Does <em>Rock Band</em> Prove It’s All Been Downhill Since “Sabotage”?
So the tracklist for Rock Band, the video game that one-ups Guitar Hero by giving you a set of digi-drums to pound on and a microphone in which to caterwaul, has finally dropped and… it’s kinda weird! David Bowie’s “Suffragette City” and Pixies “Wave of Mutilation”? Faith No More’s “Epic” and R.E.M.’s “Orange Crush”? There’s classic rock, because God would be angry if you called something Rock Band and didn’t include Aerosmith. (Or, uh, Molly Hatchet.) But it also looks like the programmers let their teenage 120 Minutes fantasies run as wild as licensing would allow them. And with so many odd, unexpected, and (especially in the case of the ’00s) crappy choices, we wondered which Rock Band decade rocks the most. Is it the one that gave us stadium-storming cock rock, the one that gave us college radio, or the one that gave us Jet and Coheed And Cambria?
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The ’70s Aerosmith – “Train Kept a Rollin'” The Who – “Won’t Get Fooled Again” Boston – “Foreplay/Long Time” Mountain – “Mississippi Queen” The Police – “Next to You” David Bowie – “Suffragette City” Black Sabbath – “Paranoid” Blue Oyster Cult – “Don’t Fear the Reaper” The Ramones – “Blitzkrieg Bop” Deep Purple – “Highway Star” KISS – “Detroit Rock City” Molly Hatchet – “Flirtin’ With Disaster” The Outlaws – “Green Grass & High Tides” The Sweet – “Ballroom Blitz”
The ’80s Rush – “Tom Sawyer”* Bon Jovi – “Wanted Dead or Alive” The Clash – “Should I Stay or Should I Go” Faith No More – “Epic” Pixies – “Wave of Mutilation” R.E.M. – “Orange Crush” Iron Maiden – “Run to the Hills” (cover)
The ’90s Foo Fighters “Learn to Fly” Metallica “Enter Sandman” Nirvana “In Bloom” Stone Temple Pilots “Vasoline” Weezer “Say It Ain’t So” Smashing Pumpkins “Cherub Rock” Radiohead “Creep” Beastie Boys “Sabotage” Hole “Celebrity Skin” Garbage “I Think I’m Paranoid” Soundgarden “Black Hole Sun”
The ’00s The Hives – “Main Offender”Queens of the Stone Age “Go With the Flow” The Strokes – “Reptilia” Jet – “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” OK Go – “Here It Goes Again” Nine Inch Nails – “The Hand That Feeds” Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “Maps” Red Hot Chili Peppers – “Dani California” Coheed & Cambria – “Welcome Home” Fall Out Boy – “Dead on Arrival” The Killers – “When You Were Young” New Pornographers – “Electric Version”
(The ’60s were disqualified because apparently the Rock Band people feel that only one worthy song was released in that decade, the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter.” Which isn’t even the best Stones song.)
