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Fifteen New Songs For The Beatles: Rock Band

Also: making sweet music with the new vocal harmony training mode.


Commence screaming like little girls. 
Commence screaming like little girls. 
Harmonix is ready to reveal another 15 songs that will be included in The Beatles: Rock Band when it launches on 9/9/09. So let's cut right to the chase on that, shall we? 

  • “Twist And Shout” 
  • “Do You Want To Know A Secret” 
  • “Can’t Buy Me Love” 
  • “I Wanna Be Your Man” 
  • “Eight Days A Week” 
  • “Paperback Writer” 
  • “And Your Bird Can Sing” 
  • “Sgt. Pepper’s LHCB” 
  • “With a Little Help from My Friends” 
  • “Within You Without You / Tomorrow Never Knows* 
  • “Yellow Submarine” 
  • “Revolution” 
  • “Birthday” 
  • “Dig A Pony” 
  • “I’ve Got A Feeling”  
 
Hey, that's a song list. Righto. Gear
 
While we're on the subject: during a demo session recently, I got to see how The Beatles: Rock Band's vocal harmony trainer is going to work. You may be aware of the Fab Four's proclivity for three-part harmonies, and you can have three people with three separate microphones each singing one of the three parts in songs with harmony support. 

For the less musically inclined among you, take a look at some of those harmonies (and several of the newly announced songs) in this fresh trailer. 



 
There's nothing too mindblowing about the way Beatles: Rock Band teaches you to sing harmonies; if you've played the training mode for instruments like drums in past Rock Bands, you'll be familiar with the multi-stage tutorial mode for harmonies here. Over the course of a few short lessons, you're introduced to the concept of multi-part harmonies and shown how they're represented on the Rock Band screen (the core melody is always in blue, while the other two parts use distinctive colors to set them apart).

Harder than you think. 
Harder than you think. 
There's no way to intuit the pitch of a harmony part simply by looking at the lyrics in the Rock Band display, so the trainer encourages you to simply shift the pitch of your voice up and down and watch the pointer to determine whether you're hitting the right notes or not. That's not too hard when you're singing the melody in a song you've been hearing for years, but dissecting a harmony on the fly and nailing your backup part is a lot tougher. Harmonix admits that there's going to be a lot of initial guesswork, repetition, and memorization in getting all the harmonies down in the game's songs, and this trainer seems geared more toward showing you the concept of harmonies and then turning you loose to figure out the individual parts on your own, rather than making you a master at them from the start.

On the upside, the narration is done by one of the studio engineers at none other than Abbey Road itself, and man, that guy sounds mad British.

Even if singing harmonies well is going to be pretty difficult initially, the game doesn't demand perfection. You can choose whether you want the vocal harmonies split out before playing any song that supports them, so you can opt to just have a single lyrical track if you want. And even if you do have harmonies turned on, the three vocalists can sing any combination of the parts they want. You can even have all three players singing the melody if you can't nail the harmonies, though it's worth noting that hitting the harmonies will drastically increase your scores.

There's actually a lot more to The Beatles: Rock Band than just "it's Rock Band, with some Beatles songs." Primarily, there's some really neat, obscure stuff packed in here for serious, longtime fans of the band, but Harmonix has asked us to sit on info about those features until closer to the game's release date. For now, some screenshots!  
 

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Brad

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Edited By Brad

Commence screaming like little girls. 
Commence screaming like little girls. 
Harmonix is ready to reveal another 15 songs that will be included in The Beatles: Rock Band when it launches on 9/9/09. So let's cut right to the chase on that, shall we? 

  • “Twist And Shout” 
  • “Do You Want To Know A Secret” 
  • “Can’t Buy Me Love” 
  • “I Wanna Be Your Man” 
  • “Eight Days A Week” 
  • “Paperback Writer” 
  • “And Your Bird Can Sing” 
  • “Sgt. Pepper’s LHCB” 
  • “With a Little Help from My Friends” 
  • “Within You Without You / Tomorrow Never Knows* 
  • “Yellow Submarine” 
  • “Revolution” 
  • “Birthday” 
  • “Dig A Pony” 
  • “I’ve Got A Feeling”  
 
Hey, that's a song list. Righto. Gear
 
While we're on the subject: during a demo session recently, I got to see how The Beatles: Rock Band's vocal harmony trainer is going to work. You may be aware of the Fab Four's proclivity for three-part harmonies, and you can have three people with three separate microphones each singing one of the three parts in songs with harmony support. 

For the less musically inclined among you, take a look at some of those harmonies (and several of the newly announced songs) in this fresh trailer. 



