Rock Band and the future of music

As album sales keep falling and the growth of downloadable singles through iTunes and others peters out, is Rock Band the future of music? It seems like a lot of acts are jumping on the bandwagon.

I'm completely addicted to Rock Band and its sequel, Rock Band 2, but I long ago played through all the songs on the discs. Thankfully, there's downloadable content (and there are Pepsi giveaways to get free downloadable content). Just this week, the Rock Band folks made available tracks by Blur, Eve 6, Blind Melon, and the Foo Fighters. Third Eye Blind just re-recorded six of their hits for the Rock Band store, and Pearl Jam will make their new album Backspacer available to download and play on September 20, the same day as the album release.

What do you think? I've certainly spent more money this year on Rock Band tracks than actual recorded music. Have you?

After a quiet spring, second half of the year looks big

We haven't had a lot of news to report so far in 2009, other than the Better than Ezra career resurrection. But a whole slew of albums are set to come out by Christmas by a lot of your favorite artists. Among them:

* Third Eye Blind, Ursa Major - recently pushed back from June 23 to August 18.

* Our Lady Peace, Burn, Burn - out today, with a large Canadian tour and short US tour to follow. I've already got my tickets for the Atlanta date.

* Vertical Horizon, Burning the Days - out August 11.

* Alice in Chains, Black gives way to blue - out September 29, but the first single, "A Looking In View," is available now on iTunes (or listen to it below). First album without Layne Staley.


* Pearl Jam, Backspacer - out September 20. The band premiered a song off it on the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien last month.

* Collective Soul, Rabbit - out August 25. First single "Welcome All Again" just hit radio and is available on iTunes as well. Go here if you want to hear a clip of another song off the album, "Staring Down." After two self-released albums, this one's coming out on Roadrunner Records, more famous for metal bands and Nickelback.

New Third Eye Blind next week

If you've been anxiously awaiting new Third Eye Blind (and let's be honest, if my Google analytics scores are right, you haven't been), next week brings the release of the Red Star EP, a digital-only taster for the band's fourth album proper, due in 2009. It will have three new tracks, and some unspecified "video content." If I can get it on Amazon MP3 with my Pepsi Stuff points, I'll let you know next week how it is.

3EB singer weighs in (twice) on the death of the album

Third Eye Blind (as we've mentioned before here) are close to releasing their fourth album. It'll be called Ursa Major, and it should be out in February.
So lead singer Stephan Jenkins was speaking at a music conference in San Francisco*, and said he thinks albums are soon to be obsolete. Idolator reported on this, and then there was a lively back-and-forth in the comments section, including a lengthy follow-up from Mr. Jenkins himself. It's a highly recommended read... and what do you think? Are bands going to go just to releasing singles on iTunes, or is there still value in the album for some? My personal belief is that as long as albums can be resold on Amazon if you run into a cash crunch, you're better off spending your money on a physical product than on something digital.

*I wonder how much artists get paid to give speeches at events like this? I saw Art Alexakis deliver a keynote address at a similar event in Cincinnati in 2004. He even brought an acoustic and played "Heartspark Dollarsign" after he predicted the music industry would fall apart (which he was right on about).

Links roundup

Sometimes stuff just doesn't warrant a full post. To wit...

* A reflection on Beck's varied career, over at Idolator. I've never really been able to get into Beck. Sure, I liked the Odelay stuff, I enjoyed "Debra" ironically, and I sort of liked the newer singles when I heard them on the radio, but I don't own a Beck album. I've never seen him live. I probably won't buy his greatest hits, and if I never hear "Loser" or "Where It's At" again, I'd be OK.

* Third Eye Blind may be close to finally putting out a fourth album, says this (fairly-old) post by their new guitarist. As far as original members go, they're down to Stephan Jenkins and the drummer. I didn't like much of the third album or the non-"Never Let You Go" parts of the second album, so...

*A celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Billboard Modern Rock charts, along with some nice YouTube videos. I especially liked "I'll Be Your Chauffeur," from 1990, which I'd never actually heard before.

* There's a nice interview with Robby Takac of the Goo Goo Dolls over at Alternative Addiction. They've just built a studio, put out an odds-and-sods album, and are writing the next album. The first taste is a track called "Real," which was part of the AT&T promo for the Olympics: