills to keep things fresh. 2-tier keys isn’t the best, but its still good to play, too (it’s just weird they didn’t chart the trombone to it). 3-tier vocals is what you expect from the Bee Gees – high pitched singing, with most of the challenge just trying to keep up when you find out the words aren’t what you always thought.

If you aren’t sold yet, I throw this in: This song has a guitar solo, drum solo AND a bass solo! So what are you waiting for?

Don’t take my word for it, preview the song below, provided by RBA regular thenewnoelisoncruz.

After looking through this site, why don’t you head on over to my growing fansite, The Tribute Pages which features loads of tributes of video games, TV shows and movies. Much appreciated!

The Rock Band Network is an invaluable source of new music but, perhaps because of the quantity of songs or the unfamiliar nature of the artists, it can be a little hard to find the type of music you want. As a tester and charter for the Rock Band Network, I get a lot of exposure to songs coming through the pipeline and there are definitely songs that deserve more recognition. This feature will help you discover new favourites, find a new challenge, and support the independent Rock Band scene. Each week I’ll highlight one new Xbox 360 song, one new PS3 song, and even a song released awhile back – all of them worthy of a listen!

Xbox 360: Heart Pharmacy – California

Songs about California are usually happy, exultant anthems glorifying the wonders of the state and come across as only slightly less sugar-filled as a bottle of Sunny D. Heart Pharmacy’s song grabs your attention with this distinctly downtrodden, low-fi ode that plays off the rather stereotypical presentation of California in most songs. This song won’t set your speakers ablaze with the power of rock; instead, it’s a good alternative to add some variety to your song library.

The highlight of the track would have to be the unpredictable, glitch-sounding drums. It’s especially hard to anticipate a pattern and, once you have, there’s a good amount of kickpedal in varying combinations to learn. It makes for one of the trickier drum charts in recent memory and not simply because of sheer difficulty.

The acoustic guitar of the song produces a pleasant but not overly difficult chart. Made up of the main, beautiful riff interspersed with some alt-strum chord sections it is almost relaxing to play, lending the song a contemplative quality as the riff begins to change tone towards the end.

Bass and keys give texture to the song. The bass chart features a lot of sustains and a few oddly-timed gems which, like the drum chart, it can be hard to gauge when exactly to hit. Keys take up the role of strings. I personally like it when elements that used to be unplayable before RB3 are now charted to keyboards – it really adds to the awareness that the song is comprised of various layers. The strings are subtle here – the chart is really a handful of sustained notes and chords – but you’ll likely miss one or two, really emphasizing the melancholic mood they bring to the song when the stem cuts out.

The vocals top off a song that’s got great production and a wonderfully poignant mood. Once you find the range you’ll discover the vocals (and harmonies) are straightforward, with quite a few held notes allowing you to find the right pitch. California really comes together when you realise that each part might be simple but every instrument is fundamental. It’s a unique sounding song that anyone looking for something more unique should consider.

Sounds like: Electric President, almost Sufjan Stevens-esque
Perfect for: Drummers, guitarists

PS3: Miracle of Sound – Gordon Freeman Saved My Life

Chances are that, playing Rock Band, you’re a gamer and are well aware of the legend that is Gordon Freeman. (Those of you who aren’t familiar – to Wikipedia!) Gordon Freeman Saved My Life is a fantastic song about our favourite bespectacled scientist and his trusty crowbar, complete with references to Valve Time, Half-Life Episode Three and the Combine.

Guitar and bass are both excellent charts to play. Guitar features a good amount of HOPOs as well as a mid-song solo. The riff itself, mirrored by the synth, moves around the fretboard but is in no way impossible. Bass also features a good amount of movement and HOPOs, especially during the bridge of the song where the synth and bass take precedent.

Drums feature plenty of fills combining a lot of kickpedal with snare rolls that should keep you on your toes. Although it starts out fairly simple you’ll soon realize that the videogame-inspired styling of the song results in some fills that are complicated, almost sounding like some chiptune classics. It makes the drum track possibly the hardest instrument to choose for this particular song, although the totally awesome synthesizer part is almost as challenging.

Finally, vocals turn out to be a powerful anthem, recalling the best 80s rock albeit with tongue-in-cheek lyrics. The harmonies play more to group singing, thanks to a lot of the parts sung on the same note, but the chorus should produce some fairly epic results thanks to the different range of its singers.

If you’re put off by the videogame reference in the title, discounting the song as just another game related RBN release then take a listen. You’ll find that it’s actually really catchy and fun to play, with an educational message to boot. That message? That Gordon Freeman is a rightful icon of gaming and that Valve needs to release Episode Three before this song can be deemed ‘classic rock’. A steal at 80MSP!

