The Korean girl-group Girls’ Generation brings together 8-bit games, delicious noodle soup, and flouncy skirts in the above commercial for a Korean ramen brand, whose ad agency had the genius idea to use the music from the addictive video game Bubble Bobble as its bed. I have listened to this commercial multiple times since it first crossed my transom, and it’s making me think about how I think someone should just put out a CD of the Wii’s weather music, which is some of the best music to doze by ever.


(P.S. If that song has given you an uncontrollable jonesing for the game, but you’re away from your 8-bit-compatible console, you can play right here. Just don’t let your boss see!)


SNSD Yoona,Seohyun,Sunny @ Samyang Ramyun Commercial [YouTube via MONEY, CASH, HOS]

The text-heavy Guitar Hero: Metallica box art is out, and it features a big fat booboo: Someone left a last “Y” out of Lynyrd Skynyrd‘s name! Sure, we’ve all misspelled Linyrd Skynyrd in our day, but it’s not that hard: wherever you would put a normal vowel, put a “Y,” and you’re done. One would think that a video game this anticipated wouldn’t have to suffer from lax copyediting, but we are talking about the industry that gave us a “A Winner Is You.” [RS.com]

Sure, last year, people were scooping up Guitar Hero and Rock Band like crazy, and those who weren’t helped the cause by writing pieces about how the wild success of those games would swoop in and save the music industry from file-sharing oblivion. But in 2009, things are slowing down for plastic instruments, possibly because in this dismal economy, $200 doesn’t seem like as insignificant an amount of money as it did a year ago.

UBS’ Ben Schachter notes in his wrap-up of January game sales that, if you exclude “Rock Band,” Electronic Arts (ERTS) was January’s gaming champion with sales up 21% y/y. But include Rock Band, and EA slumped 6.2% with dollar sales of Rock Band down 52%.

Same story with the other big music game, Activision (ATVI) property Guitar Hero: Sales down 22% y/y. But Activision is particularly poorly placed because it’s doubling down on music: In a CNBC interview yesterday, CEO Bobby Kotick was talking up hip-hop themed “DJ Hero” as his company’s next big release.

I really have no idea whether DJ Hero will actually be fun to play or not—or whether people will buy it—but wouldn’t it take continuing growth of the music game market to “save” the music biz? Many people own one—or both—of the musical heavy hitters at this point, but the general nature of the gaming industry is one of constantly shifting trends, with something new and shinier always on the horizon.

As plastic guitars slide further back into the closet and gather more dust, associated purchases of Dragonforce MP3s and the like have to decrease as well—which means that if acts are expecting to pay their mortgages from Rock Band downloads in the coming months, it might be time to try to restructure the budget.

Guitar Zero: Gamers Growing Bored Of Music Games [Silicon Alley Insider]

It’s been a bad week in the video game world, what with the announcement that sales of Guitar Hero and Rock Band may have peaked, the dissolution of the industry’s leading magazine, Electronic Gaming Monthly (it had 600,000 subscribers!), and the layoffs at EGM‘s sister web portal 1up.com (which ain’t even loading for me today). From Penny Arcade comes news that’s somehow even worse: Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber is getting into this gaming fad he’s been hearing so much about.

Much like Tycho over at Penny Arcade, there is only one ALW musical I can get behind.

When we lived in the hallowed Apartment 26, we would watch Jesus Christ Superstar with surprising frequency, and it was an experience about which I have nothing ironic to say. As a transposition of the Gospels into modern voice – though it is perhaps less “modern” now – it’s Goddamned riveting, particularly as a lapsed believer. It gave me a sympathy for the figure of Christ that I never had as an actual disciple.

(Plus, that song that plays when Jesus is being whipped is pretty ripping.)

Anyway, my first thought about this was that it would probably just like Lips or some karaoke thing, and it doesn’t seem that I’m not that far off:

The first Lloyd-Webber titles will let players sing along as characters in the composer’s shows and could involve elements of “audition,” just like in his BBC shows I’d Do Anything and How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? and last year’s Lloyd-Webber-themed episode of American Idol.

Um, that sounds terrible. My idea of gaming hell is singing along to anything from Cats while watching a bunch of virtual cat-suited actors hiss in an alleyway. And who wants to audition for a musical in a video game?

But hang on a sec.

Tycho, like me, is fatigued by the live performance format of most rhythm games. Why does everything have to be a “show?” It’s pretty rock-centric, and why not have at least have music videos going along with the playing? Tycho asks, why not a narrative experience?

I’m hungry for a game that features music and rhythm elements layered over a custom, narrative experience. PaRappa and UmJammer Lammy executed on this a billion years ago, when it was genuinely weird to do so, but now that rhythm brands are billion dollar global franchises the creative potential has been reduced to a pinhole. These games may have “Band Campaigns,” but they’re rendered at the emotional resolution of a Lite-Brite. I’m ready to see what’s next.

Haha, Lite Brite! I agree wholeheartedly with this. The declining sales of Rock Band and Guitar Hero suggest market saturation. Perhaps the next iteration of those games could add a little verisimilitude to campaign mode with “loading up the van” minigames, or unskippable, lengthy “waiting for sound check” cutscenes? I’m kinda joking here, but why not have studio sessions where playing the song well saves the band money? How about pantomiming along with the song in a music video shoot? Think Oregon Trail meets Rock Band! It could be great!

A Boy Can Dream [Penny Arcade]
Lloyd-Webber Tries Gaming; Singalong With Evita, Phantom [paidContent.org]

Like any self-respecting gamer, I’ve played a lot of Fallout 3 since its release (80 hours and counting, sigh) Though the game has its own soundtrack (in Fallout 3′s case, it’s très X-Files), the player can forgo that and listen to a number of radio stations that broadcast across the nuclear war-devastated landscape. I prefer Galaxy News Radio, the station run by raconteur Three Dog, who comments on your in-game progress in between spins of great pre-rock and roll tunes.

Though the music selection falls well within the game’s universe, game developers have to pay licensing just like anybody else, and I suspect that The Ink Spots’ fantastic “I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire” costs a lot less than Alt Rock Band X does. Last year’s near-unanimous Game of the Year Bioshock also featured old-timey licensed tracks from Billie Holliday, Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, and the Ink Spots. This kind of smart licensing really immerses you into the game’s dystopian world in much the same manner as the hilarious and incredibly well-programmed radio stations in the Grand Theft Auto games. Good licensing helps bridge the Uncanny Valley a bit, bringing an extra smidge of needed verisimilitude, but an even better consequence is that its playlist contains two zippy numbers from rock and roll progenitor, gospel singer, and sometime boxer Roy Brown.

“Mighty, Mighty Man” is a swinging number driven by some truly wild and wonderful Brown vocal yelps. Brown’s band was called The Mighty Men.

“Butcher Pete, pt. 1″ is downright filthy and hilarious, one of those thinly veiled double entendre-based songs that Chuck Berry specialized in. Hell, I kinda wonder if it would even make it past today’s culture warriors. Sample lyrics:

Butcher Pete’s got a long sharp knife
He starts choppin’ and don’t know when to stop
All you fellows gotta watch your wifes
‘Cause Pete don’t care whose meat he chops

“Pt. 2″, by the way, is just as filthy and perhaps even weirder.

It’s funny to me, and more than a little bizarre, that a generation of gamers, most of whom just want to shoot Super Mutants in the head, are being inculcated with this semi-legend who, legend has it, was the inspiration for much of Little Richard’s shtick.

I’m an avid gamer, and I’m tired of the idea that videogaming is some sort of niche media populated by pimply Internet trolls who haven’t seen the sun since World Of Warcraft came out. Sure, those guys actually exist, but Nintendo’s strategy toward more casual games like Wii Sports–not to mention the whole rise in popularity of music games–proves that gaming’s audience has a lot more room to grow. Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime once asked this pertinent question:

Do you know anyone who has never watched TV, never seen a movie, never read a book? Of course not. Now, do you know someone, maybe even in your own family, who has never played a video game? I bet you do. If we want to consider ourselves a true mass media, if we want to grow as an industry, this has to change.

While gaming is mainstream for the first time since the release of the original Nintendo Entertainment System, there is still plenty of room to expand. Video games are also surprisingly recession-proof, racking up big sales while most other major media, such as network TV or the music biz, struggle with declining revenue. Consequently, we’ve been treated to a lot of “Gaming Is Bigger Than Hollywood/Music Biz” stories recently.

Just today, the BBC reports that games are on pace to outsell music and video in the UK. Let’s everybody take a deep breath.

I don’t need to link to any evidence that the music industry is in bad shape. That point is inarguable. Hollywood ticket receipts and DVD sales have been holding steady, but the growth isn’t there, and the stupid Blu-Ray/HD-DVD format war didn’t do anybody any favors. The problem here is this: the sales figures for video games always come with caveats and codicils.

Video games lack a truly credible independent sales reporting body like Soundscan, which is fairly reliable despite its flaws. Hollywood has long juked its box-office stats, and the gaming industry is really no different. Most sales information comes from the game publishers themselves, and it’s filled with all sorts of massaging. Game publishers often talk about sales in terms of “numbers shipped,” which just means how many copies stores decided to stock. That’s a lot different than numbers actually sold. Sometimes they talk of the number of players a game has instead of how many it has actually sold. These kind of stats are as reliable as, say, Alexa numbers.

According to one of those ephemeral “retail analysts” who haunt stories like this, gaming is expected to grow “42% to £4.64bn in 2008, with sales on music and video at £4.46bn.” Those figures are pretty astounding on the face of it and do show that videogaming is truly a surging retail force. But the article mentions later on that hardware sales are included in that figure–which is little unfair to the music and video industries. iPod and CD player sales aren’t ever lumped in with music sales, and DVD player or TV sales aren’t lumped in with DVD sales.

Also, most videogames-are-bigger-than-God stories–like this BBC piece–fail to mention the simple fact that videogames just cost quite a bit more than CDs or movie tickets or DVDs. If this story mentioned what the average price of a videogame was or how many actual units of software a year were sold, the headlines would be a lot more accurate, if boring to journalists who are looking for some sort of entertainment industry-related horse race to break out. My guess is that albums, singles, and digital downloads still move way more in terms of actual units, and the inflated price of videogames is the factor behind the gaudy profits.

• In 2007, US album sales, digital and physical, were around 500 million. That doesn’t even include digital track sales, which are pretty substantial.
• Across all platforms, from PC to handhelds to consoles, the total number of games sold in the US in 2007 was approximately 267 million. That’s a huge number, to be sure, but it’s still half of album sales alone.

I have no reason to suspect that the UK isn’t proportionally similar. The average game price, factoring in the disparate prices of handheld, PC, and console games, is probably somewhere around $40-50. The average CD is what? $10? $15? You don’t have to be a mathemagician to see that video games win out in that scenario, even while increased production costs are eating into games’ profitability.

Oh, yeah, profitability! Making a big-time pop record is probably expensive, but it ain’t $10 million expensive, which was the estimated cost of the first Gears of War. Video games have slim profit margins–often as little as $1 a game–because productions take years and cost millions these days. The largest titles have to sell hundreds of thousands to turn a profit, and even then it’s meager. In this midst of this gaming boom, development houses are closing left and right because the costs are staggering. It could be argued that their profitability is worse than the music industry’s, and that’s saying something.

