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Rock Band Network Gets Sub Pop

Last week, MTV Harmonix unveiled its Rock Band Network, which allows artists to upload their music for playing on the popular music game.  Acts will have multiple options in porting their music over for the game.  They can choose to directly hire Harmonix-trained devs to come up with the note tracks, submit it to a community of freelancers, or actually take the work in-house.

The Network is in a closed beta for now, but should become an open beta in August, starting first on the Xbox Live platform.

In that vein, legendary Sub Pop Records (early Nirvana, The Postal Service, Sonic Youth et al) has decided to jump in with both feet.  According to A&R executive Tony Kiewel…

“This conceivably could be the opening of the floodgates,” Kiewel said. “We always had the feeling that the people at Harmonix, they’re all in bands, they’re music people and I think it actually broke their hearts that we couldn’t work it out to get our stuff into the queue faster. [RS]”

From the sounds of the article, Sub Pop plans on taking the ‘roll your own’ approach as opposed to submitting the music for adaptation.

The idea of the RBN, and making the tools available to anyone interested, is exactly the shot in the arm that music games need.  Not that they’re doing poorly, but let’s face it, anyone who’s playing Rock Band is playing it because they like gaming, and they like music.  Opening up the music marketplace is a win on all fronts.

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