Rock Band DLC and Cognitive Dissonance

It had never dawned on me that Rock Band's DLC, just like Xbox Live Arcade or the Wii's Virtual Console, offered a hit or miss selection of products. I'm not sure why it took me this long to figure it out, except that the only song I had purchased before this weekend was Nine Inch Nails' "March of the Pigs", and that track was pretty fun. But now I know, and all future purchases will be made with a bit more caution.

My downloads for this weekend were David Bowie's "Moonage Daydream", Smashing Pumpkins' "Siva", Oasis's "Wonderwall" and, last night promptly at 11 p.m. (intuition told me that it would go up at midnight, Eastern time) the free download of Jonathan Coulton's "Still Alive" (the song is not, as some April Fools wary message board posters feared, a lie). Of these four, three are perfectly playable, and one is a dog. But in hindsight, I should have seen it coming.

While I love both Guitar Hero and Rock Band, I've always had the problem that my music tastes lean toward the pale and the pasty, and decidedly do not rock. Ok, I do like some pretty intense music, but it's generally the kind of stuff that flies under the rhythm game radar. I'd buy song packs by Lightning Bolt, Melt-Bananna or Naglfar without a second thought, but I seriously doubt any of those are forthcoming. But my true favorite bands include the Cocteau Twins, the Cure the Smiths, and New Order, and that means the future looks bleak for me. And, for the most part, that's with good reason. I realize that the primary reason for publishers to exist is to make money--not to please me. I would probably have a great time playing "Fascination Street" or "This Charming Man", and would at any rate be more than happy to purchase them, but I know I'm in the minority. And so I understand when the offerings run more toward the mainstream and the rockin'.

But there is another reason that you don't see more lonely, introverted and over-sensitive music on the horizon from these companies, and that's that a lot of it just doesn't translate well into chart form. "Wonderwall" proved this to me. While I'm not a big Oasis fan, I do enjoy that song, and so it seemed natural to me that I would enjoy pretending to play it. It didn't occur to me as I hit the "purchase" button that most of the song is built around repetitive acoustic guitar strumming and a fairly simple rhythm part. Even the vocals don't offer much in the way of variety, especially when you get to the long outro and just repeated "Maybe you're gonna be the one that saves me" over and over and over.

The lesson here, aside from my recommendation against picking up "Wonderwall" no matter how much you might still love Oasis, is that songs you like aren't always going to be fun to play, especially if you like music by pasty Brits. For me, that makes for a weird disconnect within the game. Rock Band and Guitar Hero are both about living out fantasies, but I don't particularly fantasize about being anybody whose songs appear in the games. I'd much rather pretend to be Robert Smith or Johnny Marr than Steven Tyler or Mick Jagger. Maybe my day will come, but for now I'll just have to keep thinking of these games as a fun exercise in frantic button mashing rather than some sort of wish fulfillment.

Bonus Content
Just in case anyone from Harmonix would like to turn me into the company's personal ATM, here are some suggested song packs:

Cocteau Twins Pack: "Carolyn's Fingers", "Bluebeard" and "Wax and Wane"
Siouxsie & the Banshees Pack: "Candyman", "Cascade", "Arabian Nights"
Cure Pack: "From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea", "Fascination Street", "One Hundred Years"
Random Shoegaze Pack: "Alison" by Slowdive, "When You Sleep" by My Bloody Valentine, "Frost" by Chapterhouse
Smiths Pack: "This Charming Man", "The Headmaster Ritual", "Stop Me if you Think You've Heard This One Before"
Morrissey Pack: "Hairdresser on Fire", "Speedway", "First of the Gang to Die"
Lush Pack: "Sweetness and Light", "For Love", "500"