Rock Band DLC Statosphere 04/29/2008 update. Judas Priest & then some..

[MrStato]

Rock Band DLC Statosphere (http://www.dlcstats.com/)

It looks the "Screaming For Vengeance" album by Judas Priest had a fairly poor opening week, especially when (unfairly) compared to the previous week's Classic Rock Pack 01 & Motley Crue's "Saints of Los Angeles". "You've Got Another Thing Comin'" did do fair though, as should have been expected.

Number Munchers rejoice.

edit: updated URL

[Samuel346]

I think that we will get a better look 2 to 4 weeks after it's been put up.

Thanks as always though :)

[Casto21]

That is a bad start for Judas Priest. "Simple Man" in its second week had better numbers then all but 2 of the JP songs.

I would be surprised if the numbers for Judas Priest got much better with time. I don't think people will go back and randomly pick up their songs (except for maybe You've Got Another Thing Comin'). Just my opinion.

[jjlee138]

Good stuff man. Very interesting to look at the % of change from week to week.


That is a bad start for Judas Priest. "Simple Man" in its second week had better numbers then all but 2 of the JP songs.

I would be surprised if the numbers for Judas Priest got much better with time. I don't think people will go back and randomly pick up their songs (except for maybe You've Got Another Thing Comin'). Just my opinion.

Maybe... I have friends that own RB that randomly get some DLC here and there. There's no way in hell that they could even tell you what day new stuff comes out, and they definately don't know in advance what's even being released. They just randomly go in and download stuff they like.

Not everyone obsessively keeps track of DLC from week to week in RB like we do. As an example I only check GH DLC every couple months where on the other hand my old roommates are GH junkies that keep track of GH DLC and their corresponding forums daily.

[Cranioclash]

I'm kind of a nerd for this stuff - i've never taken any stats classes, though.

Think you guys could incorporate sparklines into this at all?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparkline

I think it would be nice to see how each song has performed over its lifetime. Maybe - drill down by clicking on one song to track the numbers? I guess that would only be possible as of when you started tracking this stuff.

Good work!

[FatWilma]

i thought Judas Priest would sell poorly. combine that with the poor sales of the "thrash" pack, and hopefully that means no more metal! rejoice!

[Apples]

If you're still using guitar leaderboards to track this, another thing to consider is that the album has several highly difficult songs. So there very well could be a number of people who have not been counted yet because they haven't beaten the song. (same could be said for Thrasher and various others)

[Abaddon]

One thing to keep in mind about the Priest numbers, is that there were nine songs released, compared to only three for the Classic Rock Pack week. It's natural that the numbers will be lower to some extent because there are simply more offerings and there are people that will buy a three pack that wouldn't buy a full album, even given equal content.

Another factor is the "surprise" factor. We knew about MiaB and Simple Man from way back, so it built some anticipation (even though we didn't know when they would be coming). There was almost no advance warning about Priest, so it's possible the first week numbers will be a little lower as a result.

Finally, I expect that the Priest tracks would in fact sell lower than Miab/Simple Man/Call Me, other factors aside. That doesn't make it a bomb by any means, I think the Classic Rock pack has a lot of appeal and has sold really well given it has only been out a couple of weeks now.

[EDIT] One other random note, Buddy Holly and Move Along are the latest song to cap out. Wonderwall, Blackened, and Roxanne will be next. After that I would guess that More Than A Feeling would be next, but it will probably be a little while before that happens. Over the long haul, we're going to see a lot more songs go "off the charts" based on the 100,000 leaderboard limit...

[Casto21]

If you're still using guitar leaderboards to track this, another thing to consider is that the album has several highly difficulty songs. So there very well could be a number of people who have not been counted yet because they haven't beaten the song. (same could be said for Thrasher and various others)

This is possible. I would expect that if you were unable to beat a song on a given difficulty, then you would at some point play it at a lower diff to get a better feel for the song. I personally start on a tier I know i will beat then move up so that i do have a good feel for the pace of the song.

[Apples]

This is possible. I would expect that if you were unable to beat a song on a given difficulty, then you would at some point play it at a lower diff to get a better feel for the song. I personally start on a tier I know i will beat then move up so that i do have a good feel for the pace of the song.

Thrasher has half the entries compared to the rest of the same pack. It sticks out dramatically.

While your methodology of ramping up the difficulty is reasonable, there are also people who have the mentality of "expert or why bother."

