“Who’s Next” not next for Rock Band.
Word comes from the Associated Press that the seminal “Who’s Next” album by The Who won’t be coming to Rock Band after all.
“Who’s Next” was supposed to be one of the first full albums available for direct download purchase when Rock Band was released, but it never materialized. The problem? Many of the master recordings for the album have been lost.
“Their music really comes alive when you’re playing it,” said [Harmonix CEO Alex] Rigopulos. “We were trying to release ‘Who’s Next’ in its entirety, but we were unable to locate all the masters. So in the face of that, Pete (Townshend) and Roger (Daltrey) helped curate this best-of soundtrack of everything we were able to find.”
That’s a real bummer, not just that the album won’t be available, but that the master tracks are lost. When the Harmonix team talks about Rock Band in their “making of” DVD, they cite The Who as the quintessential rock experience that they were trying to replicate. Everyone in the band is vying for the attention of the audience, be it vocalist Daltry, guitarist Townshend, drummer Keith “The Loon” Moon, or… well, okay, so John Entwistle isn’t really showing off, but he’s the bassist, what do you want?
Oh well. If the best-of package includes “Baba O’Riley,” I’ll be happy.
In the meantime, Activision continues to hitch their pretend rockstar futures to their Aerosmith-centric Guitar Hero game. At least they had the good sense to leave “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” off the song list.
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