Today Harmonix and MTV Games proudly announced reaching and surpassing the goal they set back in August, with more than 1,000 songs from from nearly 400 different artists available for purchase and play between the Rock Band Music Store and the songs included on the Rock Band and Rock Band 2 discs. This week also marks the 105th consecutive week of new Rock Band DLC releases. Impressive!

"When we launched Rock Band two years ago, we made a promise to create a music gaming experience that delivered on a weekly basis more songs and artists than ever imagined," said Alex Rigopulos, co-founder and CEO of Harmonix Music Systems. "We're extremely proud to pass this remarkable milestone of over 1,000 songs in Rock Band and will continue to innovate and bring more of the best music to Rock Band players all over the world."

With the impeding launch of the Rock Band Network Music Store, which will allow bands to upload their own music for purchase, expect that number to explode in the coming months. Enjoy the milestone while you can, cause we're more than likely going to leave it in the dust real soon.

It's coming up on Thanksgiving weekend in the states, so Harmonix has gotten next week's Rock Band Music Store additions announcement out of the way so the team can get down to the serious business of eating until they can't move. Next week brings three new Nirvana tracks to Rock Band, including the Nirvana track, along with a strangely crippled 3-pack debut for 80's icons Night Ranger.

Nirvana Pack 02 comes complete with "Smells Like Teen Spirit," which is the one Nirvana song everybody knows, as well as the Live at Reading version of "Lithium" and the MTV Unplugged version of "Come As You Are," the latter of which is strangely available for LEGO Rock Band as well.

Night Ranger's 3-pack consists of "(You Can Still) Rock in America," "Don't Tell Me You Love Me," and "You're Gonna Hear It From Me," all three of which can be purchased in both normal and LEGO Rock Band. A lovely selection, but without Sister Christian this track pack is dead to me. Dead I tell you!

You're motorin'!

In order to properly play "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground," "Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine," and "Icky Thump," the three White Stripes tunes making their way to the Rock Band Music Store next week, you will need a divorced spouse you are still on amazingly good terms with. If you are drumming, it'll be best if you've never had a lesson, and if you are playing the guitar you'd best own a mic stand. Otherwise the experience will be totally ruined.

If you can't handle those restrictions, you're probably better off playing The Damned's "Smash it Up (Part II)" or Kasabian's "Club Foot," the two other songs coming to the console versions of Rock Band next week, or No Doubt's "Excuse Me Mr." and the Dropkick Murphys' "I'm Shipping Up To Boston," this week's Rock Band Unplugged additions.

Available on Xbox 360 and Wii (Nov. 10) and PlayStation 3 system (Nov. 12):

• The Damned – "Smash It Up (Part II)" +
• Kasabian – "Club Foot" +
• The White Stripes – "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" +
• The White Stripes – "Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine" +
• The White Stripes – "Icky Thump"

Tracks available for Rock Band Unplugged (Nov. 12):

• No Doubt – "Excuse Me Mr."
• Dropkick Murphys – "I'm Shipping Up to Boston"

Not only are "(We Are) The Road Crew ‘08" by Motörhead, "The Metal" by Tenacious D and "More Than Meets the Eye" by Testament coming to Rock Band next week in the form of a Brutal Legend Pack, folks who purchase Brutal Legend from Best Buy will be receiving a code to download all three for free. Tim Schafer approves.

"These are three great songs that totally capture the feeling of Brütal Legend. I can't wait to play them in Rock Band," said Tim Schafer, founder of Double Fine Productions. "I've air-drummed to all of them so many times, I'm sure I'll be able to beat them on hard mode, no problem. Or at least on medium. Like medium plus. That's a setting, right?"

It's totally a setting.

The Brutal Legend Pack is accompanied by Black Tide's "Show Me the Way," Blink 182's "What's My Age Again," and "Andres" by L7. Two Kansas songs from their Live from Two for the Show album are also hitting next week, allowing fans to jam along to live versions of "Icarus" and "Point of Know Return." Plus, give your singer a rest with two instrumental tracks from Joe Satriani - "Surfing with the Alien" and "Satch Boogie."

All that, and a couple of tracks for Rock Band Unplugged on the PSP, next week in the Rock Band Music Store.

