Posts Tagged ‘Country’

Arriving in the Rock Band library this week is a MASSIVE pack of Country musicians originally featured on the Country Track Pack 2 disc. 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 individual tracks are 160 MSP ($1.99). In addition to the Country Mega Pack (1600 MSP / $19.99) featuring all 21 songs, there are also smaller packs that break the songs into bite-sized portions. The songs for each smaller pack are arranged after the jump along with the playthrough videos, but the packs themselves are priced (and linked) as follows:

• Going Country Pack 05 ($8.49 / 680 MSP)
• Going Country Pack 06 ($9.99 / 800 MSP)
• Going Country Pack 07 ($10.99 / 880 MSP)
• Going Country Pack 08 ($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 »

This past week saw the release of three tracks from the 2 Million Facebook “Likes” promotion, and for those keeping track at home, we are still awaiting the release of Stevie Wonder and Dream Theater DLC. Could this week see either (or both) of those artists? Lets find out!

UPDATE: Harmonix has acknowledged that they originally announced earlier this year that the eventual DLC counterpart of the Country Track Pack 2 would only have Rock Band 2 features, and at the time had no plans to release the DLC with Rock Band 3 features. With the DLC coming out on 11/8, it is clear that this is not the case, and the DLC will now include Rock Band 3 features (mainly adding Keys and Pro-Keys charts to 19 out of 21 of the songs). Because many of the early adopters feel slighted, @HMXHenry is attempting to “make good” by attempting to provide DLC codes to those who purchased the track pack. From RockBand.com:

We’re waiting on approval from Microsoft for several hundred codes for the 21 song Country Mega Pack of DLC. I’m hoping we receive these codes before the end of day tomorrow. When we have them in hand I’ll be PMing them to people that have posted about being early adopters of the Country Track Pack 2.

There’s no elegant way for us to track ownership in game (or making the connection between hundreds of in game scores to gamertags to email addresses to forum profiles) and licensing would prevent us from gifting this DLC pack to everyone that bought CTP2 even if there was a technical solution. But I know a lot of people on the forums, in this thread in particular, feel like we could have handled this release better so we wanted to do something.

There is no guarantee that everyone will get a code. It’s all on the honor system and it’s all based off of forum feedback in posts over the last week. Keep an eye on your inboxes, but I’ll post an update when I have codes in hand so we can try to get them to people before DLC goes on sale tomorrow.

Going Country Pack 05 ($8.49 / 680 MSP)

• Chely Wright – Single White Female
• Laura Bell Bundy – Giddy On Up
• Reba McEntire – The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia
• Shania Twain – Party for Two (with Billy Currington)
• Sugarland – Settlin’ 

Going Country Pack 06 ($9.99 / 800 MSP)

• Billy Currington – That’s How Country Boys Roll
• Darryl Worley – Awful, Beautiful Life
• Gary Allan – Man of Me
• George Straight – TWANG
• Johnny Cash – Ring of Fire
• Justin Moore – Backwoods

Going Country Pack 07 ($10.99 / 880 MSP)

• Darius Rucker – Alright
• Dierks Bentley – Sideways
• Keith Urban – Kiss a Girl
• Lady Antebellum – Perfect Day
• Luke Bryan – Rain Is a Good Thing
• Merle Haggard – Mama Tried
• Trace Adkins – Ride *

Going Country Pack 08 ($5.49 / 440 MSP)

• Dwight Yoakam – International Heartache
• Jason Aldean – Crazy Town
• Rascal Flatts – Summer Nights

Country Mega Pack ($19.99 / 1600 MSP)

• ALL OF THE ABOVE SONGS

* Denotes Pro-Guitar/Bass chart availability for $.99.

[Official announcement]

It seems like we just had a discount on DLC packs a few weeks ago, but this time country music fans are getting some love. Up for sale for (although apparently NOT the Xbox Live Deal of the Week) to Xbox Live Gold members are nearly ALL the country packs (with the exception of Toby Keith), and are listed out below…

UPDATE: Thanks to @SteveMightSay, it appears that this DLC sale is also live on the PS3. (Confirmed here.) Anyone on the Wii want to check to see if this promo is a hat-trick?

Alt Country Pack 01 680 MSP ($8.49) 440 MSP ($5.49)

• Steve Earle – Satellite Radio
• Lucinda Williams – Can’t Let Go
• Drive-By Truckers – 3 Dimes Down
• Old 97′s – Time Bomb (Live)
• Neko Case – People Got a Lotta Nerve

Going Country Pack 01 680 MSP ($8.49) 440 MSP ($5.49)

• Brad Paisley – Mud on the Tires
• Brooks & Dunn – Hillbilly Deluxe
• Dierks Bentley – Free and Easy
• Dixie Chicks – Sin Wagon
• Miranda Lambert – Gunpowder & Lead

Going Country Pack 02 880 MSP ($10.99) 600 MSP ($7.49)

• Alan Jackson – Good Time
• Cross Canadian Ragweed – Cry Lonely
• Jason Aldean – She’s Country
• Keith Urban – I Told You So
• Kenny Rogers – The Gambler
• Martina McBride – This One’s For the Girls
• Shania Twain – Any Man of Mine

Going Country Pack 03 800 MSP ($9.99) 520 MSP ($6.49)

• Kenny Chesney – She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy
• Montgomery Gentry – Gone
• Rascal Flatts – Me and My Gang
• Sara Evans – Suds in the Bucket
• Trace Adkins – Swing
• Willie Nelson – On the Road Again

Johnny Cash Pack 01 1080 ($13.49) 720 MSP ($8.99)

• Cry, Cry, Cry
• Don’t Take Your Guns to Town
• Five Feet High and Rising
• Folsom Prison Blues
• I Got Stripes
• I Walk the Line
• Tennessee Flat Top Box
• The Ballad of Ira Hayes

Roy Orbison Pack 01 800 MSP ($9.99) 520 MSP ($6.49)

• Claudette
• In Dreams
• Mean Woman Blues
• Oh, Pretty Woman
• Ooby Dooby
• You Got It

[Thanks for the heads up, Josh CCR!]

