Motley Crue Single Does Better On Rock Band

Erik J writes "Remember about six weeks ago when Motley Crue and Rock Band partnered to release a new single premiering first in the game before anywhere else? Come to find out their song 'Saints of Los Angeles' was downloaded over 47,000 times on the Xbox version alone, beating out digital services iTunes and Amazon, which were tapped only 10,000 times for the single."

The doctor don't feel so good these days

[elrous0 (869638)]

Look, I loved Crue back in the 80's (who didn't?), but their albums and singles these days aren't exactly shattering sales records. I imagine that just about *ANY* new song added to Rock Band would sell better than any given new Crue single on iTunes, just because of the completists and those looking for ANY new content.

I mean, 47,000 downloads is great and all, but there was a time when a new Crue album would sell in the MILLIONS.

Re:

[aztektum (170569)]

Look, I loved Crue back in the 80's (who didn't?)

Me for one. Although I was always more into music like Pixies and punk and less mainstream. But yeah I agree with what you're sayin'. S'funny now the Crue is more a niche act now. the music I dug in the 80's, in turn, seems to get more exposure.

Does that mean in 20 years hair bands will rule again? I'm sure the ozone is cringing.

Re:The doctor don't feel so good these days

[geekoid (135745)]

WHen I was a teen late 70's, early 80s, we would talk about what music would be like i 20-30 years. We had a lot od thoughts but no one expected it to be the exact same music.
I laugh whenever I see a 30 year old punk rock shirt on some teen. I mean, really can't this generation create there own rebel music?

Ob. XKCD
http://xkcd.com/339/ [xkcd.com]

Re:The doctor don't feel so good these days

[jslarve (1193417)]

That was my era too, and I used to feel the same way. But after I watched "End of the Century" (the Ramones thing that's been on cable lately), the late (GREAT) Joey Ramone was remarking about how their fan base spans several generations, etc. It got me to thinking how arrogant that kind of attitude is. Some of that early punk was just plain great (if not terrible at the same time). We can't claim it. We were just lucky to have had it when we were growing up. Really lucky. Would a hippie from the '60s laugh if I were wearing a Beatles t-shirt. Hell no. Same idea.

Re:The doctor don't feel so good these days

[GastonTheTruck (1048316)]

They do, they are, and you're too old and crusty too notice it, boomertard.

Re:The doctor don't feel so good these days

[hairyfeet (841228)]

Funny you should mention that. My oldest nephew recently raided my old closet at my moms house when she asked him to get rid of my "junk". Now all the girls are fawning over him and telling him how wicked cool he looks in all those "vintage retro" band shirts like Poison,Crue,DLR,etc. Not to mention he snatched my Judas priest satin jacket and all my old 80's shirts with zippers and wild prints like zebra stripes. Now when i go to pick him up and hear the girls fawning over his cool "retro" look i want to scream "That's NOT retro! he just stole all my clothes!!!" Never thought I'd see the day that the bands I jammed out to would be considered classic rock. Damned I'm getting to old for this sh*t. And get off my lawn!

Re:The doctor don't feel so good these days

[colmore (56499)]

Because your generation were all so sold on rock and roll anything equaling cool that when they all got jobs in advertising and other such bullshit, they put rock and roll on a chopping block and made it just another brand.

Or maybe any artform has a natural lifespan, and Rock and Rolls was semi-miraculously extended a few more times than likely as it is. Even jazz stopped innovating at some point.

And just maybe radio and the record industry aren't what they were once, so you're not going to hear edgy bands without looking for them.

Maybe there is rebel music. It's called hip hop, and a lot of emerging scenes in the 3rd world. Maybe there's still good rock and roll out there because kids are going to play the music they love whether or not they're showing up late to the party. Maybe garages and basements are alive and well and you wouldn't know because you haven't participated in any culture that doesn't require buying a ticket or subscription in two decades.

And who says rebellious = new. The bits of 70s and 80s punk that weren't safe enough to be marketable are still *totally* fair game for lashing out when you're 17. The best music of the past 30 years has all come out of that stuff, why stop?