Gaming’s meteoric rise can’t be denied, and the mainstream media’s reticence to accept my favorite hobby as anything more than a toy or a trifle has made them look foolish, particularly when sites like Kotaku–which regularly posts images of video game-themed cakes–put up bigger numbers than indie kingmakers Pitchfork. The games-are-bigger-than-the-music-biz stories, however, should be viewed with some amount of skepticism given the way the numbers are presented. The music biz is down, but it’s not out for the count just yet.

Games ‘to outsell’ music, video [BBC]
Album sales take a tumble in 2007 [Variety]
Growth of gaming in 2007 far outpaces movies, music [Ars Technica]
Are Games Bigger Than Movies? One Expert Analyzes… [Deadline Hollywood Daily]
Why Gears Of War Costs $60 [Forbes]

In embargoed news that seems to be a secret to nobody, MTV Games will announce in mere minutes that it has licensed the Beatles catalog for use in the Rock Band universe. Now, I can’t wait to jam “And Your Bird Can Sing” on my little plastic guitar, but what I’m really excited for is the new mastering jobs that will most likely come with the songs’ Rock Band inclusion (think Death Magnetic). So should we expect the iTunes announcement to come down the pike within the next month or so? [MTV]

Every week in the “Shhhh-it!” AnonIMous Super-Secret Music-Biz Interview Series (S-I!AS-SM-BIS for, uh, short) we interview a grizzled music industry veteran via the stream-of-consciousness power of instant messaging. We talk about the person’s job, the state of the industry, and whatever else comes to mind. This week, we bring you music/rhythm game programmer GeorgeTardasin. Tardasin worked with a big-time music game developer on an iteration of a big-time music game (hint: you use plastic guitars to play it). Tardasin worked as a Gem Author, which is the name for the programmer who encodes the songs into the program, aligning the colored circles, or “gems,” that correspond with the buttons on the controller. In this interview, Tardasin discusses the challenges of transposing the songs, how long the process takes, and the joys of lighting and animations:

StumpyPete1975: you did the lights and the animations?
GeorgeTardasin: yup.
StumpyPete1975: that seems to me like it would be lots of fun
GeorgeTardasin: yeah… you get to choose what animation is going to show…so if you have like a really dramatic part of the song… there is an option to flare the lights out on the crowd.
GeorgeTardasin: ha ha
GeorgeTardasin: Its kinda cheesy but in a really awesome way.
GeorgeTardasin: and change the colors of the lights and make the characters do funny tricks while they are playing.

The whole thing after the jump!