Sounds like: Anthemic geek rock
Perfect for: Harmonies, keys, drummers

Throwback: Antoine Dodson & The Gregory Brothers – Bed Intruder Song (feat. Kelly Dodson)

It was an eventuality – like an asteroid careening towards Earth or the suggestion of Muse in the Song Request Thread, it was going to occur: internet memes + the RBN. While Bed Intruder might not be the first novelty song on the RBN, it’s certainly one of the more high profile releases to grace the service. Luckily, for everyone involved, things have turned out alright – it’s a fun, wacky song to have in your library, ready to cause looks of delight/concern when it pops up in a random setlist.

What is essentially an auto-tuned Youtube video makes for a surprisingly fun song, with a killer keys track and some hard-to-master harmonies. Guitarists will have to sit this one out but the bass part has a variety of chords that could prove a good alternative for those wanting to use the guitar controller. The drum track is simple but has a great urban groove to it, with hi-hat triplets and badass kickpedal work.

The highlight of the song has to be either the keys or harmonies – the keys are constant and, especially on the Pro Keys option, wander up and down the keyboard. Once you’ve locked down the hand movements this one will become a lot easier, although that’ll take a good deal of practice. There are also some three-note chords to hit, adding even more variety and challenge.

The vocals are challenging for two reasons. Firstly, this is auto-tuned so there’s not a lot of room to breathe and the melody can be hard to grasp due to some unnatural note changes. Secondly, the lyrics are taken from a news report about an assault – it all sounds a bit grim but check out the original Youtube version to see why it’s become such a cult hit. The harmonies are really worth the purchase of the song alone – a group of people singing the bizarre lyrics (with separate harmonies for the attacked sister and choir accompaniment) makes for a lot of fun.

Hide yo kids, hide yo wife, RBN players. This song is on the prowl and you need to find it, homeboy!

Sounds like: Auto-tuned nonsense, but brilliant
Perfect for: Harmonies, keyboards, meme addicts

Here is this week’s Pro-Guitar/Bass chart for the Cinderella DLC from the always awesome thenewnoelisoncruz. Definitely check out and subscribe to his YouTube channel!

Cinderella – Don’t Know What You Got (‘Til It’s Gone)

Arriving in the Rock Band library yesterday were three songs from 80s hair metal mainstays Cinderella. Included below are playthrough videos of the DLC from the always awesome thenewnoelisoncruz. Definitely check out and subscribe to his YouTube channel!

Links to purchase DLC songs online at Xbox.com are included below for each track. All tracks are 160 MSP ($1.99). The Cinderella Pack 01 is $5.49 (440 MSP). Pro Guitar/Bass charts are noted below where applicable, and can be purchased for an additional $.99.

Directly below is a playlist of all the DLC videos, followed by individual videos of each DLC track after the jump.

Playlist of all new DLC:

Read the rest of this entry »

Just sent to us over Twitter from @jamesshaw33 is the above pic that shows an entry on the Rock Band store for a “Snoop Dogg Test Pack.” While these types of leaks have happened before, and have typically been indicative of future DLC, we weren’t initially 100% convinced that this was the case here. If there is a pre-mature posting of future DLC, the name is typically set as to what will be appearing, so I’m not sure that we will see a DLC pack titled “Snoop Dogg Test Pack.” And if you remember, there was an issue with the original Snoop Dogg pack released in late 2010, that forced Harmonix to pull one of the tracks, as well as the pack, from the Rock Band store.

We did some quick digging, and noticed that over on RockBand.com, there is a song entry for a Snoop Dogg track that hasn’t (yet) been announced for Rock Band, Gangsta Luv (see screenshot below for when the link inevitably gets removed), from the album “Snoop Dogg Rock Band Mix.” Could we be seeing an announcement soon for another Snoop Dogg pack? I wouldn’t be surprised.

UPDATE: @HMXHenry dropped by the site recently and let us know that there is no Snoop Dogg in the DLC pipeline right now, and that the pack only appeared due to the testing of cross listing functionality with regards to the forthcoming Rock Band Blitz. He didn’t say why one new Snoop Dogg showed up in the Rock Band catalog, but we can probably guess where that song will end up. He further commented in the comments that Gangsta Luv isn’t planned for Rock Band Blitz either, and believes it may have been an early alternate for the original Snoop Dogg pack.

[Pic from @jamesshaw33]

In a fashion similar to what we have done in the past for PAX East and PAX, we secretly kidnap someone from Harmonix, lock them in a room, and force them to answer your questions. OK, well maybe we’re not as forceful as we used to be, but we do try to forward on the best of your questions to Harmonix for a fan-centric response. We had well over a 100 comments in the original post asking for questions to give Harmonix, so we took all of those questions and distilled them down in to the the entries you see below, followed by the responses we received from @johntdrake, @HMXhenry, and @MrPope from Harmonix.

The Usual

When are we going to get (more) Muse, Foo Fighters, U2, Supertramp, INXS, Wings, and hip-hop genre?