If you were asleep, hungover, or buried alive in the snow yesterday and missed out, we posted our review of the Rock Band Country Track Pack 2 yesterday, along with a giveaway for a number of copies of the track pack. If you like country music, fun charts, or entertaining lyrics, you should definitely not pass up on this. And if you are still on the fence, you can always check out the full track listing of all 21 songs, as well as the on-disc achievements that come with it. It is on store shelves of your local video game retailer starting today, or from your favorite online retailer.

We’ll keep this giveaway short and sweet. HUGE thanks to Steph at Harmonix who sent me some Rock Band Country Track Pack 2 copies to giveaway here on the site! While I’ve been pretty busy these past few weeks, I did get a chance to play through the game last week and even posted a review here.

While admittedly the franchise is called ROCK Band, there’s no reason country music fans can’t share in the experience, as well. I’m sure there are a number of country fans out there that would love to win a copy, so to enter, drop your favorite country music song (and artist) in the comments section below (song doesn’t need to be in Rock Band). I will randomly choose three winners for the Xbox 360 after 8PM (Central) tonight, and contact them via email. And what the heck, I’ll even purchase another PS3/Wii copy for those on other consoles looking to participate in the giveaway, as well. Just make sure to mark in your entry that you are on a PS3 or Wii. Duplicate entries per household will be voided. And yes, I’m feeling generous, so the XBox 360 copies are eligible to anyone worldwide (PS3/Wii are still US only… I’m not made of money, people).

Good luck!

UPDATE: The contest is now over and the winners have been notified. Thanks to everyone for visiting the site and entering!

Today is the last day in January, and not only does tomorrow bring a new month, but also the Rock Band Country Track Pack 2. The 21 on-disc songs range from older country mainstays such as Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard, to newer crossover acts like Lady Antebellum and Sugarland. I had a chance to give it a solid playthrough on guitar over the past week, and as someone who rarely enjoys country music, I was shocked at how much I ended up actually enjoying this disc.

Even though Rock Band 3 has been available for a number of months now, this Rock Band track pack follows in the footsteps of its predecessors in that it is built upon the original Rock Band format. While there is a very mild sense of nostalgia upon firing it up, it makes me appreciate the innovations and feature changes in Rock Band 3 that much more. And just so people are not confused, this means that this track pack only utilizes the original four instrument peripheral setup (i.e. no keyboards). Harmonix has already confirmed that vocal harmonies and Pro drums are available upon export, but I haven’t yet had time to export the songs via the included code into Rock Band 3. They also mentioned that they do not have plans to release “RB3 versions” of these songs when they are ultimately released as DLC, similar to previous track pack exclusive songs.

I made an attempt at unlocking a number of the solo achievements in a single go at it. I took a break about halfway through the setlist. The only song I was familiar with going into the game was Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire,” and I have a feeling I may not be alone in that respect. I have to admit that country music is typically one of my least favorite music genres to listen to, however I have to admit that the songs packed on to this disc are pretty fun. While the note charting is pretty fun, I do have to admit that I laughed at some of the stereotypical country music lyrics included in the song choices. As an aside, can’t any country music songs be written about anything besides whiskey, pick-up trucks, and “my old lady?”

I played through the solo tour mode on guitar, and had very little difficulty until the final tier. I was expecting the songs in the final tier to be pretty challenging, and while they were no pushovers, there was only one song that required my lackluster alt-strumming skills. For the most part, the hardest part of the final tier guitar songs is the festival of HOPOs that are thrown at you, and I have to admit that they are VERY fun to play. If you are like me and still working at unlocking the “HOPO-cidal Maniac” achievement in Rock Band 3, playing these songs after exporting them to your library should help you quite a bit.

While the note charting may be very fun, it is not without its rare questionable exceptions, such as the charting of the horn section in “Ring of Fire” to the guitar. I understand why decisions like this are made, but I guess my feeling on the matter is that, double bass charting aside, Rock Band is more about the authenticity of the charting. If an instrument peripheral such as a horn section or harmonica does not exist, my preference would be to see these instruments charted to keys (if it works), or leave it out entirely.

There are those that are surprised when I tell them that I don’t pick up all the DLC that is released. Part of it is due to the monetary expense, and part of it is due my musical tastes and preferences, but the biggest part is that I don’t have as much time as I used to to play Rock Band, so I don’t need a full library of 2,000+ songs. While this is not a disc that I would have rushed to the store tomorrow to buy, I’m very glad that I had a chance to play it. In fact, I may go searching for the original Country Track Pack disc that I had originally passed on!

If you are a fan of country music in the slightest, I highly recommend this track pack. If you make your DLC purchasing decisions based on the vareity and quality of the note charting, even if you are like me and do not particularly care for country music, I still recommend you give this one a shot. You can find the Rock Band Country Track Pack 2 on retail store shelves tomorrow, as well as for pre-order through online outlets right now, for $29.99. Or, if giveaways are your thing, you may want to enter to win a copy!

Big thanks to Steph at Harmonix for sending me a review and contest giveaway copies for the site!