Available on Xbox 360 and Wii (Oct. 13) and PlayStation 3 system (Oct. 15):

· Motörhead – "(We Are) The Road Crew ‘08"
· Tenacious D – "The Metal"
· Testament – "More Than Meets the Eye"
· Black Tide – "Show Me the Way"
· Blink-182 – "What's My Age Again?"
· Joe Satriani – "Satch Boogie"
· Joe Satriani – "Surfing with the Alien"
· Kansas – "Icarus (Borne on the Wings of Steel)" (Live from Two for the Show)
· Kansas – "Point of Know Return" (Live from Two for the Show)
· L7 – "Andres"

Tracks available for Rock Band Unplugged (Oct. 15):

+ Pearl Jam – "Jeremy"
+ Foreigner – "Headknocker"

Setting The Flobots aside for a moment, both The Raconteurs and Electric Six make their Rock Band debut next week, with the former delivering "Dance Epidemic," "I Don't Like You," and the every enjoyable "Gay Bar," and the latter mixing things up with "Many Shades of Black," "Salute Your Solution," and "Steady, As She Goes."

The personal irony of Alanis Morissette's "Ironic" and "Head Over Feet" being added next week is something I am not prepared to explain. Suffice it to say that it is indeed ironic, and not in the Alanis way.

And then we have The Flobots. "Handlebars" has been playing over and over again in my head for the past 2 hours now. I figure this will last for another year. Then maybe Guitar Hero will add it.

All of that, plus new songs from Rush and Green Day for Rock Band Unplugged for the PSP, next week in the Rock Band Music Store.

Available on Xbox 360 and Wii (Oct. 6) and PlayStation 3 system (Oct. 8):

• The Raconteurs – "Many Shades of Black"
• The Raconteurs – "Salute Your Solution"
• The Raconteurs – "Steady, As She Goes"
• Alanis Morissette – "Head Over Feet"
• Alanis Morissette – "Ironic"
• Electric Six – "Dance Epidemic"
• Electric Six – "Gay Bar"
• Electric Six – "I Don't Like You"
• The Flobots – "Handlebars"

Tracks available for Rock Band Unplugged (Oct. 8):

• Green Day – "Know Your Enemy"
• Rush – "Red Barchetta"

This is so amazingly not fair. David Bowie's "Let's Dance", Counting Crows' "Angels of the Silences", and Mighty Mighty Bosstones' "Impression That I Get", some of my favorite songs of all time, are being included in a game that also houses Hilary Duff's "So Yesterday". How can I buy it? How can I not buy it? Band Hero's song list continues to grow, and I continue to experience equal parts revulsion and fascination.

In the end I will have to buy it, if only for the Counting Crows track, and the potential for more from the band as downloadable content. They are one of those groups that seems to have followed me throughout my adult life, releasing music that seems geared specifically at making me all moody. Perhaps Hilary Duff is like that for you. Perhaps there is something terribly wrong with you.

Check out the full list of tracks both old and new below. Band Hero ships on November 3rd.

Available for Band Hero Console:

The Airborne Toxic Event - "Gasoline"
Big Country - "In a Big Country"
The Bravery - "Believe"
Cold War Kids - "Hang Me Up To Dry"
Counting Crows - "Angels of the Silences"
Dashboard Confessional - "Hands Down"
David Bowie - "Let's Dance"
Devo - "Whip It"
Evanescence - "Bring Me To Life"
Fall Out Boy - "Sugar, We're Goin' Down"
The Go-Go's - "Our Lips Are Sealed"
Hilary Duff - "So Yesterday"
Jesse McCartney - "Beautiful Soul"
The Kooks - "Naive"
Marvin Gaye - "I Heard It Through The Grapevine"
Mighty Mighty Bosstones - "Impression That I Get"
OK Go - "A Million Ways"
Pat Benatar - "Love Is A Battlefield"
Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue - "Kids"
Styx - "Mr. Roboto"
Yellowcard - "Ocean Avenue"

Available for Band Hero for Nintendo DS Lite:

The All-American Rejects - "Believe"
Boys Like Girls - "The Great Escape"
Foo Fighters - "Monkey Wrench"
Lacuna Coil - "Our Truth"
The Pretenders - "Boots of Chinese Plastic"
The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus - "You Better Pray"
Sublime - "All You Need"
Sum 41 - "In Too Deep"
The Vines - "Get Free"

Previously announced tracks include:

Band Hero Console:

The All-American Rejects - "Dirty Little Secret"
Alphabeat - "Fascination"
Aly and AJ - "Like Whoa"
Carl Douglas - "Kung Fu Fighting"
Cheap Trick - "I Want You To Want Me" (Live)
Don McLean - "American Pie"
Duran Duran - "Rio"
Jackson 5 - "ABC"
Janet Jackson - "Black Cat"
Katrina and The Waves - "Walking On Sunshine"
Lily Allen - "Take What You Take"
Maroon 5 - "She Will Be Loved"
No Doubt - "Just A Girl"
Roy Orbison - "Oh Pretty Woman"
Snow Patrol - "Take Back the City"
Taylor Swift - "Love Story"
Taylor Swift - "Picture to Burn"
Taylor Swift - "You Belong With Me"
Tonic - "If You Could Only See"
Village People - "YMCA"

Band Hero for Nintendo DS Lite:

Avril Lavigne - "Girlfriend"
Blink-182 - "First Date"
Evanescence - "Call Me When You're Sober"
Fall Out Boy - "Thnks Fr Th Mmrs"
Kaiser Chiefs - "I Predict A Riot"
The Killers - "Spaceman"
KT Tunstall - "Suddenly I See"
No Doubt - "Excuse Me Mr."
P!nk - "So What"
Queen - "Crazy Little Thing Called Love"
Queens Of The Stone Age - "No One Knows"
Spin Doctors - "Two Princes"

It's been a busy morning for The Beatles: Rock Band. First the trailer dropped, bringing with it eight new songs, from "Paperback Writer" to "Revolution". Now EA has released a list of fifteen new tracks, eight of which were included in the video, and three - "Do You Want To Know A Secret," "I Wanna Be Your Man," and "And Your Bird Can Sing" - mentioned in McWhertor's preview.

So what songs does that leave us with? How about "With A Little Help From My Friends," "Birthday," "I Got a Feeling," and "Dig a Pony?" Are those good enough for you? No? There's just no pleasing some people.

So, as an addendum to Luke's post earlier, here's the full list of twenty-five out of forty-five tracks:

"Back in the U.S.S.R."
"Can't Buy Me Love"
"Day Tripper"
"Eight Days a Week"
"Get Back"
"Here Comes the Sun"
"I Am the Walrus"
"I Feel Fine"
"I Saw Her Standing There"
"I Want to Hold Your Hand"
"Octopus's Garden"
"Paperback Writer"
"Revolution"
"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
"Taxman"
"Twist and Shout"
"Within You Without You"
"Yellow Submarine"
"With A Little Help From My Friends"
"Birthday"
"I Got a Feeling"
"Dig a Pony"
"Do You Want To Know A Secret"
"I Wanna Be Your Man"
"And Your Bird Can Sing"

American rock trio Green Day finally make their Rock Band debut, though not in the form many fans would prefer. Rather than deliver the classic songs we know and love, the first triple set of Green Day music all comes from their latest album, 21st Century Breakdown. "21 Guns", "Know Your Enemy" and "East Jesus Nowhere," are all fine tracks, but they don't seem near as fun to play as songs like "Longview" and "When I Come Around". I guess it's a start.

Arriving alongside Green Day are eight songs performed by artists participating in the RockStar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival. Behemoth, Black Dahlia Murder, Cannibal Corpse, God Forbid, Job for a Cowboy, Marilyn Manson, Slayer, and Whitechapel each deliver one song to help promote angry music and energy drinks. Check out the list below to see who is bringing what.

