Alright. Alright. I promised not to bang on any more about how awesome Rock Band is. But when I said that, I had no idea what songs were going to be made available for download next week.
Richard motherhugging Thompson. Oh, HELL YES.
It’s a slightly odd choice of song on the face of it – The Way That It Shows probably isn’t even one of the three best tracks from a fifteen-year-old album that most RT fans don’t regard as a classic (although personally I like it a lot). But it’s a decent selection for playing in Rock Band – it’s got a great bassline, I think that vocal will be surprisingly good fun (particularly the practically-clenched-teeth wailing in the second chorus) and it’s one of the relatively rare Thompson studio tracks to feature a big guitar solo.
There really seems to be a difference in the approach to downloadable tracks for Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Band. Neversoft seem to think it’s more important to chase “scoops” and grab brand new songs of the new albums of name acts. Harmonix tend to focus more on having a wide representation of musical styles and, y’know. Good songs.
Obviously it’s a business decision above all, but to my eyes it’s a good one. Harmonix understand music and care about music. Between them, the first two Guitar Hero and Rock Band games must have introduced me to a dozen bands who’d previously either passed me by altogether or that I’d ignored because they played music I didn’t think I was into. It puts a huge smile on my face to think that someone, somewhere, is about to get exactly that same experience with a semi-obscure sixty year-old folk-rock guitarist who just happens to be one of the finest songwriters British music has ever produced.
Seriously. How cool is that?
(Although would a three-pack with Shoot Out The Lights and Can’t Win or bitterest-song-in-history When The Spell Is Broken have killed you? Also: seeing as you’re now apparently putting out tracks specifically to please me, can we have Another Girl, Another Planet next? Or a three-pack of monumentally stupid eighties stadium-goth shoutery by The Mish with Tower Of Strength, Wasteland and Deliverance? And some Up To Here-Fully Completely era Tragically Hip PLZKTHNXBAI!)