StumpyPete1975: Let’s get the foundational stuff out of the way
GeorgeTardasin: sure.
StumpyPete1975: you worked in the video game industry
GeorgeTardasin: yes.
StumpyPete1975: you worked for one of the major music game development companies, correct?
GeorgeTardasin: yup.
StumpyPete1975: and you worked on a major rhythm/music game release that everybody knows
GeorgeTardasin: yes.
StumpyPete1975: cool
StumpyPete1975: you were a Gem Master?
StumpyPete1975: Gemologist?
GeorgeTardasin: Gem Author
StumpyPete1975: okay
StumpyPete1975: what in the heck is that?
GeorgeTardasin: The “gems” in the video game are the colored dots that you needed to hit rhythmically with your controller in time with their appearance on the television screen.
GeorgeTardasin: you needed to hit the corresponding color on your controller.
GeorgeTardasin: So, I would listen to the music and transpose the rhythm and the scale (approximately) to midi
GeorgeTardasin: but everything had to be condensed to five “notes” or “gems” for the player to try and hit with the corresponding five control keys
StumpyPete1975: why are they called gems?
GeorgeTardasin: I do not know.
GeorgeTardasin: Because they look like gems on the screen?
StumpyPete1975: do they?
StumpyPete1975: I guess so…
GeorgeTardasin: a little bit.
StumpyPete1975: maybe it’s just better sounding than programmer
StumpyPete1975: gem author is mysterious
GeorgeTardasin: heh.
GeorgeTardasin: I also would write all the rhythms for the bass, drums, lights, and the hand movements of the characters.
StumpyPete1975: omg
StumpyPete1975: I had no idea you did all of that!
GeorgeTardasin: yup.
GeorgeTardasin: It was a pretty awesome.
StumpyPete1975: I bet
StumpyPete1975: it sounds pretty awesome
StumpyPete1975: let’s break down the typical progression of a song being added to the program
GeorgeTardasin: okay.
StumpyPete1975: what’s the first thing that happens?
GeorgeTardasin: The song would be rerecorded to a click track.
StumpyPete1975: so you worked with cover versions?
StumpyPete1975: one of the earlier games
GeorgeTardasin: yeah.
GeorgeTardasin: so I would know the exact bpm
StumpyPete1975: okay
GeorgeTardasin: or I would get the song with the bpm
StumpyPete1975: I always thought the fake Sting was good
StumpyPete1975: but the fake Cobain was terrible
GeorgeTardasin: ha ME TOO.
StumpyPete1975: Sting’s hard to do
GeorgeTardasin: to sing?
StumpyPete1975: yeah, to sing
GeorgeTardasin: His basslines seem pretty easy.
GeorgeTardasin: but maybe that was the song I worked on.
StumpyPete1975: oh yeah
GeorgeTardasin: so then I would listen over and over again
GeorgeTardasin: and write the rhythm down in the midi program I had uploaded the song into.
GeorgeTardasin: Add a midi track to the audio program with the correct bpm.
GeorgeTardasin: then it was a matter of just writing it all down.
GeorgeTardasin: For the guitar and bass lines, I would actually transpose it note for note first and then I would condense it into five keys trying to keep the same relative patterns that were actually played by the artist.
GeorgeTardasin: mostly its about patterns
StumpyPete1975: aha
GeorgeTardasin: creating patterns with the five keys – gems that correspond somewhat to what is being played.
StumpyPete1975: the songs without patterns are definitely tougher
GeorgeTardasin: but some things you do with guitar don’t directly transpose into midi, like bending strings and such.
GeorgeTardasin: so there is a little fudging.
StumpyPete1975: did you ever find a song where you had to make compromises or sacrifices?
GeorgeTardasin: or slides.
StumpyPete1975: where you never felt like you got it right?
GeorgeTardasin: well there is a lot of wiggle room and it is kinda an artform. the way I would transpose it would be different sometimes than what others would transpose it.
GeorgeTardasin: yup.
StumpyPete1975: what’s the hardest part about taking the 12 note scale and making it 5 notes?
GeorgeTardasin: gosh.
GeorgeTardasin: The sacrifices.
GeorgeTardasin: you have to choose between making a good pattern and staying as close to the original , I guess “score”?
GeorgeTardasin: Usually I’d go for pattern, since that is the most fun to play. at least in my opinion.
StumpyPete1975: pattern vs. what?
StumpyPete1975: what’s the other option?
GeorgeTardasin: hmmm.
GeorgeTardasin: trying to keep as close to the actual notes being played
GeorgeTardasin: everything scrunches down, compresses
GeorgeTardasin: or you try and then if it goes up to a note in another octave, you’re screwed.
StumpyPete1975: wow
StumpyPete1975: so complicated
GeorgeTardasin: Well, its both auditory and visual in a way..
GeorgeTardasin: At least that’s how I worked. Everyone does it differently.
GeorgeTardasin: I would transpose it into midi
GeorgeTardasin: and then you have a visual representation
GeorgeTardasin: of the notes
StumpyPete1975: aha
GeorgeTardasin: and then I would look for common patterns or phrases and try to make them into a 3, 4, 5 note scale.
GeorgeTardasin: the easy level 3…you kinda just lose it altogether…ha ha
GeorgeTardasin: keep in mind that I was the first person to touch the midi files
GeorgeTardasin: I would put together the “gems”, the controls for the lights and all the animations
GeorgeTardasin: but there were other people whose jobs were just to play the games all day long.
StumpyPete1975: ok
GeorgeTardasin: They made a ton of adjustments to what I created.
StumpyPete1975: so you had editors, basically
GeorgeTardasin: my boss, who had been doing it for years
GeorgeTardasin: and then the qa people
StumpyPete1975: so by the time you are ready to present it to them, how many times have you listened to the song?
GeorgeTardasin: 25
StumpyPete1975: does that drive you crazy?
GeorgeTardasin: Not in the least
StumpyPete1975: that’s not tooooo many
GeorgeTardasin: each time I was concentrating on a different instrument
StumpyPete1975: aha
StumpyPete1975: I’ve heard that from studio engineers before
GeorgeTardasin: I can see that.
StumpyPete1975: that you listen for something different each time
GeorgeTardasin: exactly
StumpyPete1975: so it doesn’t get too monotonous
GeorgeTardasin: did y’all ever have disagreements about the gems?
GeorgeTardasin: Final tweaks on a deadline maybe
StumpyPete1975: sounds like a congenial workplace!
GeorgeTardasin: but I have to say
GeorgeTardasin: the funnest part
GeorgeTardasin: was being able to actually play the game after having written all the midi
StumpyPete1975: I bet!
GeorgeTardasin: You imagine in your head how things are going to look and how the game is going to play
GeorgeTardasin: but you write (or at least I did) on a keyboard
GeorgeTardasin: it has a different feel when you are holding the guitar controller.
StumpyPete1975: I bet it’s pretty exciting
GeorgeTardasin: typically the way I wrote it was a LOT harder than it should be.
StumpyPete1975: hahaha
GeorgeTardasin: you were one of those!
GeorgeTardasin: what do you mean?
GeorgeTardasin: ha ha
StumpyPete1975: nothing bad
StumpyPete1975: just one of the hard programmers
StumpyPete1975: some songs seem harder than others
StumpyPete1975: on the same difficulty
StumpyPete1975: and not just because of the songs
StumpyPete1975: I’ve long wondered about that
GeorgeTardasin: totally!
GeorgeTardasin: Well people are making what you are playing…
GeorgeTardasin: so that doesn’t surprise me.
StumpyPete1975: I can see there being finesse
StumpyPete1975: I’d imagine doing gems for easy might be harder than expert because you have to distill it
StumpyPete1975: am I crazy in thinking that?
GeorgeTardasin: nope you are totally totally right
GeorgeTardasin: you have to choose what to take out.
GeorgeTardasin: and everybody makes different decisions with that.
GeorgeTardasin: You want to keep the essence of the song…
StumpyPete1975: does musical training help?
StumpyPete1975: I mean, music experience?
StumpyPete1975: or do you think anybody slightly musical could do it?
GeorgeTardasin: I think it would be really really difficult to transpose
GeorgeTardasin: if you weren’t very familiar with music.
StumpyPete1975: yeah, I would suspect so.
StumpyPete1975: another question
GeorgeTardasin: uh oh
StumpyPete1975: you did the lights and the animations?
GeorgeTardasin: yup.
StumpyPete1975: that seems to me like it would be lots of fun
GeorgeTardasin: yeah… you get to choose what animation is going to show…so if you have like a really dramatic part of the song… there is an option to flare the lights out on the crowd.
GeorgeTardasin: ha ha
GeorgeTardasin: Its kinda cheesy but in a really awesome way.
GeorgeTardasin: and change the colors of the lights and make the characters do funny tricks while they are playing.
GeorgeTardasin: but again, difficult to completely visualize until you see the midi integrated with the engine into video.
StumpyPete1975: that sounds great
StumpyPete1975: I’d like to engage in a bit of conjecture
GeorgeTardasin: okay!
StumpyPete1975: obviously, I think that most bands
StumpyPete1975: would love to be able to have their songs in guitar hero or rock band
GeorgeTardasin: totally
StumpyPete1975: how hard would it be to open this up to people?
GeorgeTardasin: wow.
StumpyPete1975: to include it in games
GeorgeTardasin: It’s a lot of work, but totally worth it I guess.
GeorgeTardasin: You might want to suggest that to the audio director..ha ha
GeorgeTardasin: or whoever is in charge.
StumpyPete1975: well, think about it
StumpyPete1975: you load your songs in
GeorgeTardasin: I think its a great idea
GeorgeTardasin: Kinda like the simpsonizer!
StumpyPete1975: and you animate everything
GeorgeTardasin: but for a video game!
StumpyPete1975: yeah, sure
StumpyPete1975: so you think it’s possible, if not necessarily easy
GeorgeTardasin: exactly
GeorgeTardasin: I was slow but it took like a day at first to complete a song.
GeorgeTardasin: Its not immediately gratifying
StumpyPete1975: a day seems not so bad to me
StumpyPete1975: was that on one difficulty level?
GeorgeTardasin: nope three
StumpyPete1975: wow
StumpyPete1975: cool
StumpyPete1975: that’s a lot better than I expected
GeorgeTardasin: actually I’m lying
GeorgeTardasin: it took me two to three days per song
GeorgeTardasin: but at the end I was doing about one a day
GeorgeTardasin: and other people were way faster.
StumpyPete1975: okay…why the lie?
GeorgeTardasin: I forgot
StumpyPete1975: haha…liar!
GeorgeTardasin: That’s me!
StumpyPete1975: so they can crank these things out
StumpyPete1975: after the gem authors get into the rhythm
GeorgeTardasin: yeah
StumpyPete1975: do you think that the advent of master tracks has changed anything?
StumpyPete1975: they don’t use covers anymore
GeorgeTardasin: yeah..they were still using covers when I worked there.
GeorgeTardasin: probably not? as long as the rhythm is steady
StumpyPete1975: yeah some of those old tracks are questionable
GeorgeTardasin: I”m sure it presents a challenge
GeorgeTardasin: since midi is quantized and exact
StumpyPete1975: they can probably subtly manipulate the tracks
StumpyPete1975: do you guys ever fight over songs NOT to do?
GeorgeTardasin: Well, I was on the bottom of the totem pole… so I didn’t really have much choice
GeorgeTardasin: ha ha.
GeorgeTardasin: Since you really got familiar with so many different artists. It’s pretty intimate.
GeorgeTardasin: I wanted to do everything!
GeorgeTardasin: Everything

