Smarmy Jerkface Dot Com

Let me get this out of the way first: The Beatles: Rock Band gets five out of five stars from me. No amount of nitpicking will detract from the overall joy, wonder and amazement this game has provided already and will continue to provide over the days, weeks and months that I'll be playing it. Nothing is perfect, not even The Beatles. But for what this game sets out to accomplish, it succeeds in every possible way.

I've read glowing review after glowing review for TB:RB, and for the most part I agree with them. But every review has fit that same kind of "review mold", many just saying the same things… echoing the same complaints. Let's address some of those gripes, shall we?

"The game is easier than regular Rock Band." In some ways yes and in some ways no. I started my first run through Story Mode playing hard guitar, thought the first song was too easy, and promptly bumped up to expert for the next song. It promptly handed me my ass. So back down to hard I went and that's how I played through Story Mode. Some songs are harder than others, and the charts get tougher as you go. Just like Rock Band. If you're one of those Dragonforce freaks then yes, you'll probably find the game fairly easy. Some of us just want to play the songs.

"Only 45 songs? There were 100 songs in Rock Band and 85 in Guitar Hero." So? IT'S THE BEATLES, not Nelson. Look if you want quantity over quality then go grab Guitar Hero: Aerosmith for $15 at Best Buy. The work and dedication that went into this project is worth paying a premium for.

"Where's this song?  Where's that song?"  I too am a little perplexed as to why rockers like Help! didn't make the cut.  It never struck me when I was playing through the game last night though.  I gained new appreciation for songs like Dear Prudence, one that had never really been on my radar much. The same cannot be said for I Want You (She's So Heavy) though… a song that still grates on my nerves like someone chewing on aluminum foil. (See? Like I said, The Beatles aren't perfect either. But I don't dock them a point and a half for that.)

And yes, while incredibly cool, the final set on the roof of Apple is a bit anti-climactic. The true finale of the game should have been the entire final medley from Abbey Road, but it's coming via DLC, as are many of your other favorites. So no worries there, really.

I'm not even going to get into the whole "But Paul didn't play bass on that song he plays drums because Ringo quit that day and blahbiddy blah blah" nitpicky nonsense that the hardcore types out there are engaging in right now. History isn't being re-written or anything. Calm yourselves.

Please don't misunderstand… I'm not trying to say that the game necessarily needs defending. Clearly it's getting great reviews across the board. But people feel compelled to dock points for little tiny nothings that don't detract from the experience whatsoever. And that's what this game ultimately is. An experience. One that looks amazing, sounds amazing and plays amazing. And one that you should share with as many people as possible.

The Beatles: Rock Band is now the standard that all future music games will have to attempt to match or exceed, just as The Beatles were the standard that all future bands attempted to match or exceed. One could argue that they've never been equaled. You have to wonder if the games industry can now do what the music industry couldn't.

Okay, so you've got 20 tracks to pick for the Rock Band: John, Paul, George and Ringo Track Pack expansion disc featuring the solo work of the Beatles. No, there isn't such a product coming out… but it's a good idea. Try to keep in mind songs that would be fun to play as opposed to their biggest hits. For example, I didn't pick Imagine because it's mostly piano. And I didn't pick How Do You Sleep? because, well, it's just so damn mean spirited. Go.
John Lennon – Gimme Some Truth, Instant Karma, Isolation, Working Class Hero

Paul McCartney – Band on the Run, Jet, Live and Let Die, Maybe I'm Amazed, Old Siam Sir, Sing the Changes, Tug of War, Venus and Mars/Rock Show

George Harrison – All Things Must Pass, All Those Years Ago, Blow Away, Got My Mind Set On You, My Sweet Lord

Ringo Starr – It Don't Come Easy, Photograph, Weight of the World

This past weekend I somewhat successfully hunted down a copy of Rock Band 2 and proceeded to have a bleary-eyed 24 hours worth of fake rockin’.  But before I tell that story, I felt compelled to talk about some of the seemingly obvious bands that so far haven’t made an appearance in this money making video game genre.