[Casto21]

Also, here is a zipped excel for the numbers people who like to analyze this stuff. It has Guitar, Drums, and Vocals numbers for both 360 and PS3. This was taken last night (4/28) at about 11:30 PM EST.

Some interesting and funny things to note:

6.19 mil scores for 360, 1.97 for PS3 over all instruments (keeping in mind that there are multiple guitar scores capped at 100k for 360).
Guitar: 4.65 mil, Drums: 2.67 mil, Vocals 0.83 mil scores registered
360 to PS3 instruments comparisons for every 1 ranked PS3 scored there are X 360 scores. Guitar = 3.52, Drums = 2.66, Vocals = 3.17
Only 36 scores had been received for vocals on Pain and Pleasure for PS3 (120 for 360)


Yes I am bored and I like analyzing these numbers.

[Abaddon]

While your methodology of ramping up the difficulty is reasonable, there are also people who have the mentality of "expert or why bother."Definitely true. There are also people like me that dislike having leaderboard entries that are from Hard mode that are higher than our Expert scores. I've pretty much stopped playing Hard mode because I like tracking my scores, and the web leaderboards are very convenient to get them, but I only want to track my Expert scores.

[Apples]

Another interesting thing you can watch on this week's stats are the "tail" on some of this content. (Tail is defined as residual sales after the initial launch surge)

Tracks that are weeks and even months old are still generating substantive growth/sales.

On the whole I say that's very encouraging for the staying power of the game and the DLC concept. It also bodes well that even "niche" or moderate interest DLC tracks can be profitable over the long term.

[espher]

I'm playing through songs on all three Expert careers now after doing some Hard vox/drums.

Now that I've hit that level, I have no desire to try and beat them on hard at this point if I can't do it on expert. The only time I play hard for these songs is in BWT, which of course won't show up.

So yeah, count me in as someone who has only beaten a few of the Judas Priest tracks and hasn't finished all of the Thrash Pack despite owning it all.

For what it's worth, I'm sitting at 101/152 guitar, 100/152 drums, 34/152 vocals.

Edit: Those will be 155s when I get home tonight. :p

[Casto21]

While your methodology of ramping up the difficulty is reasonable, there are also people who have the mentality of "expert or why bother."

I completely understand this approach too. I would expect that anyone in the Expert or nothing mindset would probably be good enough to pass a song (even if they do butcher it) after some attempts. Just surviving a song on expert will get you on the leaderboards.

But i guess this isnt always the case, so all of the upper tier songs might be slightly undervalued.

[Electric_Zen]

I love these stats, thanks!

The Judas Priest numbers are low, but the back catalog continues to sell strong from week to week.

I know there are all kinds of reasons why these numbers are low, but do you have the 'total sales' numbers from last week across the entire catalog, using your methodology?

[Jimmik]

I really dig this site now. Wayda crunch those numbers man! :D

[Flawless]

Really like the site... couple things...

Geocities? ... Thought that died in like '99.

I'd love it if you could make each category sortable like if you're on a shopping website you can sort from cheapest to most expensive... it would be great if you could click on each category. IE. Click on Current Tracked and have it from top to bottom the most popular.

[Comedian]

I bought the entire Judas Priest album. I also bought Cherry Bomb last week. Just doing my part. :)

Of course, I have a PS3 so neither of those purchases affected your stats. Also, I still haven't completed Electric Eye, Riding the Wind, or Screaming for Vengance as I've been focusing on Expert lately and I'm not good enough to pass them yet. I've played the songs several times in Band Quickplay and BWT, though. And I've played Devil's Child every day since release. :)

Thanks for compiling the stats! They are the best we can do right now and quite interesting. I appreciate all your hard work to provide them.

[neo031162]

If JP's numbers are low, I can't wait to see the mother hips numbers next week.

EDIT: if there are any...

[Rock_Starman]

Just throwing out another JP possibility,as was the case with me personally,that the 2 biggest and most known songs have already been in GH games so may have been skipped over due to that.

[Jerick]

I can almost guarantee you there were many people like me that bought the cd and went in and played the whole thing in quick play because it was quickest and just haven't had the time to rack up a score on them yet.

[FatWilma]

I can almost guarantee you there were many people like me that bought the cd and went in and played the whole thing in quick play because it was quickest and just haven't had the time to rack up a score on them yet.

thats still a very small percentage of people. i'm sure the #'s on it will go up a bit next week, but all in all, Judas Priest didn't sell very well.

uhh duh.

