Rock Band Update 4.27

Sometimes* after a long, hard day of work**, I like to relax*** with a nice Rock Band session****.

*About 5 days a week

**Which includes playing/analyzing games, plus developing a couple games for my research project and one of my classes

***Put on my game face

****At least 2 hours of besting my own personal scores in the hopes of attaining as many #1 spots on my favorite songs as possible.

More on this after the jump.

Music has always been a big part of my life (public school music programs FTW!), so it seemed natural that I would spend most of my time playing a music/rhythm game. I started out with Guitar Hero 1 way back when, but ever since Rock Band was released I’ve switched alliances. I didn’t get ‘hooked’ on Rock Band until September ’08 with the release of Rock Band 2, which also happened to be when I came to college and saw that my floormates had the whole Rock Band set in a totally kick-awesome lounge with stadium seating, big screen TV and surround sound. That’s how you play Rock Band.

Since then, I’ve been playing Rock Band pretty regularly as a way to relax and express myself musically (by singing with the vocal track all the way down and annoying everyone around me). I mostly stick to vocals or guitar, although there are some really fun drum songs — Bass gets no love.

But what I love most about Rock Band is the DLC. As a singer, most of the DLC I get is suited to vocals, meaning that most of the songs I get are really fun to sing, however boring they may be for other instruments. And although I do try to diversify, there’s just no getting around that my Rock Band library will have a lot of alt rock and just a little metal. Either way, Harmonix has been pretty awesome at keeping up a regular schedule of new DLC releases every Tuesday, so there is a LOT to choose from. Over the past couple years I’ve accumulated over 130 DLC tracks and am currently building my Rock Band Network library. And although only 3 new tracks were released today (as opposed to the more regular 6 or so tracks), HMXHenry of the Rock Band forums assures us that …3 tracks in a week isn’t the norm and it isn’t going to be.

So what are today’s new songs?

First we have Thunderbirds Are Go! by the British pop band Busted. It’s an immensely catchy upbeat and up-tempo tune which was recorded as the theme song for the 2004 film, Thunderbirds, which is turn is based on the popular British 1960’s television show of the same name. It’s energy and catchy tune make it fun to play on any instrument.

Next is Tomorrow by Silverchair, an Australian alt rock band. The song was first released in 1994, which is readily apparent in its grungy sound, very reminiscent of Pearl Jam. I’m a huge fan of the grunge music aesthetic, so I immediately had to get it, as grunge vocals are really fun to replicate.

Finally we have Again by Flyleaf, a Christian alt rock band from Texas. Flyleaf made their first Rock Band debut with I’m So Sick from Rock Band 1, and I’m really glad to see them back in the game as DLC. I really love rock bands with female vocalists (my music collection is filled with Flyleaf, Evanescence, Paramore, Alanis Morissette, etc.), so as you could imagine, this song was the first of the bunch that I downloaded and played. The lyrics are obviously Christian-influenced, but even for you secular folks the song is very atmospheric with the vocals simultaneously flowing with and floating over the rest of the band. My favorite part of this song (in the vocal track) is that every other phrase ends with a short yodel, which are very fun to sing and just make me love vocalist Lacey Mosely even more.

So even though this week doesn’t bring us any classic rock or heavy metal, the three songs that were released today are still fine songs that would be great additions to your DLC collection. As for me, I will just say that this is the first time in a long time that I’ve downloaded all of a given week’s DLC (so what if it’s just three songs; it still counts!).