So everyone bemoans the fact that the holy grails of rock like The Beatles and Pink Floyd have yet to appear in any music simulator video game.  I anxiously await the Beatles catalog myself.  But there are some "smaller" bands that have yet to make their appearance in anything involving plastic instruments.  And you have to wonder why.

Now I’m not saying the makers of these games are clueless or lazy, and I understand there are both rights issues to negotiate and master tracks to hunt down and clean up.  Those are clearly huge hurdles.  The point of this article is just to point out some obvious omissions.

Please keep in mind, these are not necessarily my favorite bands or my favorite songs.  But what I’m doing here is picking popular pop/rock acts with recognizable songs that would be fun to play and sing in games like Rock Band 2 and the upcoming Guitar Hero: Rock Band Edition.

6) Three Dog Night

No one talks about Three Dog Night these days, almost like they never existed.  But in the 1970s?  They were huuuuuuuuge.  Joy to the World has appeared in a couple of Karaoke Revolution games but not anything we can rock out with.  Suggestions: One is the Loneliest Number, Joy to the World, Mama Told Me Not to Come.

5) Styx

A cover version of Come Sail Away appears in a Karaoke Revolution game.  That’s it.  That’s absurd.  Styx would be a blast to play with friends.  One problem I can see with not using anything from the Styx is that they are heavy on keyboards, but that just means we need a keytar attachment, stat.  And seriously, I don’t mind the guitar controller simulating keyboards sometimes.  Suggestions: Lorelei, Too Much Time on My Hands, Fooling Yourself, Renegade, Rockin’ the Paradise, Blue Collar Man.

4) INXS

Perhaps the industry was burned by the Sega CD game Make My Video: INXS, since there’s been no INXS in anything in the video game world since 1993.  For shame.  Suggestions: What You Need, Need You Tonight, Devil Inside.

3) Weird Al Yankovic

With the recent release of the Stephen and the Colberts track Charlene, Rock Band’s makers have continued to show that they do have a sense of humor.  So why not throw us some Weird Al?  Even if we had to stick with his original tunes and not the parodies because of potential rights issues, I’d be fine with that.  Suggestions: Frank’s 2000" TV, Dare to Be Stupid, Midnight Star, When I Was Your Age.

2) Genesis

You’d think Genesis would be a no brainer for these games.  The dumming alone would be crazy.  Suggestions: Just about anything pre-Invisible Touch.

1) U2

Really?  Not one U2 track yet in any game?  How is that
possible?  There were rumors last year swirling of a Guitar Hero: U2
edition but there hasn’t been as much as a whisper about them since.  Suggestions: Pretty much anything except for Lemon or Daddy’s Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car.

This week a news story from the LA Times started making the rounds stating that executives at Sony would be interested in thinking about maybe contemplating the possibility of the concept of Beatles songs being used in Guitar Hero.  Here’s the big quote:

Martin N. "Marty" Bandier, the top executive at the music publishing company that owns the John Lennon- Paul McCartney copyrights, said he liked the idea of a dedicated Beatles edition of Guitar Hero, Activision Inc.’s hugely popular video-game franchise.

"It’s something we have talked about and something I’d like to pursue," said Bandier, who last year took over as chairman and chief executive at Sony/ATV Music Publishing.

Now hopefully he was just using "guitar hero" as a general term for the current hot genre of music/rhythm games that includes Guitar Hero and Rock Band, because quite frankly, the only way to do The Beatles’ songs justice would be doing it with Rock Band.  Not that I would complain if their songs were used in Guitar Hero mind you, but it would be a much better experience with Rock Band‘s more in-depth set-up.  I wanna go all Ringo with my fake (yet still noisy as hell) drums.

And I was going to use this post to explain the whole "who owns the
rights to Beatles songs?" thing since it seems awfully confusing.
Luckily, Snopes did a really good job explaining everything, so I’ll
just direct you to their article.  Yes, Michael Jackson owns some of the rights to some of the Beatles’ catalog.  Sort of.