As always, we don’t like to dish on the specifics of which bands may or may not be in the DLC pipeline, so take your pick of these stock responses for any “When will BAND X come to RB?!”: maybe some day, we’d love to have them too, I don’t know, send your suggestions to rockband.com/request or the RB Dashboard on Facebook, who?, music licensing is hard, etc.”

Will the Wii ever see RB1, LEGO:RB, and AC/DC exports?

We don’t have any Wii export plans on the table at the moment. Considering the age of some of those titles, not to mention the rumblings of the next console cycle, it’s safe to say that we’re currently more focused on future releases.

Any new DLC for The Beatles: RB? Export possibly coming?

Again, we’d love to have more Beatles content, but it’s not entirely up to us. It still comes up from time to time in our regular Music Ops / DLC meetings, so it’s always something on our radar, but it’s not planned at the moment.

Rock Band 3

PS3 RB3 players are still having the random “XMB boot” issue. Is there any progress made on resolving this bug?

This is something that we spent considerable dev time investigating, but even with the help of the online and local community we’ve not been able to consistently reproduce the issue. Barring any new information from the community or first party, it’s unlikely that we’ll be able to allocate further resources to testing.

Any plans for non-music DLC? New clothes, venues, etc.? Is this something that would even be possible in RB3 in its current build?

We’ve talked about it at several points in RB’s history, but it’s my understanding that DLC assets like venues or clothing would severely complicate online compatibility. Just as two players need to have “Rain In Blood” to be able to play it together, we wouldn’t want to further complicate things by making sure that they all had the same shirts, pants, boots and hats as well. Additionally, if given the choice between putting dev time into more playable DLC or more asset specific DLC, I think the vast majority of the community would want more playable DLC tracks.

There is an artificial DLC cap of 3,000 in RB3, even though we have about 3,700 total songs available. As people’s libraries continue to grow, is any sort of fix or workaround planned for this?

The DLC cap isn’t artificial. An excess of content results in severe memory leaks and load issues, neither of which are ideal unless you love interminable load screens or having all your game data erased. So while it’s obviously not ideal having a DLC cap with an ever expanding library, there’s also no readily apparent solution given that no one else has ever had to deal with an issue like this on consoles before. Deleting and redownloading content as you hit the limit isn’t the most elegant solution, but it’s the best one available at the moment. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the specific stats, but this is most definitely an edge case where only a fraction of 1% of the RB community is affected.

DLC

Can we expect to see three songs/week as the new weekly default DLC quantity?

As we’ve posted earlier this year, 3-4 song weeks are likely the standard for the immediate future. We are most definitely open to exceptions, and certainly won’t rule out larger packs depending on the artist, timing, etc. The release of RB Blitz, for example, will serve as a huge DLC injection of 25 songs at launch. RBN releases remain steady and account for 5-10 new tracks a week as well.

Any album DLC in the works, by chance?

We’re always on the look out for the right album to release as DLC. Albums are especially tricky because we need to have masters for all of the tracks. Collecting masters for a 3 pack is one thing, but once that escalates to a full album, the effort required (from the band / label / license holders as well as us) grows exponentially. That’s how a release like The Clash’s “London Calling” continued to float around on our schedule for almost 2 years as we waited to secure all the necessary masters for every track.

Any “RB3 versions” of DLC in the works?

This is still up in the air. Looking at community feedback (as well as more statistically driven results) I’m still not 100% sure where the RB community stand on RB3 versions. We got a tremendous amount of pushback from the community when RB3 versions were first released, and now that we’ve gained a bit of distance for that point we’re starting to see more requests for updated legacy tracks. I know track selection plays a huge part in this, as does pricing and perceived value for those that purchased the original legacy track. It’s still something that we talk about though, and we’ll continue to pass along all relevant feedback from the community to the development team.

Is there anything the community can do outside of requesting DLC through Rock Band to convince artists to make their songs available in the franchise?

Social media has proven to be an incredibly effective tool in reaching bands, especially when looking at RBN releases. I’m not saying badger bands on Twitter, but a well-organized group of fans making a reasonable request could help convince some artists to give RBN or RB a second thought. Honestly though, a lot of that process takes place behind closed doors between management and lawyers, so the best thing you can do is continue to support DLC to show that there is an interest and to continue to build on the requests through tools like the RB Dashboard.

Will there be new ways to earn credit in the Facebook app to request additional artists?

The RB Dashboard is still in Beta and the Web team is putting a ton of time and effort into making it a kick ass tool to supplement your RB experience. We’ve experimented with a few different models of adding credit and haven’t quite hit that sweet spot yet. We’ve already made a ton of changes in response to fan feedback, so your voice definitely matters. Keep posted to the Facebook page – you’ll likely see some bigger changes closer to the launch of RB Blitz.