Anyway, rock's older. It's got more cruft. That's just the way things go. Look at the movies. But the kids are all right. And all this spineless pitchfork crap will pass.

It's Crüe, not Crue

[voidstin (51561)]

Anyone who really loved them would never have forgotten the umlaut.

Re:It's Crüe, not Crue

[TheRealMindChild (743925)]

Only the crazies use chars not in the first 127 of ASCII

Re:

[Opportunist (166417)]

You ARE aware that you just pissed off everyone in France, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Spain... and let me not start about the eastern half of Europe which has some really funny specks and dots above, below and inside letters as well.

Just because the English alphabet only offers you 26 letters to choose from doesn't mean that's how it should be. Though I have to admit, coding with a keyboard filled with those additional letters is rather hard (ever tried writing a C program and having to use ctrl-alt-

Re:It's Crüe, not Crue

[bob.appleyard (1030756)]

English is a language that uses the Latin alphabet.

Re:

[pjt33 (739471)]

I write Java rather than C, but needing Alt-Gr on my Spanish keyboard to get [ and { does annoy me. Also when I first starting using it I puzzled for ages as to how to get backtick (`) for use in shell scripts.

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[rishistar (662278)]

Only the crazies use chars not in the first 127 of ASCII

You ARE aware that you just pissed off everyone in France, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Spain... and let me not start about the eastern half of Europe which has some really funny specks and dots above, below and inside letters as well.

So, as the poster was saying, only the crazies use chars not in the first 127 of ASCII.

Re:It's Crüe, not Crue

[mweather (1089505)]

I only vse characters in the Roman alphabet

Ok then...

[hassanchop (1261914)]

Anyone who really loved them would never have forgotten the umlaut.

Crue. Crue Crue Crue. Crue Crue Crue Crue Crue Crue. Crue Crue Crue Crue Crue Crue Crue Crue Crue Crue Crue Crue. I trust I've made my feeling clear.

Re:Ok then...

[by Anonymous Coward]

That's umlaut of Crues.

Re:It's Crüe, not Crue

[steeljaw (65872)]

>> Anyone who really loved them would never have forgotten the umlaut.

Apparently anyone who really loved them also would not care to buy their new music... :)

Re:

[elrous0 (869638)]

They can have the umlaut when they can show me a single band member from a country that uses umlauts.

Re:It's Crüe, not Crue

[Opportunist (166417)]

It's the infamous Heavy Metal Umlaut [wikipedia.org]. As you can see, they ain't the only ones to use that kind of style.

Also makes it really funny when you talk about such a band in a German speaking country. You get corrected almost immediately... to the wrong pronunciation. Or the right one, depends on how you look at it. At any rate, it makes those bandnames sound very silly when pronounced "correctly".

Re:

[ResidntGeek (772730)]

Actually, Motley Crue is an interesting case study in the effects of drugs on music. Their two best albums, Girls, Girls, Girls and Dr. Feelgood, were made at the height of their drug abuse and after they went clean, respectively. Both albums are nearly-equally respected, with Dr. Feelgood getting perhaps slightly better reviews.

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[jgarra23 (1109651)]

I mean, 47,000 downloads is great and all, but there was a time when a new Crue album would sell in the MILLIONS.

This is why on their new tour they play 90% songs from their heyday. They new stuff is ahem... suckly...

No good?

[by Anonymous Coward]

So people downloaded the Rock Band version (since it came out first), realized it sucked and didn't bother to get the amazon or itunes version?

I just love..

[pthor1231 (885423)]

Completely pointless comparisons. So what if it was only downloaded 10k times on itunes + amazon. There is still the meatspace market to consider, and the single hasn't released there yet. Some people still like material goods.

Re:I just love..

[arth1 (260657)]

Whether "some people still like material goods" is irrelevant when comparing two digital distribution methods.

What's interesting is how much more the songs sold on Rock Band compared to iTunes and Amazon. This will, of course, be due to many factors, not the least being that Motley Crue has many songs that are suitable for "air guitar". This doesn't imply that other songs will have the same sales pattern, but might be worth noting for artists who produce music that is suited for Rock Band and Guitar Hero.