 
There's nothing too mindblowing about the way Beatles: Rock Band teaches you to sing harmonies; if you've played the training mode for instruments like drums in past Rock Bands, you'll be familiar with the multi-stage tutorial mode for harmonies here. Over the course of a few short lessons, you're introduced to the concept of multi-part harmonies and shown how they're represented on the Rock Band screen (the core melody is always in blue, while the other two parts use distinctive colors to set them apart).

Harder than you think. 
Harder than you think. 
There's no way to intuit the pitch of a harmony part simply by looking at the lyrics in the Rock Band display, so the trainer encourages you to simply shift the pitch of your voice up and down and watch the pointer to determine whether you're hitting the right notes or not. That's not too hard when you're singing the melody in a song you've been hearing for years, but dissecting a harmony on the fly and nailing your backup part is a lot tougher. Harmonix admits that there's going to be a lot of initial guesswork, repetition, and memorization in getting all the harmonies down in the game's songs, and this trainer seems geared more toward showing you the concept of harmonies and then turning you loose to figure out the individual parts on your own, rather than making you a master at them from the start.

On the upside, the narration is done by one of the studio engineers at none other than Abbey Road itself, and man, that guy sounds mad British.

Even if singing harmonies well is going to be pretty difficult initially, the game doesn't demand perfection. You can choose whether you want the vocal harmonies split out before playing any song that supports them, so you can opt to just have a single lyrical track if you want. And even if you do have harmonies turned on, the three vocalists can sing any combination of the parts they want. You can even have all three players singing the melody if you can't nail the harmonies, though it's worth noting that hitting the harmonies will drastically increase your scores.

There's actually a lot more to The Beatles: Rock Band than just "it's Rock Band, with some Beatles songs." Primarily, there's some really neat, obscure stuff packed in here for serious, longtime fans of the band, but Harmonix has asked us to sit on info about those features until closer to the game's release date. For now, some screenshots!  
 

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SleepyDoughnut

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Edited By SleepyDoughnut

Seeing  'Happiness is a warm gun' is in that video description, it made me think/hope that's another good song to add

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TheLawnWrangler

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Edited By TheLawnWrangler

i was never a huge fan of the beattles but some of the songs in that trailer make me really interested!

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artofwar420

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Edited By artofwar420

I find it awesome that a game like this is actually coming out.

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nitestocker

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Hey Jude or no sale.

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KnifeySpoony

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Edited By KnifeySpoony

edit:

I hope they include more early 60s stuff, like from A Hard Day's Night.

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Jixashauser

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Edited By Jixashauser

This is actually looking really really awesome, gonna have to get this when it comes out.

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Mouth

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Edited By Mouth

The Dreamscapes for some of these songs makes easier for me to think I'm high right now.

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artofwar420

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Edited By artofwar420

No it's not awesome, it's INSANELY awesome that this game is coming out. Very excited.

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Naughton

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Edited By Naughton
@NiteStocker: Hey Jude would be really boring when playing with 4 people.
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phlegms

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Edited By phlegms

Super stoked!

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Ainwaith

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Edited By Ainwaith

Looks GREAT!!!  This will be so cool to play!

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Th3_James

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Edited By Th3_James

i just want to sing elinor rigby :D

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RJM

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Edited By RJM

just deleted my comment because sleepydoughnut said the exact same thing.

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RyShe

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Edited By RyShe

Rvolution! This just went from a wait for it to be $40 to a buy day one.

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vilhelmnielsen

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Edited By vilhelmnielsen
@SleepyDoughnut: Agreed. That would probably be the best song they haven't included yet.

The tracklist is definately shaping up nicely, especially with the addition of Sgt. Pepper, Dig a Pony and Birthday.
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Malchom

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Edited By Malchom

A ***is is a warm gun??

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PureRok

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Edited By PureRok

Yes! I've Got a Feeling!

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skrutop

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Edited By skrutop

I'm stoked for the harmonies, but with reservations.  The biggest problem I've had with Rock Band is getting other people to sing.  So I'm the de facto singer whenever people come over.  Now I'll be the de facto harmonizer, because I doubt anybody else will want to take the time to figure it out.

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JJWeatherman

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Edited By JJWeatherman

As John Drake said, the vocals are con-structive, not de-structive. Can't wait for this.

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Some week off you've got, Brad.

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kainen

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Edited By kainen

dude you're on the road, wtf   haha

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Th3_James

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Edited By Th3_James

i'm soo moist right now!!!!! i can't stop screaming!!!!! I want to paper back writer all night long

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washablemarkers

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Edited By washablemarkers

Paperback Writer! Eight Days A Week! "Mad British" narration! This game is going to be great.

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Elazul

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Edited By Elazul
@Malchom said:
" A ***is is a warm gun?? "
Why would you censor the word "penis"? We're all adults here.
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chewii101

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Edited By chewii101

O. I Will Commence to Scream Like A Little Girl.

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Edited By raccoonusdoodus

It's awesome that The Beatles Rock Band is coming out, but, as big of a Beatles fan that I am, I'm still not sold on the 'one band only' music games. I'd rather get Rock Band 2 this fall...

