Red All Over

It appears it's my week to write about things a couple days early, just before new and interesting information about them comes to light. Two days ago, I reviewed Weezer's new "Red Album", noting it was just slightly above a "passing grade" and really just one for the fans.

Today, the folks at Harmonix announced that next week's Rock Band downloadable content will include three tracks off this new album. This seems to follow a trend that began when Mötley Crüe actually debuted a single off their forthcoming album on Rock Band. In fact, the song was reported to sell five to six times more downloads in Rock Band than it did on iTunes in its first week.

Disturbed had three tracks from their new album the week it released in stores.

This week, The Offspring finally had their first song appear in one of these games -- and it was the single from their brand new album.

The Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchises really gave a shot in the arm to the music industry (and music teachers), and now the folks at Harmonix really seem to be embracing that they've become a platform for bands to plug their newest music. It might be fun to know about some of the economics and horse trading that goes on behind the scenes here. Where's the power in this exchange?

Harmonix approaches band -- "We'll help you promote your new album by releasing songs from it in our game, if you give us a royalty break on these other famous songs from your back catalog down the road." Or band with new album approaches Harmonix -- "You've been after us for a while. Tell you what... do a song from our new album, and we'll sign a deal with you for all our other material too."

Whatever the machinations, it's something of a mixed blessing for the players, in my view. I like the idea of being exposed to new music through the game. But singing is a major part of this game, and the bottom line is, you can't really sing a song you don't know. You want to see the songs you grew up with in there, the ones you sing along to in your car, or wail away on in your shower and such.

And where it particularly pertains to this Weezer album? Well, recall that in my review I mentioned Troublemaker as "pretty catchy." That's one of the tracks that's up for download next week. And then there was The Greatest Man That Ever Lived, a song I called "uber-pretentious" and "self-indulgent." That's one of the other two songs coming to Rock Band. It might be more fun to play than it is to listen to, but I'm not sure I want to test that.

So again, a very mixed blessing.