Kotaku
Today, Harmonix has officially announced the first album that will hit the Rock Band store: Judas Priest's Screaming For Vengeance. Arriving April 22/24 on Xbox 360/PS3, this10-track album will cost $14.99 with individual tracks being offered for $1.99 apiece. Then in May, The Cars' self-titled record will become the second full-album release from Rock Band. The Pixies' Doolittle will follow in June.
While this is precisely the news that all Rock Band fans have been waiting to hear, it raises a ton of new questions. Is $14.99 the new standard album price? And how often can we expect new albums? Luckily, we had the chance to discuss the announcement with Harmonix's CEO Alex Rigopulos, who was more than happy to answer all of our fanboy questions. We posted an abridged, cleaned (sans-Mark's-question-stuttering-and-boring-parts) Q&A after the jump.
What took you so long?
...a big reason that it's taken us so long to get them to market is that the actual technical delivery of the assets required for any one song - they're actually pretty complicated. You're often dealing with masters for the older stuff that were recorded on analog. Often it takes a long time to even locate those masters. The right takes and the right edits have to be found, and in some cases old gear that's not in use anymore has to be resuscitated to transfer the stuff to digital. And so for any one song, the actual process of finding the right tape, resuscitating it and transferring it to the right digital format that we need and all that is an undertaking...
If you're just going for a handful of tracks by a particular artist and they're slow to locate one of them, well you just pick a different track and go on. Well when you're looking for a dozen tracks ina a particular album, you cant really release the album until you've tracked every one of those assets.
What happened to The Who?
We will have a specific announcement about that coming up soon regarding some work that we have coming down the pike with The Who in general that I think people are gonna be pretty happy about...and in general what you're gonna see sorta deep dives with particular artists, where with some artists...of the appropriate stature, you'll see us doing more than whole albums, potentially even entire catalogs.
What kind of schedule will album release be on?
For album releases, in particular, there isn't a set schedule like an album a month...we do want to release albums regularly...generally, the amount of content we release in a week you'll see growing over the course of the year substantially.
Will albums ever represent the majority of your music releases?
I don't think albums will be the dominant release. I don't think we're going to switch to primarily releasing albums, but I will say, in addition to these three we've just mentioned, we actually have MANY in the pike...suffice it to say, it will be a substantial portion of our content offering going forward.
So is $14.99 the new standard album price?
It's not a standard. There's not going to be a standard album pricing. It's going to be a function of how many songs are included in the album...essentially there will be a volume discount applied.
Do you think a variable price rate on albums is disadvantage, especially when stores like iTunes sell albums for a flat rate?
Perhaps, but I think...consumers have demonstrated that they feel that the value they're getting for a game level based at $2 is enormous...[and] there's quite a lot of appetite for music at $2 a song...[so] volume discounts for more music represents quite a good value for the consumers.
Will you ever offer 3-Pack discounts for album tracks?
At this time we're not...I'm not ruling that out as something we're doing in the future. It's just not something we're doing right now.
Would you ever consider releasing "greatest hits" albums?
I don't see any particular reason why we would rule them out...I think that for the right artist under the right circumstances, there's no reason we wouldn't consider doing a greatest hits album that either exists in the world already as a recorded compilation, or [as] in some cases, we've actually had artists come to us who are interested in kind of curating their own new greatest hits compilation for the purpose of Rock Band release. And so I think we're really pretty versatile to ideas of that sort.
So basically, a Rock Band Greatest Hits album?
Exactly.
(Ed note: Rigopulos later explained that they kind of did this with Grateful Dead tracks already, unofficially.)
At the end of the interview, Rigopulos let me know that Rock Band had recently surpassed 8 million song downloads. That's about 2 million just since their new store opened (and Still Alive became offered for free).
Comments
I'm curious about The Who.
Disappointing first album, but good to see it's finally coming. The Cars and Pixies should make up for it though.
YES!!!!!!!!!
I'm very impressed on the downloadable content in Rock Band, lets hope EA figures out a way to transfer songs downloaded songs to Rock Band 2 when it comes out.
Give me a AC/DC back in black or GNR appettite for destruction album..I'll pay a lot..a lot!
This is great news..gotta play some RB this weekend.