Re:I just love..

[CastrTroy (595695)]

The big difference is that when you go on iTunes to buy a song, you have millions of songs to choose from. When you go on Rock Band, you don't get a million songs to choose from. Doing this kind of comparison would be like saying that SMB 3 on Virtual Console outsold used cartridges in game stores. It's a completely different product for a completely different market.

Re:I just love..

[PoliTech (998983)]

I'm not sure that this is a completely pointless comparison.

The funny thing about online music downloads (and the MAFIAA) is that I'm more than willing to pay for all of my media just as I pay for all of my games, (which I can also usually download just as easily for free). The reason I pay for games is because the publishers add value like game servers, ranking and records, updates, and free stuff like wallpaper and screensavers.

I want to buy music, I want to buy video content, I WANT to support my favorite artists. But right now there is no added value for me if I pay, and currently I actually lose value by paying because the only time I am restricted in my paid media's usage is when I hit a DRM wall.

No one in the music and movie industries seems to want my money badly enough to actually work for it. And after the last several years of arrogance, lawsuits and being referred to as a "Revenue Stream" rather than as a "Customer", work is what it will take from the music and video industry for me to actually pay for music and video content.

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[Jaysyn (203771)]

The new Motley Crue album isn't on a RIAA label.

http://www.riaaradar.com/search.asp?searchtype=ASIN&keyword=B0018AK9QQ [riaaradar.com]

Re:I just love..

[dwandy (907337)]

just how indy can a label be today?

"Eleven Seven Music was developed in association with ADA, a Warner Music Group company." says wikipedia [wikipedia.org]...Warner, of course being one of the Big-Four.
Worse, whenever I check and find that a label (seems) to have no riaa affiliation, and I actually wander down to my local (independent) CD store, I discover that it was still distributed by one of the Big Four.

I hate like hell to give them even a nickle, so that put some severe limits on what you can buy.

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[WilyCoder (736280)]

Its comments like these that make me enjoy slashdot. I frequently find myself saying 'yeah i agree with what you said even if I didn't think it myself'. I wish the RIAA/MPAA et al would read slashdot. If only we could get some good ideas into the right minds of those organisations...

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[dirk (87083)]

What exactly are the record companies supposed to do for you to add "value" (and isn't the music the value in itself)? The can put a bonus DVD in there, which immediately gets ripped and is available for free. They can have some extra songs you can download with a code from the CD, which are immediately put up for free. They can let you stream some extra stuff from their site, which will either be ripped and offered for free or people will complain because they can only stream it from the website. They

Re:I just love..

[Stanistani (808333)]

So what exactly could they possibly offer that wouldn't just be made available for free?

• A t-shirt?
• Big Hair wigs?
• Their undying affection?
• Oh, yeah. A Live Concert.

Or, just a solid boxset with good art. Maybe in brushed aluminum. Something nice.

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[PoliTech (998983)]

So what exactly could they possibly offer that wouldn't just be made available for free?

That's where the "Work" part comes in. It's their job to figure out a way for their obsolete business to become relevant and start making money again.

By alienating their customer base with lawsuits and draconian DRM they have made their "work" that much more difficult.

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[Chirs (87576)]

The reason I pay for games is because the publishers add value like game servers, ranking and records, updates, and free stuff like wallpaper and screensavers.

What about little things like ethics, morals, and personal integrity? What about paying for it because they created the game and are trying to make a living selling it? I used to download software, but have since stopped because it bothered my conscience. Heck, I even bought a legal copy of WinXP.

It's all well and good to hate the music industry megacorps, but that doesn't give you the right to blithely violate their copyright.

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[PoliTech (998983)]

What about little things like ethics, morals, and personal integrity? What about paying for it because they created the game and are trying to make a living selling it? I used to download software, but have since stopped because it bothered my conscience. Heck, I even bought a legal copy of WinXP.

It's all well and good to hate the music industry megacorps, but that doesn't give you the right to blithely violate their copyright.

Are you asking about MY ethics, morals, and personal integrity or the *IAA's? I already said that I DO in fact pay for games, and my OS is open source, I own several copies of various flavors of Widows given to me over the years at tech events, so they're legal too. What exactly is your point?