Next Week's Tracks:

Green Day "21 Guns"
Green Day "East Jesus Nowhere"
Green Day "Know Your Enemy"
Behemoth "Conquer All"
Black Dahlia Murder "What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse"
Cannibal Corpse "Hammer Smashed Face"
God Forbid "Empire of the Gun"
Job for a Cowboy "Embedded"
Marilyn Manson "Disposable Teens"
Slayer "Black Magic"
Whitechapel "This Is Exile"

The downloadable song grand total for Rock Band Unplugged rises from ten to fourteen today, with the introduction of four new songs for the single-player PlayStation Portable version of Harmonix's band game. Avenged Sevenfold's "Afterlife" , Dream Theater's "Constant Motion", Stone Temple Pilots' "Sex Type Thing", and Mötley Crüe's "Dr. Feelgood", who as we are all aware is the one who can make you feel alright.

Each of the four new tracks is available right now via Rock Band Unplugged's built-in Music Store for $1.99 apiece, the same as it ever was, only a little smaller and split up into bits.

Starting in on December 5, Lips will start getting holiday music by a number of artists including Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley and Gene Autry. The songs all start at 160 Microsoft Points a pop, or about $2.

Here’s the breakdown of this and next weeks songs:

November 21
Adele – Chasing Pavements
Estelle – No Substitute Love
Jason Mraz – The Remedy (I Won’t Worry)
Coldplay – Violet Hill

November 28
Supertramp – Give a Little Bit
Smash Mouth – All Star
Vanessa Carlton – A Thousand Miles

I think if you're the Sex Pistols you can, perhaps, pull off the whole deliberately bad singing, but if you're some group of kid musicians, it's a probably a bad idea. Besides, I'm pretty sure it isn't deliberate, I think they just can't sing.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go poke out my eardrums with a carrot. Brian Crecente

Childhood Prodigies Release Music Video on Gaming 'Addiction' [Rush PR, thanks Infradead]

5. Guitar Hero II

4. Elite Beat Agents

3. Grandia III

2. Kingdom Hearts 2

1. Prey - Don't Fear the Reaper

So that's my list of the best gaming songs of 2006, complete with visual aids to help you along. Completely arbitrary of course, so feel free to add your own to the list. Share your favorites with us! I'll be sure to check them out if I manage to survive this weekend's festivities. Until then, Happy New Year! Michael Fahey

Who knew this weird little song was implanted in so many of the games Kazumi Totaki has scored for Nintendo? Don't say "Me!" Or, worse yet, "Mii!" I am a man capable of extraordinary acts of physical violence. Florian Eckhardt

MTV has since cut out chunks of the song lists, but viewers were quick to write them down. Here's the list from the Guitar Hero II forums which shows 38 of the 40 songs. The game also has 15 bonus songs. Brian Crecente

Guitar Hero II New Songs Revealed By MTV [Video Games Blogger]

Opening Licks:
Strutter - Kiss
Mother - Danzig
Monkey Wrench - Foo Fighters
Shout At The Devil - Motley Crue
Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight - Spinal Tap

Amp-Warmers:
Heart Shaped Box - Nirvana
Message In A Bottle - Police
Woman - Wolfmother (artist not confirmed)
You Really Got Me - Van Halan (Kinks)
Carry On Wayward Son - Kansas

String Snappers:
Surrender - Cheap Trick
Them Bones - Alice in Chains
Search and Destroy - Stooges (artist not confirmed, but it damn well better be the stooges!)
Tatooed Love Boys - The Pretenders
War Pigs - Sabbath

Thrash and Burn:
Cherry Pie - Warrant
Who Was In My Room Last Night - Butthole Surfers
Girlfriend - Darkness (artist not confirmed), some say Mathew Sweet
Can't You Hear Me Knocking - Rolling Stones
Sweet Child of Mine - GnR

Return of the Shred:
Killing In The Name - Rage Against The Machine
John The Fisherman - Primus
Freya - Sword (artist not confirmed)
Bad Reputation - (too hard to say, my guess is Thin Lizzy, but could be Joan Jett)
Jessica - Allman Brothers

Relentless Riffs:
Crazy On You - Heart
Trippin On A Hole In A Paper Heart - STP
Rock This Town - Stray Cays
Last Child - Aerosmith
Stop - Janes Addiction (artist not confirmed, but I really hope it's Janes Addiction.)

