MTV, Harmonix Detail Rock Band

MTV and developer Harmonix have announced new details of their forthcoming Rock Band, promising weekly full-album downloadable content from bands like The Who, Metallica tracks, a new advisory board member with musician Steven Van Zandt, and the first official list of 16 tracks. The companies have said Rock Band will be the first game to offer full entire albums of music as playable levels, starting with The Who's legendary 1971 album Who's Next, and promised that every week new downloadable content will be made available to the game. That content will include tracks from Metallica, who will be offering original versions of their music to the game, including their hit Enter Sandman, which will ship on the disc itself this holiday season. Finally, the two companies have announced the formation of the Rock Band Music Advisory Board, which will "guide the Harmonix development team in the selection of artists, albums and tracks to be featured in the music videogame, both on the game disc and for digital distribution." The first announced member to come on board is musician, actor and record producer Steven Van Zandt, a.k.a. "Little Steven," who will "head up the board as the chairman with a select group of celebrity musicians and industry experts to be announced at a later date." Said Harmonix co-founder and CEO Alex Rigopulos, "Offering entire albums for play on the Rock Band platform is a monumental step forward in Harmonix's ever present quest to provide new ways for people to interact with music and creating the most authentic music experience possible." He added, "This will give players the opportunity to play through the entire album set list of arguably some of the most influential rock albums of all time and brings them one step closer to what it feels like to be a true rock star." Harmonix has also officially announced the first 16 titles available in the game, which, with the exception of Paranoid, will all be the original versions and not professional covers: 1970s The Who "Won't Get Fooled Again" Mountain "Mississippi Queen"* David Bowie "Suffragette City" Black Sabbath "Paranoid"* Blue Oyster Cult "Don't Fear the Reaper" The Ramones "Rockaway Beach" 1980s Rush "Tom Sawyer"* Bon Jovi "Wanted Dead or Alive" 1990s Nirvana "In Bloom" Stone Temple Pilots "Vasoline" Weezer "Say It Ain't So" Foo Fighters "Learn to Fly" Metallica "Enter Sandman" 2000s The Hives "Main Offender" The Strokes "Reptilia" Queens of the Stone Age "Go With the Flow" * indicates that the track is a cover song, all others are the original master recordings.