How much has the Facebook app impacted DLC decision making?

There have been some real surprises in the Facebook app. There are obviously a ton of no brainers high up on that list that we’ve been in talks with for years, or artists that we knew were hugely popular in the community, but there have also been a few dark horses that have prompted us to take another look at our DLC pipeline. When Three Days Grace hit #11 on the Dashboard, we doubled down on production of tracks that we already had in house so we could release them as quickly as possible. There were some higher charting bands that I had never heard of before that we started looking at for potential DLC releases. Some bands and genres had such strong showings that we even started talking about what we could incorporate into the RB Blitz soundtrack. There are still no guarantees that we’ll be able to license bands based on where they appear on the Dashboard, but it has definitely had an impact on how we approach RB DLC.

Rock Band Blitz

Any plans for Rock Band Blitz on the Playstation Vita, or any plans for a portable/mobile Blitz-like title?

RB Blitz is currently slated for XBLA and PSN this summer. We’re interested in other platforms and we’re not ruling anything out for the future, but those are the only two platforms being developed at this time.

As Rock Band Blitz is not currently announced for the Nintendo Wii, can they expect to see some sort of DLC or track pack with the Blitz setlist available?

We haven’t announced any plans to release the Rock Band Blitz-specific tracks as stand-alone DLC on any of the consoles, including Nintendo, at this time.

Will Pro-Guitar/Bass be included when Rock Band Blitz exports to RB3, or will that be something extra to purchase (assuming Pro-Guitar/Bass charts are made)?

The Rock Band Blitz songs will work immediately in RB3; no “export” process is necessary. Those tracks won’t have pro-guitar/bass upgrades included in the Blitz “package.” If we offer them down the road, they’d be available through the RB3 music store.

Will Rock Band Blitz have its own “location” for sorting in Rock Band 3 (like LEGO, RB2, etc.)?

Rock Band 3 will list Rock Band Blitz songs as Downloadable Content. We’d need to patch RB3 to include a sorting category for RB Blitz, which is prohibitive for many reasons.

One of the screenshots for Rock Band Blitz referenced “Rock Band World” on Facebook, but there hasn’t been anything mentioned anywhere about this? Is there anything you can tell us about this?

Nothing to announce right now, but stay tuned for more information this summer!

Is there an option in Rock Band Blitz to turn off the isolated solo gameplay and instead be able to play any instrument chart during solos?

The solo gameplay that you may have seen on the show floor at PAX East is not likely what you are going to see in the final build of the game. That feature is still being finalized.

Will the stage kit work in Rock Band Blitz?

Believe it or not, we actually spent engineer time researching how much work it would be to get the Stage Kit to work in RB Blitz. The short answer is no, it would have taken a bit too much work to justify!

Any chance the Rock Band Blitz will be compatible with DLC tracks that have disappeared from our libraries (Hier Kommt Alex) or were exported but not playable?

In the world of music licensing, there’s always a chance a track from the past could make its way back into the Rock Band universe. Stay tuned!

The Future

Is Harmonix still committed to future Rock Band titles with musical performance simulation?

We’re definitely still committed to the core RB franchise, and between the regular weekly RB DLC and hardware support from Mad Catz, we’re not planning on stepping away from RB any time soon.

Are designers receptive to feedback posted on RBA and on the RB forums about ideas for future titles?

Most definitely. We’ve always made it a priority to have a strong line of communication between the devs and our community. The Community Team passes on monstrous amounts of feedback, especially the thoughtful and constructive suggestions, and we’re always open to communication either on the forums or at events.

Any plans to use real guitars (like Rocksmith) in Rock Band in the future?

Yes, it’s called the Fender Squier and it was released for RB3 almost 18 months ago. We looked into a variety of different hardware options during the development of RB3, but due to a variety of technical issues (most notably the latency), it was determined that manufacturing our own hardware was the best way for us to see the results that we wanted in game.

Has there ever been a time when a proposed gameplay idea/feature has been scrapped due to issues with backwards compatibility for the Rock Band library? Has Rock Band’s big strength (huge content library) ever been a liability in title development?

Hm, only roughly ALL OF THE TIME. Like I mentioned in a few questions above, there’s no precedent for what we’re doing with DLC. There’s no established cases for us to point to where we can say “Oh, that’s how those guys figured this out”. We’re off the edge of the map, and thar be dragons everywhere. The current DLC outage on SCEE is a good example of the challenges presented by 3K+ pieces of content. We’re pushing all of the limits, sometimes in a way that conflicts with how a platform holder handles other games, but in the end I think it’s worth it. The library (3,649 songs and growing) is an integral part of the RB experience, and we’ll do whatever we can to continue to support it.

 

HUGE thanks to @johntdrake, @HMXhenry, and @MrPope for taking the time to answer our questions!!!