[SJBenoist]

The PS3 numbers are going to be of growing importance as well. It's sales are taking off ("it" being the console itself).

[nunant11]

Thanks for the data. Very solid and interesting data. One thing I learned is that others have the same taste in music as I do. I've been bashed on here for questioning what they have released over the past two to three months (Thrash Pack, Grateful Dead, Judas Priest, B-52's, Arguably Punk Pack, Faith No More, The Mother Hips to name a few) but it looks as though I'm in the majority. I have downloaded the following (Metallica Pack, CCR, War Pigs, Radiohead, Buddy Holly, 30 seconds to Mars, All American Rejects, Lynard Skynard, Black Crowes, STP, Blink 182 and Wonderwall.) Will be getting Paramore, Serj Tankian, Simple Man, Motley Crue, Zero, March of The Pigs, The Perfect Drug and More Than A Feeling this week. According to the numbers, those are all near the top except for Radiohead.

To those of you that say recent and/or today's music is bad, take a look at the numbers for All American Rejects, 30 Seconds to Mars, Blink 182 and Paramore's numbers. Somebody must like it. Just found this data very interesting and humorous. Hopefully, Harmonix analyzes this data.

[MrStato]

I totally agree with you guys that certain hard songs should have somewhat lower numbers due to people that only play on expert. I'm one of those people in fact, I still have not beat Thrasher. Months back (when I was still a n00b) I'd go down to hard and beat the song, now I just don't bother. If I can't beat it on expert then I can't beat it on expert, no big deal for me. But I still have to wonder how many people actually do this though. I should probably mention something about this in one of those paragraphs at the top of the page but no one reads that crap any ways. ;P



Thanks for all the positive comments everyone!

@ site suggestions:


I'm kind of a nerd for this stuff - i've never taken any stats classes, though.

Think you guys could incorporate sparklines into this at all?

I don't think a sparkline would work very well since the numbers never go down it's seems rather pointless, unless you had something else in mind. I've thought about different types of graphs but they 1) make updating the site a total pain 2) potentially make the list (of which there are nearly 100 entries now) so big that viewing it becomes somewhat of a pain.


Really like the site... couple things...

Geocities? ... Thought that died in like '99.

I'd love it if you could make each category sortable like if you're on a shopping website you can sort from cheapest to most expensive... it would be great if you could click on each category. IE. Click on Current Tracked and have it from top to bottom the most popular.

The Geocities thing is only temporary. :) I know the site is getting refused a lot from going over the bandwidth limit and it will only get worse when more charts are added. I sort of made the site on a whim and Geocities was the only free host I could think of.

The stuff you mentioned would mean the site would need to be written in PHP vs. plain old HTML. It would take a LOT of time, especially when considering my grasp of PHP is pretty basic. Of course I'd still like to make it happen, but I think the site would have to become uber popular in order to give me the kick in the ass to make that sort of thing happen.

[TheKrazyKatzzz]

I don't see how a minimum of 5000 downloads/song is that much of a "failure."

Anyway, is the guitar leaderboard universally higher in number than drum leaderboards? You could try crosschecking for certain songs like Thrasher, Shockwave, etc. since what you're trying to do is establish a baseline anyway.

[jzrubicon]

No more metal? Yeah right! If there is one thing that will always sell for a game like this is metal!

[sidman69]

i am not surprised it sold poorly, sure the band has name recognition but all those tracks except you got another thing coming are unknown to most people i think. I am also not surprised the thrash pack did so poorly either.

[hamsterstyle]

The biggest reason it's not doing well, sorry to offend some people, but who in the hell freaking listens to Judas Priest?! 25 year old pre-glam metal is not exactly a popular genre. What the hell did they expect? You couldn't pay me to download that album and deal with listening to however many tracks of Rob Halford. I'll take a swift kick in the nuts over that. Now, if you want something heavy from that relative period of time, release Master of Puppets and watch the difference in sales.

This just in. Not that it's the same genre, but the Pixies album isn't going to do anything either. 90% of kids under the age of 25 have zero idea who The Pixies even are. Just be realistic.

[Abaddon]

You people that are claiming Priest "hasn't done well" based on a week of leaderboard info are really stretching it. And not factoring in the fact that it is nine tracks (and a corresponding price increase for that). Try summing the numbers and dividing by three to get a slightly less inaccurate comparison with a standard three pack week. And for that matter, try waiting a month or so before jumping to any conclusions ;)

[Rock_Starman]

To those of you that say recent and/or today's music is bad, take a look at the numbers for All American Rejects, 30 Seconds to Mars, Blink 182 and Paramore's numbers. Somebody must like it. Just found this data very interesting and humorous. Hopefully, Harmonix analyzes this data.