It seems like just a few months ago when we complimented Harmonix audio director Eric Brosious for his company’s stance against artist exclusive deals. Back in those halcyon days of August, Brosious said of the possibility of bands signing exclusive deals with Rock Band, “We prefer not to sign exclusive deals with artists because while it seems like the competitive ‘business’ thing to do, in the long run, it’s really not good for anyone. We think we should be working to get more music out to more people.” Well, August was a long time ago, and when Angus Young calls, you pick up the phone.

Apparently, artist-exclusive deals “aren’t good for anyone” when they’re being signed by your competitor, because guess who’s doing a deal with AC/DC and Wal-Mart?

MTV plans to announce on Tuesday that it has made a deal with the band and its label, Columbia Records, to create an AC/DC version of the channel’s popular Rock Band video game that will be sold in the United States only at Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club and the Wal-Mart Web site (walmart.com).

The release of the video game AC/DC Live: Rock Band Track Pack will give MTV a prominent role in the partnership between the rock group and the retailer to promote AC/DC’s forthcoming album, “Black Ice.” Wal-Mart will create a special area in each of its stores to display the new album and the new game, as well as the band’s other CDs, DVDs and T-shirts and other licensed clothing…

“If you want to be a physical band, you better make an alliance with a strong physical retailer,” said Steve Barnett, chairman of Columbia Records. “It’s a great way to sell the new album, the catalog, the game, merchandise and DVDs.” MTV and Wal-Mart are exploring the idea of setting up temporary shops to sell the game and the album in Manhattan and Los Angeles, where the retailer has no stores….

“They rock hard, and that still works for our audience,” said Van Toffler, the president of the MTV Networks’ Music and Logo Group. “It comes down to getting really great marketing, because Wal-Mart is so meaningful in terms of sales if they get behind something.”

I can only imagine how hip a temporary Wal-Mart location in Manhattan would be. Still, it’s a little disappointing to see the change in attitude over at Harmonix, although one might suspect–especially since the article fails to quote anyone from the company itself (including our pal Brosious)–that the decision might have been out of their hands. With the Guitar Hero franchise aggressively pursuing exclusive deals, it’s not hard to try to keep pace, especially when the act is as plastic guitar in the basement-worthy as AC/DC.

Wal-Mart Wins Deal on Album and Game [NYT]

Anyone who’s spent any amount of time around the Christian retail industry can tell you that the genesis of most ideas within that business come from the following formula: “Let’s make a Christian version of [fill in the blank]“. Which is why this generation of youth group children can now put down their Rock Band instruments and cleanse their ears of all that secular claptrap that game calls “music,” and instead start praising God while pressing buttons on plastic guitars hooked into the new game Guitar Praise.

Oddly, while most of Guitar Hero and Rock Band‘s success has been through the Playstations and Xboxes of this world, those who want to play Guitar Praise will have to simulate their Christian rock stardom through a PC or a Mac. Sure, paying licenses to console manufacturers would be a downer to the bottom line. But who cares about that! Let’s check out some of the available tracks!