Less Supply

[D Ninja (825055)]

Come to find out their song 'Saints of Los Angeles' was downloaded over 47,000 times on the Xbox version alone, beating out digital services iTunes and Amazon who only were only tapped 10,000 times for the single.

Maybe it's just me, but this doesn't seem all that surprising. I mean, iTunes has millions(?) of songs. People aren't going to download Motley Crew unless they like them/know about them/whatever. Rock Band has maybe a hundred (don't know, I haven't been on the store), and people want more songs to keep the game fresh, so they are going to buy it.

It seems pretty straightforward. Unfortunately, it seems like people (the author of the article, for example) are going to remark on how video game songs are the wave of the future...etc, etc.

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[jonaskoelker (922170)]

OC Remix [ormgas.com] called. They want the nineties (and late eighties) back, and/or are stuck in them ;)

I agree with your point: video games is not the future of music distribution. I'm convinced it's not the future source of popular songs, either. However, it will remain a source of high-quality music; take for instance warcraft 3, or the ripoff-ees of Press Play on Tape. Or, going open source, listen to some music from Wesnoth, Nexuiz, Vegastrike or Sauerbraten.

Wannabes

[ospirata (565063)]

This means that no one wants to listen to a poser, but everybody would like to be one.

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[Trespass (225077)]

Hey, you know that popular thing you like? It sucks.

Especially if it's an elaboration of 'Simon' with a daffy soundtrack.

In other words...

[Len (89493)]

It's more fun to rock out with your friends than to listen to a Motley Crue song. Nothing surprising about that, is there?

It's not just a song

[skis (920891)]

You can't play the song on the Rock Band game by buying it on iTunes... They aren't just buying a song to listen to, it is a different product.

This is awesome news.

[cowscows (103644)]

This is good, it means another potential revenue source for musicians, since the era of selling truckloads of plastic discs with songs encoded on them for 15 bucks is coming to an end. The ability to "rock out" along side of a song is the sort of added value that musicians and even the record companies should be offering people to keep us buying their product.

But selling tracks online isn't the only way they could do this. Why not sell your CD in stores, and include with the disc a code that lets you download all the songs into Rock Band/GH? That would go a lot further towards convincing me to shell out 20 bucks for it.

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[cowscows (103644)]

Because there's lots of people who won't spend $20 for the music, when all they really want is maybe one or two songs that they could just download.

I'm a perfect example of that (Woohoo, anecdotal evidence!). The Cars just had an entire album released for RockBand. I'd say I like The Cars, there's a few songs on that album that are immediately recognizable to me. The rest of them, not so much. But bought the whole album on RockBand because I really enjoy Rock Band and I like having more songs for it. I paid

What does it all mean?

[foxtrot (14140)]

Apparently more people want to be MÃtley Crüe than want to listen to them.

Re:

[foxtrot (14140)]

What else does this mean? I need to pay more attention to the preview. Damn, I suck.

Re:Why not?

[arth1 (260657)]

I don't knock your music taste, and I would prefer it if you didn't knock mine.
Many people are fans of 80s music of various genres, and that should be fully acceptable.

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[mobby_6kl (668092)]

Wait, are you implying there is something wrong with gay music?!??

Re:Why not?

[aftk2 (556992)]

MrHanky is a fairly old-fashioned troll. While not being something you'd read on its own, it's very suitable for a Slashdot post. Consider "Motley Crue Single Does Better on Rock Band," filled with extremely gay comments. Very few people with any self respect will read that kind of crap, but within the context of the thread, it fits perfectly. "Why not?", an RSS reader, and mod points...perfect. Actually reading it? Not so.

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[TheRealMindChild (743925)]

I AM a gay 80s track, you INSENSITIVE CLOD!

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[RingDev (879105)]

Your post just reminded me of my all time favorite t-shirt slogan from the Onion:

"Your favorite band sucks."

-Rick

Re:That's because..

[Kredal (566494)]

Wait wait wait... this coming from someone named after the guy who did "I'm Too Sexy?" My irony sensors are overloading.