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yyZiggurat

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Edited By yyZiggurat

Lennon was so awesome.

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Linkyshinks

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Edited By Linkyshinks

So excited for this!.  Rockband: Beatles and Dreamcast Anniversary on the same day, I guess I will have to play both.

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Edited By The_Philosopher
@KnifeySpoony:
I Totally agree.

I'm really pumped “With a Little Help from My Friends” is in the game. One of my favorite songs.
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Edited By John1912

Wow, they picked Songs I dont like.  Only decent ones are “Yellow Submarine”, “With a Little Help from My Friends” .  Christ drop all that other shit and just give me the full Abby Road song track.

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Edited By timeshero

The only thing I dislike is that the whole thing is going to look like one big acid trip.  Those were the times though, and I'll have to accept that because the game looks fucking fun.

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TwoOneFive

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Edited By TwoOneFive

they game looks just the way i hoped it would. 


i'm gonna enjoy playing their earlier stuff, but we all know its their later stuff that was truly amazing. 

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@John1912 said:
" Wow, they picked Songs I dont like.  Only decent ones are “Yellow Submarine”, “With a Little Help from My Friends” .  Christ drop all that other shit and just give me the full Abby Road song track. "

I do believe we've already said we're bringing the full Abbey Road album out as DLC shortly after the game launches.
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mattysen

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YES! Sgt Peppers!!! WIN

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@Elazul said:
" @Malchom said:
" A ***is is a warm gun?? "
Why would you censor the word "penis"? We're all adults here. "
Sir, we are civilized adults here. We need to stand tall and strong with a firm hand on our wood of maturity and stroke away genital jokes


8==================D (o)(o)  <===========8               8============D   O:         :O<-----------8
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MachoFantastico

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Edited By MachoFantastico

Harmonix really got it right with this, exactly what Beatle fans wanted from this type of game.

A MUST BUY!
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Media_Master

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looks good

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Edited By Kolonel_Kool

I'm not super impressed by these songs so far.  "Revolution" and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" will be awesome to play.  Where is "Helter Skelter" and "Drive My Car".  Hopefully, the last 20 songs they announce will be top-notch.

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Aaron_G

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I am way too excited for this!

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Edited By NickNorman

Wow, almost every Beatles song I could have hoped for is in the game now (namely Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, With a Little Help from My Friends and Within You Without You). Almost. I really hope Helter Skelter and A Day in the Life are in, too.

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Systech

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Edited By Systech

Where the hell is One After 909? Got to be in there somewhere.

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Everyones_A_Critic

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Damn, I was going to pass on this at first, but it seems like Harmonix is putting everything they've got into this game. I wish Harmonix was left to make a Metallica-specific game instead of Neversoft. GH: Metallica was a great game, but I feel like Harmonix's dedication and continued DLC support would've given my favorite band the game they deserve. I'm glad Harmonix got the Beatles, because I'm almost certainly sure Neversoft would fuck it up.

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TechnicallyProficient

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Great, Twist and Shout.

Let your Ferris Bueller impersonations begin!

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Sooperspy

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Edited By Sooperspy

Cant wait. This game will Rock.........Band?

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Edited By Th3_James
@Kolonel_Kool said:
" I'm not super impressed by these songs so far.  "Revolution" and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" will be awesome to play.  Where is "Helter Skelter" and "Drive My Car".  Hopefully, the last 20 songs they announce will be top-notch. "
wait i could have sworn somewhere i saw that Helter skelter was gonna be in the game. I also want strawberry fields forever, and i would like drive my car, and a whole bunch of other songs.
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AzureSupernova

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Edited By AzureSupernova

I want my Back in the USSR... no, I need it xD I'm gonna love the challenge though

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John1912

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Edited By John1912
@alex said:
"@John1912 said:
" Wow, they picked Songs I dont like.  Only decent ones are “Yellow Submarine”, “With a Little Help from My Friends” .  Christ drop all that other shit and just give me the full Abby Road song track. "
I do believe we've already said we're bringing the full Abbey Road album out as DLC shortly after the game launches."

Ahh, well thats good.  i dont play Rock Band or Guitar hero, so was just commenting on the list that I saw as I dont really follow news on the games too close.
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FuzzYLemoN

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Edited By FuzzYLemoN

This is the first time I've heard Sgt. Pepper. I suppose that's what their secondary audience is for this game, and it appears to have worked. I dig.

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skynidas

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Edited By skynidas

The setlist is looking good, Twist and Shout FTW!

The new trailer looks too awesome, cant wait for this game.