12 Stones, “Broken”
Bride, “Same Ol’ Sinner”
Caedmon’s Call, “There You Go”
Casting Crowns, “Lifesong”
Chris Tomlin, “Made to Worship”

Darrell Evans, “So Good To Me”
David Crowder Band, “Foreverandever Etc.”
Day Of Fire, “Reap and Sow”
dc Talk, “Jesus Freak”:

Family Force 5, “Love Addict”
Flyleaf, “Perfect”
Hawk Nelson, “The Show”
Hawk Nelson, “Friend Like That”
Inhabited, “Rescue Me”
Israel & New Breed, “All Around”
James Clay, “Franklin Park”
Jared Anderson, “Blind Man”
Jennifer Knapp, “Undo Me”
Jeremy Camp, “Tonight”
Jessie Daniels, “What I Hear”
Jonah33, “Father’s Song”
Josh Bates, “Perfect Day”
Kutless, “Beyond the Surface”
Kutless, “Hearts of the Innocent”

Lincoln Brewster, “Spin”
Nate Sallie, “All About You”
Nevertheless, “The Real”
Newsboys, “Something Beautiful”
Paul Baloche, “Rock of Ages”
Paul Baloche, “All The Earth Will Sing Your Praises”
Petra, “Backsliding Blues”:

Pillar-”When Tommorrow Comes”
Red, “Breathe Into Me”
Relient K, “I Need You”
Seventh Day Slumber, “Awake”
Skillet, “The Older I Get”
Skillet, “Rebirthing”
Skillet, “Savior”:

Spoken, “Wind In My Sails”
Spoken, “Falling Further”
Spur 58, “Sleepwalkers”
Stellar Kart-”Procrastinating”
Superchick, “We Live”
The Crucified, “The Pit”
This Beautiful Republic, “Going Under”
Thousand Foot Krutch, “The Flame in All of Us”
Thousand Foot Krutch, “The Art of Breaking”
tobyMac, “I’m For You”
Todd Agnew, “This Fragile Breath”:

Warren Barfield, “My Heart Goes Out”
Whitecross, “Who Will You Follow”
Whitecross, “When The Walls Tumble Down”

Christian rock is hardly known for Dragonforce-style guitar pyrotechnics, but it’s a little strange that the makers of Guitar Praise would stick so closely to the “Praise” portion of their title and include track after track of singer-songwriter-performed worship. The point of the original game is to press a lot of buttons in time with the music’s tempo, and some of the tracks in this list are as slow as some of the Low catalog. Still, I suppose the few nods to Christian hard rock make some sense, but where’s the Demon Hunter, the Living Sacrifice, the Underoath? It would have made some sense to include a Phil Keaggy track (considering they dipped back into archives far enough to drag Whitecross out of the cobwebs), since Keaggy is the genre’s token guitar god. Digital Praise, maker of Guitar Praise, you have disappointed me. Disappointed me, verily.

Guitar Praise [Official site]

In advance of this weekend’s E3 Media and Business Summit, during which many video game geeks will converge on a convention center in hopes of finding out what will attach them to their personal couches for the next few months before the next E3, someone took it upon themselves to leak what they’re claiming are the song menus for Rock Band 2. The list’s veracity is debatable–it looks not unlike every fanboy’s dream air-guitar playlist, featuring “November Rain,” “Peace Sells,” and “Crazy Train,” not to mention “Hot For Teacher”–but hey, if I can spend a rainy night trying to perfect the rhythms of a track from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ underrated Show Your Bones, I’ll be happy. Full list of tracks after the jump.

Warmup
* If You Wanna Get To Heaven, Ozark Mountain Daredevils
* Gold Lion, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
* Possum Kingdom, The Toadies
* Black Betty, Ram Jam
* Don’t Speak, No Doubt
* Black, Pearl Jam
* Drain You, Nirvana
* Farmhouse, Phish
* Santeria, Sublime

Apprentice
* You Oughta Know, Alanis Morissette
* We Got the Beat, Go-Go’s
* Float On, Modest Mouse
* Kiss Me Deadly, Lita Ford
* Atomic, Blondie
* Heartbreaker, Pat Benatar
* Piece of My Heart, Big Brother & The Holding Company
* Rock the Casbah, The Clash
* I Wanna be Sedated, The Ramones

Solid
* Panic Attack, The Paddingtons
* Chop Suey, System Of A Down
* Give it Away, Red Hot Chili Peppers
* Everlong, Foo Fighters
* Kids in America, Kim Wilde
* Ace of Spades, Motorhead
* Hello There, John Prine
* Any Way You Want It, Journey
* Pinball Wizard, The Who

Moderate
* Machinehead, Bush
* Born To Run, Bruce Springsteen
* What’s The Frequency Kenneth, R.E.M.
* Want To, (?)
* I Write Sins Not Tragedies, Panic! At The Disco
* The Old Apartment, Barenaked Ladies
* When I Come Around, Green Day
* Zombie, Cranberries
* Soak up the Sun, Sheryl Crow

Skilled
* Waiting on the World to Change, John Mayer
* Man in the Box, Alice In Chains
* Ramblin’ Man, Hank Williams
* One Step Closer, Linkin Park
* Misery Business, Paramore
* American Woman, The Guess Who
* White Wedding, Billy Idol
* (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, Rolling Stones
* Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash

Challenging
* Our Truth, Lacuna Coil
* Are You Gonna Go My Way, Lenny Kravitz
* Bring Me to Life, Evanescence
* Spoonman, Soundgarden
* Head Like A Hole, Nine Inch Nails
* Aqualung, Jethro Tull
* Double Vision, Foreigner
* Rodeo, ?
* Sultans Of Swing, Dire Straits

