3:00 snapshot #1241: screenshot

[urbpan]

Five years ago, July 5th:

This has been the only video game (outside of FB scrabble) that I've played for the past five years. The best parts about it are the communal noncompetitive experience, the pretend instruments that change it from a video game to more of a role playing thing, and most of all the weekly release of new songs. So the game comes with 50 or sixty songs, some of which you are sure to like, some of which you can't help but hate, and some that are unknown to you. But every week for the past five years new songs would come out, and you could choose to buy them and download them or not. I have a collection of over 500 out of nearly 4000 possible songs for the game.

Every week I wanted something like Bad Brains or Firewater to come out, and alas they never did. BUT Dead Kennedys and Mission of Burma songs came out! Almost all of Nirvana's catalog became available, an alarming amount of Jonathan Coulton songs, as well as single tracks by Liz Phair, as well as Paul and Storm. And I learned about bands I'd never heard of before, like Mastodon and Avenged Sevenfold. It was literally my only source of new music for most of the past five years.

This week Harmonix released the last downloadable content for Rock Band they intend to release. My dreams of They Might Be Giants finally relenting and joining in the fun are dashed--Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd as well. Countless indie rock bands from the 90's pop up on my iTunes shuffle "Damn this song should be on rock band!" It is never to be.

The final song released is Don McClean's "American Pie," whose "sad dulcet tones" are a "sad but fitting conclusion to Rock Band's five-plus years of musical history curation..."


I fucking hate that song.