The Beatles’ Rock Band game intro

Beautiful cinematic illustration of the Beatles’ bio made for their Rock Band game edition.

Enoy!

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The Beatles’ Rock Band E3 presentation

Well, it’s done, The Beatles launched their Rock Band version of the game after years of preserving what I believe to be a quite respectable philosophy about distributing and selling songs. Through their multimedia corporation, Apple Corps., the Beatles have been very keen on keeping their albums in one piece by refusing to sell them digitally, making it difficult for people to purchase individual songs. Now you still can’t find their individuals tracks on iTunes but you’ll be able to jam along with them thanks to their new video game venture with Harmonix (the company that produces Rock Band).

The official statement about the production of the game had been made last November, and now Ringo and Paul orchestrated a massive presentation at E3′s 2009 edition in Los Angeles (they even made a surprise appearance).

Bellow is the trailer for the Beatles’ Rock Band Game:

Bark.

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The Youtube symphony orchestra: the world’s first collaborative online orchestra

Google is everywhere, we all know that. Being the most important and used search engine was never enough. Now their latest idea (through their acquisition: Youtube) is to create the world’s very first collaborative online orchestra. The plan is simple: to get musicians from all over to audition for a classical music piece composed by Tan Dun by downloading the appropriate music sheets (corresponding to their instrument of choice), performing and recording themselves with a digital camera and uploading those recordings as submissions to participate in the orchestra.

Submissions opened yesterday and will go on up to the 28th on January. The youtube community will be asked to vote for the semi-finalists from the 14th to the 22th of February. The finalists will perform a concert at the Carnegie hall in April, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, the music director of the San Francisco Symphony. Tan Dun will release a compilation of all the audition-videos in a YouTube mashup. Apparently Google will arrange for visas and pay costs.

Classical music auditions usually involve months of preparation, very unhealthy doses of stress to finally play in front of a couple of musical geniuses and masters of musical theory and analysis. With this Google/Youtube method you’ll still have to deal with the prep, but with less stress.

If they get a big community on board, Tan Dun’s piece might get global attention leading to a very tight competition.

If this works, and it probably will (better than we think), I don’t see why it wouldn’t open up a new trend for professional classical musicians and orchestra managers.

Wonder if pre-recorded videos could work for a typical rock band’s audition…

(The New York Times has more).

arf.

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The Beatles, Rock Band and our musical legacies

The Beatles are in the process of being pixelized! Word came out a couple of days ago that a video game recounting the career of the most famous pop band in the world is in development. Harmonix, creators of Rock Band, MTV games, Apple Corps ltd. and the surviving band members, Paul and Ringo, have all decided to settle for the interactive adventure. Apparently the game will be a Rock Band look-a-like but only focusing on the repertoire of the brit-pop quartet (as a reminder, Apple Corps is not to be confused with Steve Job’s Apple. The former is a multimedia conglomerate formed by The Beatles in 1968 that regroups all their media activities, and above all retains publishing rights to their back-catalogue. Pretty big legal battles arose between the two companies over trademark infringement by the way :).

Big sudden leap for Apple Corps ltd who has been so reluctant to distribute their music digitally. Actually they still haven’t given their consent to do so but negotiations are ongoing, which is understandable seeing how going with the Rock Band flow has very (very) positive effects on the featured bands’ sales. But even so, to understand why the Fab-Four still haven’t gone digital is quite the brain teaser.

First off Apple Corps has some weird relationship with technology as they made fans wait until 1986 before they released their albums on CD. Concerning digital distribution, many reasons, or rather hypothesises explain the unwillingness. Why their catalog isn’t sold on iTunes is fairly logical since Aple Corps ltd. and Apple Inc. are kind of sworn enemies and all, but why not in other major distribution outlets like Napster or Rhapsody? The Beatles are an album band’ and selling individual tracks will hurt their integrity blablabla. Their songs are worth far more than 99 cents blabla. They are skeptical about the mass market appeal for downloading blabla. Well now digital sales are growing and band games are sky rocketing, so the way I see it Apple Corps is cutting the bla and diving head first into a pool full of cash.

But hey, it’s easy to point fingers. Even though I hate those stupid games I must admit they are educating youngsters musically, and that much can’t be said about the current major music industry. Not only have albums sales been soaring for the bands lucky enough to be featured, but so have also guitars, bass and drum sales. Kids these days are finally understanding that rock is good and that without it there is no meaning to life.

All jokes aside, I say why not. The Beatles are probably the most influential band there is. I think it’s safe to say no band can admit to not having been influenced by their lyrical melodies and their outstanding originality paving the roads to so many musical genres. But lets not forget that old bands live on thanks to a generation’s appreciation of their work, and the Beatles’ generation is still alive and well. I am very concerned for geniuses such as Yes, Zappa, Roxy Music, Karate and so many others in the years to come. Seeing how a big proportion of the public blindly accepts what is served to them in terms of music, what’s to happen to those guys in 50 years. They might be completely forgotten if there is no significant eagerness to promote their music once we’re all dead and gone. I mean, damn, who now knows Todd Rundgren, or Marlena Shaw these days?? Almost nobody, and that constitutes a real problem I believe a band even of the likes of the Beatles isn’t immune to, at least to some extent. So if games likes Guitar Hero and Rock Band can help leverage and promote their music, yea, I say why not.

Bark?

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JamLegend: Online massive multi-player Rock Band for free !

The equivalent of Guitar Hero and Rock Band is now available on the internet for free and it’s called JamLegend. I personally have never been a big fan of those games. Quite on the contrary they really tend to drive me crazy. Take the drum-set from rock band for instance. Banging on it all day is no different from banging on a real drum, sheesh…(ok so the real drums are a little noisier, at least the sound ain’t as horrible as a drumstick hitting that stupid pad of theirs). And that ridiculous guitar…I just encourage all those spending hours on these games to play the real thing, much more gratifying :)

So whether you like these games or not, it’s undeniable that they entertain big time. First off cause people love to rock even if they don’t listen to rock, and second cause there is a feeling of self-validation when you played a song correctly, mostly for the non-musicians. For the same reasons, I believe JamLegend is going to skyrocket.

Same concept as it’s predecessors besides that you play on your keyboard. You use keys 1 to 5 and F1 to F5 to choose the notes and hold down ENTER to play them.

Unlike Guitar Hero and Rock Band it’s free and includes a social side as you can challenge others and earn points according to the quality of your performance (by quality I mean playing the notes and chords at the right time…). In other words it’s a massive multi-player Rock Band.

The game is currently still in Beta so the number of invites are still limited. I got mine from TechCruch who is giving out 1000 of them. Password: “techcrunch”.

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