Blistering
* Magic Man, Heart
* Bad Medicine, Bon Jovi
* Every Little Thing She Does is Magic, The Police
* Thnks fr th Mmrs, Fall Out Boy
* Testify, Rage Against the Machine
* Kickstart My Heart, Motley Crue
* I Was Made For Lovin’ You, Kiss
* Bad Reputation, Thin Lizzy
* Prodigal Son, The Rolling Stones

Nightmare
* The Bleeding, Five Finger Death
* Down With the Sickness, Disturbed
* Hypermusic, Muse
* Judith, A Perfect Circle
* TNT, AC/DC
* Rainbow in the Dark, Dio
* Anna Molly, Incubus
* November Rain, Guns N’ Roses
* Comfortably Numb, Pink Floyd

Impossible
* Feed My Frankenstein, Alice Cooper
* Peace Sells, Megadeath
* Fuel, Metallica
* Crazy Train, Ozzy Osbourne
* Forsaken, Dream Theater
* 2 Minutes to Midnight, Iron Maiden
* Hot For Teacher, Van Halen
* Cowboys from Hell, Pantera
* (Ghost) Riders in the Sky, (any number of people)

Rumor: Rock Band 2 Set List Leaked On YouTube [PS3FanBoy.com]

Following in the proud tradition of, well, Aerosmith, Metallica will be honored with its own version of Guitar Hero sometime in 2009. Of course, with Metallica’s recent track record, I’m a little concerned that the song selection might be a bit troublesome for the band, and by that, I mean the game might feature any of its recent material. As a helpful service, a few suggestions below the cut.

To be frank, if the band just went with the entirety of Kill ‘Em All, that would be fine by me, but that seems somewhat unlikely. If it’s down to just one track (outside of the obvious “Seek and Destroy”), how about “Jump In The Fire”?

I don’t know much about “Guitar Hero,” but Ride The Lightning seems the most smashing-colored-buttons-on-a-plastic-guitar-ready of the albums I’ve willing to think about, given that it contains both “Creeping Death” and “For Whom The Bell Tolls,” However, may I suggest the title track, a subtle discussion of the ethical dilemmas surrounding the death penalty?

Thinking of a track to choose from Master Of Puppets made me think about how strange this whole Metallica/video game idea is. Puppets might be the greatest metal album of all time, and Metallica certainly crossed over to a much larger audience afterwards. But when these albums were coming out on vinyl and having a Metallica concert shirt was like joining a bad-ass club of outsiders, I’m not sure the idea of sort of playing these songs by yourself while staring a television was conceivable. The dissolution of Metallica’s bad-ass aesthetic (I should have never watched Some Kind Of Monster, that’s for sure) will seem complete whenever this thing comes out. Anyhow, here’s “Damage, Inc.”.

In retrospect, I should have seen the sea change coming with And Justice For All: the guitars sound a little thinner, and the entire disc leans toward an ambition to move beyond just being the greatest metal band in the world, an ambition that would eventually make anything past the self-titled album difficult/impossible to enjoy. Then again, could any band have sustained the energy it must have taken to make those first three albums? After all, there’s modern art to buy and therapy sessions to attend. I’m sure that “One” will be included from And Justice…, but I’ll cross my fingers for “Harvester of Sorrow” as well.

Of course, the game will probably just consist of tracks from Reload and the new disc, because Metallica clearly has it out for me at this point.

Activision Plans ‘Guitar Hero: Metallica’ [The Street]

Tough break, Coldplay, Madonna, and Kid Sister. You picked the wrong day to try to release new material, as the world as we know it has shut down completely over the release of Grand Theft Auto IV. While I personally cannot be separated from my copy of Mario Kart Wii, if you’re the type who enjoys (digital) murder for sport today is like Christmas and that time when Sonny Corleone got shot at the toll booth all wrapped up in one. The even better news: The music you’ll hear while you’re busy banging hookers and executing cops is really good.

Rockstar Games has always included excellent soundtracks for the series, so GTA‘s in-game radio stations’ extensive playlists are probably no surprise. This time, however, the developers have made purchasing the music you’re listening to a little easier.

Calling ZIT-555-0100 on your in-game cellphone tags whichever of the 200 included songs is currently playing on one of the game’s 16 radio stations, so that later, when you log in to Rockstar’s new social network, you’ll be able to preview, buy and download them in the 256 Kbps DRM-free MP3 format for 99 cents each or less.

The tracks are exclusively sold through Amazon’s MP3 service, which seems to be another way for the majors to try to stick it to iTunes. Either way, the tracklists are stunningly perfect (as opposed the the Pitchfork curated MLB2K8 soundtrack, which I turned off after day three), with a international funk station DJ’d by Femi Kuti, an R&B collection featuring both Lloyd’s “Get It Shawty” and Ginuwine’s “Pony,” and a portion of Koyaanisqatsi. What more could you ask for? What seems to be the game’s complete list of tracks can be seen at Amazon, or you can wait for the inevitable compilation torrents to appear in a few days. Your choice.

Grand Theft Auto IV Links Up with Amazon MP3 {Wired]
Your Grand Theft Auto IV Soundtrack [Amazon]

Today, Activision announced that an Aerosmith-themed^* edition of Guitar Hero, the cleverly titled Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, would be available in stores come June. The press release heralding the game’s launch contained a baffling quote from Steven Tyler, who said: “Any band that can go from ‘Don’t Want to Miss A Thing’ (Aerosmith’s #1 smash hit) to the ass-kicking ‘Sweet Emotion’ to the cheekiness of ‘Love in an Elevator,’ to the classic ballad ‘Dream On’ shows why Activision chose us to headline this game based on the diversity of the Aerosmith catalog. Not only is songwriting a bitch, but then it goes and has puppies.” Odd dog-related metaphors aside, what is up, Mr. Tyler, with naming a freaking Diane Warren track before anything else from your catalog? Clearly you need some help picking the right songs for your game, so after the jump, I’ve selected five songs that are definitely ripe for inclusion. (And no, “Sweet Emotion” and “Walk This Way” aren’t on there because we pretty much can figure that the songs you trot out for every TV appearance will be front-and-center, probably in multiple versions.)

