Rock Band to Rock Out With Bowie, Weezer, The Who, Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath, and More

A new fact sheet released today by Electronic Arts reveals a total of eight songs confirmed for inclusion in Harmonix Music Systems' ambitious upcoming rhythm game Rock Band, and confirmed a variety of other features of the game. The publisher also released new screenshots. Of the eight listed songs, an impressive six are drawn from the master tapes of each band's original recording: The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again," David Bowie's "Suffragette City," Weezer's "Say it Ain't So," Nirvana's "In Bloom," The Hives' "Main Offender," and, for that extra bit of cowbell, Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" The remaining two tracks, Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" and Mountain's "Mississippi Queen," will be performed as covers, in line with most of the music used in Harmonix's previous Guitar Hero games. As Shacker milksop points out, today's screenshots suggest that The Ramones' "Rockaway Beach" will also be included in the game, though it is not known if the song has been confirmed as licensed and, if so, whether it will use The Ramones' original recording or a cover track. Last month, the licensed Fender Stratocaster guitar controller to be sold alongside Rock Band was revealed, illustrating the new set of five frets that may be used to play solos. When using the higher set of frets, which control the same "notes" as the lower set, operating the strum bar is not necessary. Other Rock Band details mentioned in today's release include the confirmation of instrument-specific as well as band-wide campaign modes, the return of the time-slowing practice mode from Guitar Hero II, and the ability to create custom rock star avatars, down to the choice of tattoos and stage moves. While Rock Band will support downloadable content, there was no indication of what this content might be. Harmonix officials have previously indicated a desire to us Rock Band's potential for added content to draw from a much greater range of musical styles, even reaching beyond rock and roll. Rock Band is expected to ship for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 this holiday season. Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos has made multiple confirmations of a Wii version of the game, though EA has yet to officially announce the game for that platform.