It's not really the albums I want but it's still exciting to see them getting the ball rolling here and start putting some of them out. I'd love to see some quality albums out soon.
Good to finally see them announce some full album downloads, but I'm sure people are still going to complain because these are not the albums they said they initially announced.
Personally I'm not too interested in any of them, but I might grab The Cars just for fun. If the Judas Priest album had Breaking The Law on it I'd be all over it.
Pixies, finally. Yes yes yes.
Wow $14.99 (or prabably €14.99) Is a bit much for DLC. Then again $2 (and again probably €2) for one song is also a bit much.
Of all the albums to pick, really, Judas Priest? *sigh*
THE PIXIES?!?! *faints*
@fquick: Your not hell bent for leather?
Britney Spears or death~! wait I mean and death~?
Doolittle...
Have you been reading my diary again, Harmonix!?
Ever since I heard Wave of Mutilation (a great but WAY too short song) was the Pixies song that made it into Rockband, I'd been pissing and griping at my friends in a revolting display of "college musician". I've ruined no fewer than five Band hangouts with complaints like "the guitar and vocals in Debaser shame this song!" and "Here Comes Your Man is easily the best song on the album. Why'd this cock-tease make it!?" Now that I'm getting the whole CD I find myself in an existential crisis. What will I complain about now!?
OMFG! CAUSE IM SCREAMIN'! SCREAMIN' FOR VENGEANCE!!!!!
Take THAT Guitar Hero: Aerosmith!
since the album itself is 10.99$ on Amazon, I guess it is a fair price for the "interactive" version.
[www.amazon.com]
Just give us players a chance to suggest upcoming DLC >_<. All I wanna do is give off my vote to get songs that I like on rock band.
Yes, Doolittle! They will probably never do it but throw me Surfa Rosa and I won't ask for anything else ever again I promise.
HOLY CRAP...Screaming for Vengeance is one of my favorite rock albums ever!!! This is awesome news. Personally I'm not too excited about the Cars or Pixies, but I can't wait to see what other bands they are working on and what the news is on The Who...HALLELUJAH!!!
15 bucks seems very expensive to me. I could be wrong. What the hell do I know? Couldn't they have at least priced the albums at the dollar per song level? I mean, sure, more effort goes into the creation of a Rock Band song than just putting it up on iTunes, but with a Rock Band song, all I can do is enjoy it by playing it on a plastic instrument. With an iTunes song, I can put it on a CD or an iPod or anything else and listen to it anywhere anytime.
If they start making these Album packs so you can transfer the song from your console's hard drive to your computer as an MP3... I'll start buying them. They're going to really have to get lucky and release at least one of my all-time favorite albums if they want me to spend that much on it. I don't know if they'll ever hit the nail on the head for me, but the 3 albums they've announced so far aren't exciting enough for me to spend 15 bucks on.
Oh well.
Nice, atleast you can download the 3 or 4 good songs on that overrated piece of crap instead of being forced to buy the whole thing.
Wow way too expensive. Also they should have released the earlier priest albums before this one. Sad Wings of Destiny ftw!
I'd personally have preferred Judas Priest's Painkiller album, but this'll do.
Now, more Maiden plzkthx.
Judas Priest?
The Cars?
The Pixies?
alright. Give me the fucking who or send these shitty albums back to whence they came!
I can see why its $15, but I really, really, really wish we'd get a DRM that let us put them on our computers / iPods / whatever along with it.
If only Harmonix were working with another company. A company like MTV. And if only that company had a music service already. Something like Rhapsody.
=)
@Koztah:
I'll take any Maiden. Real Maiden. Not this "as made famous by" crap.
@sm_twinz: They did that before the game came out. They got people to suggest songs that they wanted to see in the game.
These albums do seem really shitty compared to Who's Next but they're not terrible. I may buy a few tracks off each of these and I met get all of Doolittle.
My hope is that by the time The Who is announced they have some kind of keyboard peripheral. :)
Too much me thinks. $1.50 a song ain't bad if it's an assortment, but this is one album and you're forced to buy all 10 tracks. I was hoping they'd figure out a way to make them maybe $12 at most. I'll have to think this one over.
where the hell's nevermind??
@sm_twinz: Go to the Request Song page on the Rock Band site.