5. “Mama Kin”

Will likely be included for the Slash cross-promotion factor, but still worthy of mention.

4. “Voodoo Medicine Man”

Say what you will about the second half of the band’s career, but this song kicks ass. (Plus, Brad Whitford deserves at least some credit.)

3. “Lord Of The Thighs”

Including this song will probably result in some sort of ESRB sanction, but that’s rock and roll. (Or at least it was in the pre-Diane Warren days. Hmph.)

2. “Lick And A Promise”

Aerosmith catalog licensers take note: The drum part means this would also be an excellent fit for Rock Band.

1. “Nobody’s Fault”

Not only is this song absolutely killer, you can chidingly sing “sorrr-rry!” at your friend when you’re demolishing her at the game.

Dream On With Guitar Hero: Aerosmith [Kotaku]

^* Bands that have collaborated with and “inspired” Aerosmith will also be included in the game as well.

If you’ve ever wondered what accounts for the sudden, occasional dips in quality on this site–why posts take three hours to show up, or why there’s a sudden surge of “look at this funny photo!” entries–there can be only one explanation: Your Idolators are off playing Guitar Hero. Now officially the eleventh-greatest thing ever to happen in the history of mankind (following such heavy hitters as oxygen, waffle irons, the fall of Communism, and season three of The Wire), Guitar Hero is the first game to combine our collective need for communal self-expression with our collective need to eat pizza and play “Smoke On The Water” eleven times in a row. Badly.

Next month sees the release of Guitar Hero II for Xbox, but we’re already thinking about the still-in-the-works third edition. So we hereby present our 30-song wishlist for Guitar Hero III jams–the songs that we hope to be playing along with in the near future. We’ve even included MP3s with our top ten, so you can get a head start on your neighbor.

1. Television – Marquee Moon: It’s not the most obvious choice for the number-one slot: Not only have few people heard this 1977 new-wave work-out, but it’s a slow-building epic that uses its ten-minutes-plus running time to gather steam. But there are enough riffs, licks, and scattered notes here to test even the most experienced player’s skills, and it would probably inspire a generation of younguns to further investigate the careers of Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd, which can only be a good thing.

2. Megadeth – Holy Wars … The Punishment Due: Megadeth is a Guitar Hero mainstay; “Symphony of Destruction” was on the game’s first edition, and “Hangar 18″ was on its sequel. But “Holy Wars”–which is from the same album as “Hangar 18,” and which is, frankly, a lot better–would provide a fine challenge for more experienced Heroes. To start, there’s the manual-typewriter-like riff that provides the force for most of the song’s first half, but the real challenge comes at the midway point–a little gypsy-guitar bit that requires the fleetest fretwork, which could be a potential stumbling block for even the most expert players.

3. Soundgarden – Jesus Christ Pose: From its woodpecker-imitation opening and outro to its monster solo, this song kills–and it may very well kill the hopes of players trying to take their game to the next level.

4. Prince – Let’s Go Crazy: For breaks during NFL/Guitar Hero fiends’ next Madden session. (It’s a hell of a lot better than The Panic Channel, that’s for sure.)

5. Living Colour – Cult Of Personality: Vernon Reid’s opening salvo alone would make this worthy of inclusion, but throw in that thrashing finale, and you’ve got a song that would probably kill most of us on “medium.”

6. The Smiths – This Charming Man: Think the Smiths were soft? Try keeping up with Johnny Marr’s intricate guitar lines or Andy Rourke’s hop-along bassline.

7. Funkadelic – Maggot Brain: Sure, it’s another lengthy track, but it does have one of the best guitar solos of all time.

8. Sleater-Kinney – Rollercoaster: It’s hard to pick just one S-K song, but “Rollercoaster” is one of their most relentless numbers, and anyone sitting out a round can chime in background whooos of support.

9. Guns N’ Roses – Rocket Queen: Some of Slash’s best moments are in this mini-epic, which closed out Appetite For Destruction in a fierce, yet fiercely sad way. (Bonus points if you can actually find a “partner” for the bridge.)

10. Drive-By Truckers – Let There Be Rock: Admittedly, there are some quiet moments in the beginning, and the weed and acid references wouldn’t make parents too proud, but the closing solos are fierce. And who could argue with the song’s titular mission statement?

The remaining 20:

11. Archie Bell & The Drells – Tighten Up
12. AC/DC – Thunderstruck
13. ESG – UFO
14. Dinosaur Jr. – Out There
15. Faith No More – Surprise! You’re Dead!
16. PJ Harvey – Sheela-Na-Gig
17. Radiohead – My Iron Lung
18. Jane’s Addiction – Mountain Song
19. Modest Mouse – Ocean Breathes Salty
20. Bad Brains – Pay To Cum
21. Mudhoney – Judgment, Rage, Retribution, and Thyme
22. Poison – Nothin’ But A Good Time
23. Led Zeppelin – The Rover
24. At The Drive-In – Arcarsenal
25. Meat Puppets – Aurora Borealis
26. The Girls – The Girl From Yesterday
27. Ohio Players – Fopp
28. Melissa Auf Der Maur – Followed The Waves
29. Extreme – Get the Funk Out
30. Metallica – Anaesthesia (Pulling Teeth)^*

^* Yes, we know it’s for the bass. But you tell us it isn’t worthy of inclusion.