Furious Fretwork:
Madhouse - Antrhax

Already confirmed songs:
Hangar 18 - Megadeath
Laid to Rest - Lamb of God
Misirlou - Dick Dale
Beast and the Harlet - Avenged Sevenfold
Freebird - Lyn Skyn
YYZ - Rush.
Psychobilly Freakout - Rev Horton Heat

Moshezuchter had been playing for about a month when he decided to tackle the Zelda theme on his accordion. Not bad, though a bit stop and go. The second video is him churning through the Tetris theme song. Brian Crecente

In the coolest move they've ever made, gaming network G4's Attack of the Show has posted a very sincere, very well-worded apology to our darling Aeropause.

G4's slight, as mentioned earlier today, was using Aeropause's instructional Dead Rising video on Attack of the Show without giving credit for the fantastic clip, which demonstrated how to attain the coveted Megaman blaster by destroying nigh unto 60,000 zombies.

The Attack of the Sorry:

What happened was awful, embarrassing and it doesn't matter why it happened, it was wrong. We're a corporation (although we have Space Invaders on the carpeting) and we take copyright law extremely seriously. We get pissed off when people show our stuff and don't give us credit; I wouldn't expect anyone out there to feel differently.

Like I said before, we take our role as citizens on the information superhighway very seriously. However, unlike a lot of people out there in the universe of the worldwide web, we aren't afraid to fess up to our mistakes and say we're sorry.

And so on. But they don't stop there! Not only do they fill a page with gracious explanation and apology, they go above and beyond and actually compose a little I'm Sorry song to Aeropause, complete with acoustic guitar and stylish hat.

Let this be a lesson to all tubedwellers: eating humble pie earns you a high score. As a bonus lesson, let it be known that a slick little grandpa hat and some nice glasses can dress up your jeans n' teeshirt geek uniform something fierce. Eliza "I wish I had a grandpa hat. And a song." Gauger

This post goes without a photo because our uploader is broken.

Attack of the Show apologizes as great length [G4]

I love this little picture of Samus rocking out with her 8-bit guitar. What is she thrashing? Metroid tunes gone metal, naturally.

MetroidMetal.com is a place to celebrate the mysterious and hypnotic melodies from Nintendo's classic game series, Metroid.

These songs beg for more energy, so I've created this site to experiment with the genre that would suit these songs the best... metal.

Now if only we could get Torokun to do an image of a bikini-clad Samus climbing out of her mech-armor, sticking out her tongue and flashing devil horns. Florian Eckhardt

Metroid Metal (Thanks, Vincent!)

RedOctane threw a little party in Australia today to show off a new build of Guitar Hero II. Among the biggest news was that the demo showed off three new songs, bringing the total known track count to 11.

The three new tracks are coveres of Stone Temple Pilots Trippin' On a Hole in a Paper Heart, Anthrax's "Madhouse" and Motley Crue's "Shout at the Devil".

The previously announced eight are covers of: Reverend Horton Heat's "Psychobilly Freakout", KISS' "Strutter", Black Sabbath's "War Pigs", Butthole Surfers' "Who Was in My Room Last Night?", Van Halen's "You Really Got Me", Rush's "YYZ" as well as original recordings of Primus' "John the Fisherman" and "Arterial Black" by Drist. Brian Crecente

Three New Guitar Hero II Songs [IGN]

The Guardian Gamesblog has posted the timeless question, "What's your favorite song about video games?" then posted up a list of their own favorite picks. Personally, we're a fan of Ozma's take on the Tetris theme, Korobienicki. But it's hard to beat this pick:

Freezepop - I am not your Game Boy

Fizzy electro-pop nonsense from 2004's Fancy Ultra Fresh album. The aggrieved singer might not be her lover's Gameboy ("don't play with me, I am not your toy"), but she's not short of classic videogame references:

"I don't have Spyhunter
Galaga or burger time
don't look here for Frogger
Dig-Dug aint no friend of mine
don't ask me, you'll cross the line"

Kotakuites, we'll be honest with you. It's a slow news day. The (ugh) Wii seems to have taken the wind out of everyone's sails. So why not join us in the comments section and give us your favorite video game inspired songs? Lyric quoting encouraged!

The best songs about videogames [Guardian Gamesblog]