Red Hot Chili Peppers Greatest Hits plz
Very cool news and the price isn't bad at all. It's what you'd pay for the cd and at least now you can play along with it. Speaking of which, they should include the option to just listen to the music (maybe you can and I just don't know how)
Oh and please release a Megadeth album!
Give me Seals and Crofts greatest hits dammit.
$15 bucks is an OK price considering a non-interactive version of the song costs $1.00 each. That said, it would be nice if they started giving away the MP3s for free with download of the songs as well. Then it'd be a real deal.
@sm_twinz: Then you might be interested in the Rock Band Request Song form.
You need to have an account at RockBand.com to access it.
Three words. ABOUT FREAKIN TIME!!!!
15 bucks is a bit pricey IMHO, but it's been so long that we've been waiting for these, that I'm beyond caring. Hopefully future albums will be cheaper.
@BigWeather:
Run To The Hills came out fine, though. I don't remember if it's a master or cover since I'm at work and can't check, but it sounded like Bruce to me.
The Cars and Dooliitle are instant buys for me, and I really don't mind the $15 price. Seems reasonable to me.
@drtyfrnk: The cars are shitty? Get out!
YEEEEEES!!!!!! this is the kind of thing rock band needs!
FUCK YEAH, Judas Priest. Fuck all the haters. $15 sucks though.
Metallica, full cataloged, make it happen. OR ELSE.
@Koztah: It was a cover.
Two bucks a track is how much it is right now, right? $2 = 160 Monopoly bucks, yeah?
Anyway, $15 sounds fine to me. It's not as good a deal as the 440 point bundles, but it's still $5 in your pocket if you get the lot.
DAMMIT! Ahhhh! I was thinking "$14.99 yikes, at least its Judas Priest so Im not gonna get it." But they're coming out with Doolittle from the Pixies?? Thats one of my favourite CD's. So worth the $15.
I wonder if they could ever release Symphony X's "The Odyssey" as a song... 25 minutes of nonstop awesome with incredibly complex riffs would be interesting to play.
Oh god... They could release the entire Cars discography, and I would buy every album. Singing like Ric Ocasek FTW!
so is dolittle going to be discounted because a track is already included in the game? i also wonder how the slide guitar on Silver will be done
and yeah what happened to nevermind?
While these albums may not be absolute must buys for me, I think the price is fair, considering you're paying both for the music aspect of it and the work that had to be put into the song to make it game ready. Plus it sounds as if the price is not always going to be that high, depending on the album and number of songs on it. Overall I'm just happy to hear that albums are coming, and with due time I'm sure there will be some awesome songs for a number of different tastes.
I just got it. I just "got" it. When people reply with things like "lol, I just came" or "maaan I need new pantz."
Doolittle in June? Holy friggen crap. I'm in love.
I think people are going to be quite, quite frightened when in around a year they stop and think about how much money they've invested into this game.
I bet when it's all said and done there will be people out there who are into the $400 range.
Guitar Hero is officially dead.
15 bucks for a downloaded album? This is another example of why the music industry, dominated by the "Big Four", is drowning. One of the big reasons people stopped buying cds was the overinflated retail price.
When cds started creeping over the $13 mark was the time I stopped going to record stores. I can remember seeing non-import cds by the big artists listing at $19.99. With pricing like that its no wonder people started downloading music for free. And as more people stopped buying records, the music industry kept the overpriced cd model and sales have been plummeting ever since.
I have read that alot of artists view games like Rock Band & Guitar Hero as a one of the big revenue streams for the future. But if they continue with the old pricing model, they will continue to alienate the consumers who know they can get the same music cheaper from other places or they can even get it at the fantastic price known as FREE.
Companies are out to make money, but if they continue to treat their target market like suckers, "illegal" file sharing will continue to be the number one choice for getting new music for many.
We were promised nevermind harmonix. Now where the hell is it? I can ship you my cd if you want it.l
@drtyfrnk: Bad poster is bad.
Witz, I know you complained the last time I changed my icon, but I gotta do it again in honor of the Pixies. Only til June though.
Oh, this made my day. But are they going to fold Hellion into Electric Eye?
Even though I love the album, I'm not going to pay $15 to get all the songs because I would essentially be playing most of them by myself. Not all my friends have seen the light of Priest, although they would play Priest singles.