By that logic Celine Dion,Madonna,ABBA and Cher are better than AC/DC,Black Sabbath,The Who and The Doors.

[afterstasis]

By that logic Celine Dion,Madonna,ABBA and Cher are better than AC/DC,Black Sabbath,The Who and The Doors.

abba is better than ac/dc.

[PCTraitor]

What if you only play drums or only play Band world tour? Many people don't go through the all their DLC songs solo on guitar. Many people would just wait for it to come up in BWT, which is the best part of the game. I am not 100% sure but I don't think the band score reflects on the guitar leaderboards.

[Brainstew]

Rock Band DLC Statosphere (http://www.geocities.com/dlcstats/)

It looks the "Screaming For Vengeance" album by Judas Priest had a fairly poor opening week, especially when (unfairly) compared to the previous week's Classic Rock Pack 01 & Motley Crue's "Saints of Los Angeles". "You've Got Another Thing Comin'" did do fair though, as should have been expected.

Number Munchers rejoice.

Your numbers couldn't be any farther from accurate.

[Wheezy]

Great website, always interesting to see the (rough) numbers! :)

[Casto21]

Anyway, is the guitar leaderboard universally higher in number than drum leaderboards? You could try crosschecking for certain songs like Thrasher, Shockwave, etc. since what you're trying to do is establish a baseline anyway.

Yes, guitar is by far the most played instrument. That's not saying the other instruments (and band) couldnt be included in the analysis.

Guitar: 4.65 mil, Drums: 2.67 mil, Vocals 0.83 mil scores registered




What if you only play drums or only play Band world tour? Many people don't go through the all their DLC songs solo on guitar. Many people would just wait for it to come up in BWT, which is the best part of the game. I am not 100% sure but I don't think the band score reflects on the guitar leaderboards.

Correct, when you play as a band, no individual instrument leaderboard is affected.

The people who play drums, vocals, or band only are not represented in MrStato's webpage. This only really skews the data if you believe that the people who choose to not play guitar are more likely to download certain songs or genres.

[Xero314-2]

This may have been said before but I have a suggestion to make the numbers a little more accurate.

It would probably be better to pick the count from each of the leader boards. This way if a song is harder on one difficulty than another it may still be reflected in the numbers. True in most case guitar is probably going to be the higher number but I don't know if this is always true.

Also it would do you well to add in the PS3 numbers as it is possible that the PS3 players and XBox360 players are in different demo graphics on average (I personally find that PS3 owners are older on average, but this is entirely anecdotal)

Really the best way, without having official numbers, would be to use some weighted algorithm taking into account all of the leader boards, on all platforms with DLC.

[PCTraitor]

Well maybe there isn't that many people that only play drums or sing, but I believe that there are a substantial number of people that only play BWT. If I had a steady partner to play with I would only play BWT. It's the best mode in the game.

[JJStyles]

I haven't touched a guitar in months (I'm a vocalist), and I've downloaded everything that's come out in the past 3 months except for Thrash pack, Garbage, and the Mother Hips.

And yes, I own Cherry Bomb.

[nunant11]

By that logic Celine Dion,Madonna,ABBA and Cher are better than AC/DC,Black Sabbath,The Who and The Doors.

Huh? I'm going off the sales data. What does Celine Dion, Madonna and Cher have to do with anything? The songs/bands that I mentioned have sold very well. Not sure where you are coming from or why you have Cher, Madonna and Celine Dion on your mind but whatever makes you happy.

[Samuel346]

Your numbers couldn't be any farther from accurate.

Why? Because you don't like what it says?

I am not going to argue that they are precise, and I agree that the pack needs longer than a week before you can see results, but this is the best thing we have to determine what is bought.


I thought about something yesterday.

What if we looked at the bands career total to see if there were more than just the guitar solo area?

The answer: the average is 170 bands for the 9 songs of this Judas Priest pack on the PS3.

[Runesmith]

I, for one, am overjoyed to hear of Cherry Bomb's 2 percent increase over the past week. It's about time that rock anthem got the attention it so duly deserves! :D

-Proud purchaser and owner of Cherry Bomb since RB's launch date.

