Category Archives: The New Pornographers

Rock Band Wish List #5: The New Pornographers

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The Beatles: Rock Band‘s imminent release means I’m neglecting Rock Band II, which could well be a first for me. It doesn’t help that three days ago I downloaded Drop7 to my iPhone and am now hallucinating numbers like Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind.


Nevertheless, as addictive as that game is (it’s like crack and heroin got spliced in a telepod with a heap of bacon bits), it’s not going to feature Here Comes The Sun, so it will have to take a backseat soon. As I’ve said before, I’m not the biggest Beatles fan, which makes my enthusiasm for this game all the more surprising. I’m so eager that I’ve decided against buying Batman: Arkham Asylum, instead saving those pounds so that I can belt out Back in the USSR a week from now. The Batman-loving part of my brain is very angry at the Rock-Band-loving part of my brain.

Until the day TB:RB comes out, or is superseded by potential follow-ups such as The Rolling Stones: Rock Band, The Beach Boys: Rock Band, Radiohead: Rock Band, or Dewey Cox: Rock Band…

…I can still keep wishing on a star for new Rock Band DLC. The recent additions to the library have been superb: ten Spinal Tap tracks, an assortment of Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac songs, and the one Kaiser Chiefs single I like (I Predict a Riot, predictably). Even better than that, tomorrow will see the release of a five song Talking Heads pack, comprising Girlfriend Is Better, And She Was, Take Me To The River, Crosseyed and Painless, and Once in a Lifetime. All we need now is a Big Suit peripheral, and it’s gonna be Stop-Making-Sense-HQ up in this bitch.


Of course, filling this blog with wishes is one very unreliable way to get my favourite songs on the game. The Rock Band website, however, is just fantastic, linking with the game and allowing you to make requests for future Rock Band songs on your own home page. Of course, I really doubt that my exhortations will be heeded, just as they probably won’t here, either, but it’s a lovely feature, as is the photo gallery, which allows you to create photos of your band members. Here is the full roster of The Vic Mackeyz, with (left to right) Daisy Hellcakes, McJoggah, Jen Sanity, and George Murderer:


Sadly, I am currently unable to rescue our Oscar night band — Illitaritt Natzys — from Rock Band I obscurity. Shame that. Also a shame I won’t be able to customise the Beatles line-up in TB:RB, otherwise I’d have Stuart Sutcliffe, Pete Best, Yoko Ono, and Will Oldham (for variety).

Anyway, what do I want on Rock Band now? One song occupied my head completely during a recent trip to the States. From Electric Version — an album I listened to after falling for the title track in Rock Band, aptly enough — it’s The Laws Have Changed, which is a strong contender for Greatest Pop Song Ever Recorded. (And yes, that is indeed Nicki “Cally from Battlestar Galactica” Clyne going mental in the video.

And then Harmonix can follow it up with all of Neko Case’s magnificent album Middle Cyclone. For my forthcoming birthday. Thanks in advance, chaps.

Rock Band Wish List #3: Phoenix

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A lot of the songs I want made available as Rock Band download tracks appeal to me as possible challenges, probably because many of the tracks I looked forward to most have turned out to be depressingly easy. That’s not the worst problem in the world, but just as some gamified songs have revealed levels of songcraft that I hadn’t fully appreciated, simple songs make some of my heroes seem like charlatans. This is a mistake on my part, as Nirvana’s talent often lay in the oppressive atmosphere and visceral impact of their sound, not in intricacy. Only when repurposed for acoustic did their songs become nuanced. When in their raw form, they were often a barrage of sounds, which is not as much fun to play, though still great to listen to. (N.B. I’m not just picking on Nirvana because I’m impatient for a future release of Lithium, Come As You Are, and Smells Like Teen Spirit, plus all of In Utero. Not at all.)


Nevertheless, when I spend precious Space Dollars (© Warren Ellis) I want the songs to tax me. That’s probably why I play Blue Sky by The Allman Brothers Band so much. That enormous solo is pure joy from start to finish. A lot of Nothing’s Shocking by Jane’s Addiction is a test of dexterity, and my current favourite purchase is Texas Flood by Stevie Ray Vaughan, where all of the guitar tracks are difficult to finger-annihilatingly hard. Coughing up the big bucks for that whole album is the smartest frivolous purchase I’ve made in a while.

And then there are the songs I want just because they are outrageous fun. We recently fell in love with Green Day’s Know Your Enemy after seeing them play some blistering versions of it on The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien and Saturday Night Live. This would definitely have been on the Wish List, but we don’t need to now that the imminent release as part of a three song track pack has been announced. And this excitement from someone who never took Green Day seriously? That’s how much fun that song is. So, with that sorted out to our satisfaction, I’m exhorting Harmonix and MTV Games to make 1901 by Phoenix available as soon as possible.


I never got the appeal of Gallic popsters Phoenix before, but their latest album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, is undeniably the album of the summer. It’s a multi-hook pile-up on the joy highway, and I’m begging all readers to chase it down immediately. Just like previous summer albums from my past, like I Should Coco, Ill Communication, and Dig Your Own Hole, it feels like it’s made of pure sunshine, and 1901 is the track that immediately caught my ear on first listen. Buy that album and you get a free suntan just by standing in front of your speakers. It’s that good. Here’s 1901 as a taster.

Gamify this immediately, gaming people, and I’ll be playing it as often as other grin-inducing uplift-providers as Nine in the Afternoon by Panic At The Disco, Use It by The New Pornographers, and Dead on Arrival by Fall Out Boy. And that’s a promise.