“Lady Gaga Pack 01” will include “Bad Romance,” “Just Dance,” “Monster” and “Poker Face” — but that’s not all. Also releasing next week will be the Cartman-fronted, South Park-special edition of “Poker Face” that I mentioned a couple Fridays ago.

This is just one of many examples of how awesome Rock Band is.

Anyway, the songs appear to hit next week at usual times, and for the usual $2 apiece, with the whole four-pack going for $6.99 (or 560 Microsoft Points). I’ll have my traditional links and samples for you later this week…but right now, man, I’ve got dinner plans. Have yourselves a lovely evening, because I sure will.

So what does Harmonix do? They go and announce Rock Band 3.

Jerks.

Luckily for me, there isn’t really much to tell: We knew the game was in the works, and while we didn’t know for sure it’d be out by the end of this year, it was a pretty safe assumption all around (especially considering that MTV exec Paul DeGooyer mentioned that Green Day: Rock Band wouldn’t be the company’s “only game this year”). Harmonix does specifically mention that it’ll be distributed by EA, which was in some doubt recently. Aside from that, the announcement is pretty much without detail: Worldwide release, holiday season, “will innovate and revolutionize the music genre once again, just as Harmonix did with the original Rock Band, Rock Band 2 and The Beatles: Rock Band.”

I’m expecting harmonies. What are you expecting?

True story: I’ve been trying to finish up this review since January, but kept getting handed new freelance projects I simply couldn’t turn down. So I’ve had my drum set sitting in my office, right behind my chair, for nearly two months now.

Yesterday I finally moved it back down into the basement, and now my office feels frighteningly large and echoey. I may have developed agoraphobia in the past few weeks. I don’t recommend it.

Anyway: I made you a review. I hope you like it.

Here’s a random musical connection for you: The James Gang’s Thirds, from which “Walk Away” comes, was produced by Ken Hamann. His son, Paul Hamann, was the engineer for part of the recording of my old band’s first full-length CD, at Suma Recording Studio in Painesville, Ohio. (Here’s a great writeup on the studio. Man, I loved that fireplace.)

No, you didn’t need to know that. I just wanted to share.

I won’t do a whole list here, but there’s a particularly juicy quote from Sub Pop rep Tony Kiewel, who confirms some more bands from the legendary indie label, including Iron & Wine, Fleet Foxes, and Sunny Day Real Estate. Brandon Linnell of Century Media Records also confirms another band I’m particularly excited to check out in Rock Band: King’s X.

Check out the whole article for an idea of what RBN means for labels.

[Read]

There’s lots of great stuff in the article, but I’ll just show you a couple bits that caught my eye. First:

“[I]n my humble opinion the [music-game] genre itself has helped to save rock’n’roll from being fully Nickelbacked or Maroon 5-ed into a coma. The games have certainly increased the number of young people interested in pursuing musical activities in many ways; just ask any guitar instructor or owner of a musical instrument store.”

I couldn’t agree more, and as a side note, “Nicklebacked Into a Coma” may be the name of my forthcoming EP.

The other quote I really liked was about the relationship between playing music games and playing music:

“Remember that musical training isn’t solely about scales and correct finger placement; rhythm, song structure, key changes, lyrics, genre styles, etc. are all elements of a musical education, and playing along with songs on Rock Band absolutely aids in the development of the awareness of these elements.”

Yes. Much of the rest of the article is every bit as good, but I’d feel bad about quoting any more, so I’ll just send you over there. The article is really substantial, with a good deal of talk about past music-related games, the current market, the potential of the Rock Band Network, and where the genre might be going. So go, read, enjoy.

[Read | image]

“PUT YOUR MUSIC IN GAME. GAME IS GOOD AND FANS LIKE GAME. MUSIC IS FUN, GAME IS FUN. FUN IS FUN. ROBOTS!”

[Read]

Now, I don’t expect to be updating the list every day; I probably will try for every week. But this is a fun pack, featuring one of my favorite Jonathan Coulton tunes, a Bang Camaro classic, and a bunch more, so I thought it bore mentioning.

Alchemilla	Bleeder	80 MS	N/A	N/A
The B.O.L.T.	Genius	80 MS	N/A
Ballyhoo!	Cali Girl	80 MS
Bang Camaro	Push Push (Lady Lightning)	80 MS
Cetan Clawson and the Soul Side	White Heat	160 MS
Eric Harm	Stegosaurus Song	80 MS	N/A	N/A
Jonathan Coulton	Code Monkey	160 MS
Pollyn	Gave It Up	80 MS
Super Gravity	Makeup/Breakup (Original Version)	80 MS	N/A	N/A
Terrorhorse	Packet Flier	80 MS	N/A	N/A
Voodoo Pharmacology	Minnesota	80 MS	N/A	N/A

The RBN Vault has been updated accordingly. All these songs are available for purchase in the RBN Store now, so what are you waiting for?

[image: Dale May]

The White Stripes	Fell in Love With a Girl
The White Stripes	Seven Nation Army
The White Stripes	You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do as You’re Told)

Also coming next week: Two each from indie bands The Futureheads and Shaimus, a classic from the James Gang, and…wait, what? A song by Rush drummer Neil Peart? A drum-centric cover of the theme to Hockey Night in Canada, you say? Well, that’s just fine by me.

The Futureheads	Decent Days and Nights
The Futureheads	Hounds of Love
The James Gang	Walk Away
Neil Peart	The Hockey Theme
Shaimus	All of This
Shaimus	Tie You Down

The songs hit at the usual times next week, with the Peart and Shaimus tunes going for a buck apiece, and everything else going for the usual $2 or equivalent. (And of course, $5.49 / 550 Wii Points / 440 Microsoft Points for the White Stripes pack.) A playlist! I have one! Only it doesn’t include “The Hockey Theme” — you can find a video here — or  “Tie You Down,” which you can hear at Shaimus’s MySpace page. You can listen to the rest after the break. Continue reading →

Why a whole separate page? Well, see, the Rock Band Network is sort of a separate thing from the main Rock Band store. For one thing, the songs are only available on 360 at the moment; for another, they’re priced much more variably than those in the main library. So I figured that warranted a separate page, for now at least. As the RBN library grows I may fold those back into the main Vault, but for the moment I’ll be keeping them separate.

And how often will this be updated, you ask? I haven’t the foggiest idea. The image on this post that I grabbed from the Rock Band Zine seems to be suggesting we’ll be getting “new songs daily.” This idea is exciting to me as a music fan, and terrifying to me as a person covering music games. I don’t think I’ll have the temporal or mental bandwidth to update the list daily. Weekly? I hope so.

While we figure all this stuff out, why not head on over to the shiny new RBN Vault, have a look a round, and let me know if you find anything that doesn’t look, read, or work right? I would truly appreciate it.

Rock on, friends.