[MrStato]

I'm not sure what Brainstew is getting at either. Harmonix's own leaderboards are a farce? There may be a conspiracy here.. :eek: lol

I can't imagine any sort of way to truly improve the numbers. Every system I can think of involves some sort of guess work (and who wants some person's guess work mixed in??) and would make the site a TOTAL pain to update. Right now I've got it tuned to a level that I can be comfortable with updating weekly.

We'll see how that JP album continues to do. ;) Personally I like the album. I think the first week will almost certainly be the best week it will ever have though, unless it gets discounted at some point in the future. Who knows though? Word of mouth can work wonders. Bloodstone really doesn't deserve to be among the lowest ranked songs on the album, spread the word.

What I am more interested in is seeing how well the next album (which is The Cars I believe, another 9 tracker) does. That will tell us a lot about how well the whole album concept is actually hitting people. I'm betting a lot of people are a little hesitant to put down $15 at once.

Then I'm really interested in seeing the Pixies album. Which is _15_ tracks. Harmonix would have to be nuts to go near or above the 1600 point ($20) mark. Thats the entire 1600 MSP card most people buy in stores. It might/might not be wishful thinking, but I'm hoping 1200 points is the standard album pricing regardless of track count.

I'm rambling though.

[simmias]

Then I'm really interested in seeing the Pixies album. Which is _15_ tracks. Harmonix would have to be nuts to go near or above the 1600 point ($20) mark. Thats the entire 1600 MSP card most people buy in stores. It might/might not be wishful thinking, but I'm hoping 1200 points is the standard album pricing regardless of track count.
I agree, although part of me fears they may release it at $25 just by the existing precedent. This would suck, since the average song length on Doolittle is about two and a half minutes.

[Kingfish]

It might/might not be wishful thinking, but I'm hoping 1200 points is the standard album pricing regardless of track count...

Well, there are only a very FEW albums(SfV by Priest was one of them) that I would pay more than 1200 points for and virtually NONE beyond 1600. I prolly wouldn't even buy single tracks if (imo) they priced them too high.

But thats just me I bet...

[Comedian]

Well, there are only a very FEW albums(SfV by Priest was one of them) that I would pay more than 1200 points for and virtually NONE beyond 1600. I prolly wouldn't even buy single tracks if (imo) they priced them too high.

But thats just me I bet...

The interview the put up when Screaming for Vengance came out indicated that albums would be priced on a per-song basis, with a volume discount for buying the whole album at once. I'm wondering how that's going to affect Doolittle as well. Maybe they'll put the songs at a .99 price point and discount from that.

As for higher prices, that may be my fault. I've bought every DLC that was even slightly interesting, and I'd pay quite a bit for songs I really like.

For the original masters of 2112 by Rush, I'd pay $50. With pleasure. 8)

[Kingfish]

For the original masters of 2112 by Rush, I'd pay $50. With pleasure. 8)

Can i have job where you work?

[U2Phreak1969]

I'm sorry, but JP:SFV was such a bad title and I am not convinced that The Cars:The Cars or The Pixies are going to do any better. As GH is going after ENTIRE libraries from supergroups (Aerosmith, GnR, Def Leppard, The Beatles nad now U2) and HMX is screwing around with second rate albums from second rate bands unless they start putting out Greatest Hits albums only - I don't see how they can compete.

And honestly, if it was Judas Priest's Greatest Hits I probably wouldn't be *****ing, or for that matter The Cars Greatest Hits, or even THe Pixies Greatest but to just release some hohum album with one or two hit songs this game will never live up to its potential.
What is a rock band without a lead singer? Anyone tried to sing a song they don't know? It's pretty freaking impossible.
I've hosted karaoke shows for over 15 years and I have yet to see someone try and sing a song they weren't completely comfortable with - even the ones who can't hold a tune in a bucket, they still THINK they know the song they are singing.
HMX needs to start making some crushingly huge deals, because all I see right now is them getting crushed.

[tuber85]

I'm sorry, but JP:SFV was such a bad title and I am not convinced that The Cars:The Cars or The Pixies are going to do any better. As GH is going after ENTIRE libraries from supergroups (Aerosmith, GnR, Def Leppard, The Beatles nad now U2) and HMX is screwing around with second rate albums from second rate bands unless they start putting out Greatest Hits albums only - I don't see how they can compete.

