Posts Tagged ‘Green Day’

As you well know being a Rock Band fan, Green Day became the second band (after The Beatles) to have a dedicated game. Unlike the Beatles however, the game’s focus was primarily at those who were already fans of the band. So I thought I would look into a song released as DLC that would appeal to both fans and non-fans of the band! This week’s Thursday Throwback pick is 21 Guns.

And while I’m personally not a huge fan of the band, one of their songs in particular I do enjoy, 21 Guns, released as DLC for Rock Band as a part of a pack in July 2009, along with East Jesus Nowhere and Know Your Enemy. And here’s a bit of trivia for you: Along with the Pearl Jam pack, it was one of the first songs with harmonies charted in the game.

Green Day formed in 1987 as punk rock band, which in over two decades, have sold 65 million records worldwide, 8 studio albums (with a 9th on the way) and has won numerous awards, including 5 Grammy awards. With over 18 million likes on Facebook, there’s no doubt the band has a broad appeal. 21 Guns is off Green Day’s 8th album, 21st Century Breakdown, and is the bands highest charting single since 2005. You might recognize the track from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which is where I originally had heard the track.

So what about the song on Rock Band? I want to preface that the song isn’t as heavy as the majority of Green Day’s songs, but it is a good song to play. The 0-tiered chord-filled guitar won’t challenge many of you, but it does include a nice little solo thrown in for good measure. For those who not yet be comfortable on Expert, this would be a good song to help you learn. Bass is tiered just above guitars, and has quite an unusual chart, filled with sustain notes. Again, a good starter Expert bass song. The 1-tiered drums is probably the best instrument in the song, with frequent changes and lots of fun fills, which will mean that the song will be good on Pro Drums. I think it’s a bit harder than the 1-tier rating, but with difficulty rankings, everyone finds songs either easy or harder than others. Finally, the 0-tiered vocals is a comfortable song to sing, both on regular vocals and harmonies.

So there you have it. If you fancy a nice simple yet fun song to start your journey through Rock Band, or just want a easy song for people to introduce to Rock Band, here’s your song!

Your full band playthrough:

Pro Drums chart playthrough, for those interested.

And I would greatly appreciate that after you finished with this article, to come and have a look at my website, The Tribute Pages. Thank you!

OK, we’ve been doing giveaways frequently in the past (including TEN Billy Joel DLC codes just yesterday), and we normally have you give your favorite song from the band or on-disc track relating to the giveaway. I think we’re going to change it up a little bit. We have one copy of Green Day: Rock Band for the Xbox 360. The game came out on June 8th, and it is now December 17th; over six months later. If you enter the contest, then you obviously don’t have the game.

To enter, you have to write below in the comments the reason why you never bought the game. We’ll look through all the submissions and after 10PM Central tonight, we’ll choose a winner and contact you for your address. Please try and get back to us by tomorrow morning, so we can hopefully get you your prize prior to Christmas. And since we will be shipping it out at our expense, we’re keeping it to US entries only.

Just like the Billy Joel DLC giveaway, same rule applies. Please, only enter ONCE per HOUSEHOLD. When you have giveaways, you can make up the rules, and beggars can’t be choosers. For the Billy Joel giveaway, I deleted a lot of entries because people entered twice. Sorry, but you gotta follow the rules.

Good luck!

Is it that time of year again? Come to think of it, yeah, it is. I remember decorating the Christmas tree last year while watching. But I digress…

After jumping around the blogosphere, it appears that the list of nominees has been and continues to be met with sharp criticism, even though our favorite rhythm gaming franchise was nominated for three different awards. Rock Band 3 was nominated for “Best Music Game” and “Best Soundtrack,” and Green Day: Rock Band’s “Basketcase” was nominated for “Best Song in a Game.”

The other nominees for “Best Music Game” also include Harmonix’s other new title Dance Central, DJ Hero 2, and Def Jam Rapstar, while the other nominees for “Best Soundtrack” include Def Jam Rapstar, DJ Hero 2, and Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock. Nominees for “Best Song in a Game” also included Soundgarden’s “Black Rain” (from Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock), José González’s “Far Away” (from Red Dead Redemption), Nicole Scherzinger’s “GoldenEye” (from Goldeneye), Rihanna & Iyaz’s “Replay/Rude Boy Mashup” (from DJ Hero 2), and Eminem’s “Won’t Back Down” from Call of Duty: Black Ops.

You can see the entire list of nominees over at Joystiq. I was under the impression that you could vote, but it doesn’t appear that way this year (for these categories, anyway), but be sure to check out the categories just in case: Best Music Game, Best Soundtrack, and Best Song in a Game. And don’t forget to tune in on December 11th on Spike TV to find out how Rock Band fares!

It was the winter of 1994, and yours truly was a far stretch from the handsome beast that I am today. It was not uncommon to see me with overgrown, curly brown hair, thick funny glasses, extremely tight jeans and those ridiculous velcro strap sneakers that, lets be honest, none of us really liked to begin with. I was awkward, shy, obese, depressed, constantly teased by girls and boys alike and above all, angry that I seemingly had no control over anything in my life, angry that nothing would change, that I would never be “cool” or have any friends or be of any worth to society. Being ignored, left out and feeling like I was insane was something of a daily occurrence at that time in my life.

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The biggest complaint I hear about from people who are enjoying Green Day: Rock Band is the lack of older songs from before “Dookie.” While for most, 53 songs (including the DLC) is enough, but for others, there’s still a big appetite for more songs and from deeper in their library.

According to Tre Cool:

“That’s what’s cool about the ‘Rock Band’ thing, is if we want to add more songs, we can do it online, in the future. If we want to do some surprises and stuff, we can always keep adding to it.”

Billie Joe added:

“Yeah, it would be great to see songs that are from, you know, ’39/Smooth’ and ‘Kerplunk,’ to come out on it. You know, that’s what’s exciting … to visit some of the older songs too.”

“It’s exciting for me to hear the song ‘She,’ and you know, that was fun to watch and play, and hearing the stems that they had to do with Chris Lord-Alge, who ended up doing all the different mixes for it to bring out the drums and the guitars and bass and vocals. That was really exciting too, for people to see or, to play or to hear again.”

[MTV.com]

So I normally embed Grooveshark playlists for any DLC announcements, and I found this while loading the page…

And this behind the song query box…

When I got back to work, I fired up good old Pandora, and noticed this…

Anyone seeing anything like that on Slacker, LastFM, or AOL Radio?

UPDATE: Yes to LastFM…