And honestly, if it was Judas Priest's Greatest Hits I probably wouldn't be *****ing, or for that matter The Cars Greatest Hits, or even THe Pixies Greatest but to just release some hohum album with one or two hit songs this game will never live up to its potential.
What is a rock band without a lead singer? Anyone tried to sing a song they don't know? It's pretty freaking impossible.
I've hosted karaoke shows for over 15 years and I have yet to see someone try and sing a song they weren't completely comfortable with - even the ones who can't hold a tune in a bucket, they still THINK they know the song they are singing.
HMX needs to start making some crushingly huge deals, because all I see right now is them getting crushed.

Agreed..........................

[Ultrace]

I'm sorry, but JP:SFV was such a bad title and I am not convinced that The Cars:The Cars or The Pixies are going to do any better. As GH is going after ENTIRE libraries from supergroups (Aerosmith, GnR, Def Leppard, The Beatles nad now U2) and HMX is screwing around with second rate albums from second rate bands unless they start putting out Greatest Hits albums only - I don't see how they can compete.

And honestly, if it was Judas Priest's Greatest Hits I probably wouldn't be *****ing, or for that matter The Cars Greatest Hits, or even THe Pixies Greatest but to just release some hohum album with one or two hit songs this game will never live up to its potential.
What is a rock band without a lead singer? Anyone tried to sing a song they don't know? It's pretty freaking impossible.
I've hosted karaoke shows for over 15 years and I have yet to see someone try and sing a song they weren't completely comfortable with - even the ones who can't hold a tune in a bucket, they still THINK they know the song they are singing.
HMX needs to start making some crushingly huge deals, because all I see right now is them getting crushed.
This is where the logic falls apart. You think that just because they haven't been charted and released that RB isn't going after the entire libraries from popular groups? (You use the term supergroups incorrectly, I'm afraid.) Yes, GH got the Aerosmith game. Great for them--you think every song on that is going to be one people know? What song did they get from, say, The Who on GH3? The Seeker? How exactly does that stack up against Won't Get Fooled Again in terms of being well-known? Both companies can sometimes pick the more obscure songs.

You call out Def Leppard, the Beatles and U2 as if these are concrete slabs to chain one's logic to. The Def Leppard pack was a fiasco due to the recordings of the songs used, and there is nothing set about the other two groups. Also, Rock Band is not just a karaoke game--especially since you tend to play it with friends you are comfortable with instead of in front of a room full of strangers. Yes, it can be tricky to sing a song you don't know. So, listen to it once or twice. In our house, we find the challenge of singing an unknown song welcome.

Another thing to bear in mind is that in comparison to a normal week, the JP album was a blast--two songs (YGATC and Electric Eye) that are well-known enough that anyone who knows Judas Priest or has played the previous GH games can sing them, and 7 other songs that you can learn to sing or can play the other instruments to on the spot. The same thing goes for the Cars--with My Best Friend's Girl, Just What I Needed and You're All I've Got Tonight, the singers who need to know their songs are at the very least covered for a normal week, with the opportunity for anyone to pick up the remaining tracks on the album.

[Setsu102]

This is where the logic falls apart. You think that just because they haven't been charted and released that RB isn't going after the entire libraries from popular groups? (You use the term supergroups incorrectly, I'm afraid.) Yes, GH got the Aerosmith game. Great for them--you think every song on that is going to be one people know? What song did they get from, say, The Who on GH3? The Seeker? How exactly does that stack up against Won't Get Fooled Again in terms of being well-known? Both companies can sometimes pick the more obscure songs.

You call out Def Leppard, the Beatles and U2 as if these are concrete slabs to chain one's logic to. The Def Leppard pack was a fiasco due to the recordings of the songs used, and there is nothing set about the other two groups. Also, Rock Band is not just a karaoke game--especially since you tend to play it with friends you are comfortable with instead of in front of a room full of strangers. Yes, it can be tricky to sing a song you don't know. So, listen to it once or twice. In our house, we find the challenge of singing an unknown song welcome.

Another thing to bear in mind is that in comparison to a normal week, the JP album was a blast--two songs (YGATC and Electric Eye) that are well-known enough that anyone who knows Judas Priest or has played the previous GH games can sing them, and 7 other songs that you can learn to sing or can play the other instruments to on the spot. The same thing goes for the Cars--with My Best Friend's Girl, Just What I Needed and You're All I've Got Tonight, the singers who need to know their songs are at the very least covered for a normal week, with the opportunity for anyone to pick up the remaining tracks on the album.

Agreed. I find new challenging songs to sing as more fun than ones I already know by heart. Yes I know Dani California by heart and can nearly %100 on expert, but that doesn't make it more fun than getting %80 on screaming for vengeance. ^_^