Rock Band Weekly: Enjoy the Black Sabbath

by Alexander Sliwinski { Dec 4th 2007 at 11:27AM }

Before he became everybody's favorite patriarch, Ozzy Osbourne and the band Black Sabbath had the classic heavy metal mystique of pure evil around them. Unless you detect a similar evil emanating from downloadable songs, you'll want to check out this week's Rock Band offerings on the Xbox Live Marketplace and PlayStation Network. We're trying a little something different this week and dropping in videos after the break, just in case you're unfamiliar with the songs:

Black Sabbath Pack - $5.50:

N.I.B. ($2 *Cover*)
Sweet Leaf ($2 *Cover*)
War Pigs ($2 *Cover*)

The perfect solution would be to have a short video montage of the DLC from the game, but there's currently no preview like that available (please take note, EA/MTV/Harmonix).

Tags: black-sabbath, ozzy, ozzy-osbourne, rock-band-weekly, rockband

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Veko @ Dec 4th 2007 11:32AM

Rock Band +3

GHIII...did it even come to class this month?

Patrick @ Dec 4th 2007 11:54AM

actually +2 sweet leaf really, really?

gonk @ Dec 4th 2007 3:25PM

whatever happened to the plans of an entire album per week?

Jerk Face @ Dec 4th 2007 11:32AM

All this talk of detecting evil is making me want to play Dnd.

T3H WICKERMAN (FDF) @ Dec 4th 2007 1:11PM

I knew it! Epic level drow Jerk Face confirmed!

Jerk Face @ Dec 4th 2007 1:59PM

I cast it at the DAAAARKNESS!!!

Mike M. @ Dec 4th 2007 11:33AM

Surprises me that these are covers. Ozzy is a pro at selling his ass by now... you'd think they'd have gotten the originals.

Actually, does Ozzy have the rights to the Sabbath tunes?

Intentless @ Dec 4th 2007 11:34AM

Ozzy is also a recovering Ozzy Osborne... Rumor is he used master copies of these for his privy...

XanthouS @ Dec 4th 2007 11:37AM

Ignorance ftl.

Of the few cover songs in Rock Band most can be attributed to either lost master recordings or the facts that the individual drum sections have been mixed into a single layer. This was commonplace before the early 80s and the reason that most pre80s songs in RB are covers.

gonk @ Dec 4th 2007 12:31PM

so couldn't they take the rest of the song, but just have someone record the drumming on their own in a harmonix studio?

XanthouS @ Dec 4th 2007 12:33PM

gonk,

Read the link I posted below. There is a nightmarish list of resprictions that come with using master recordings. You cannot simply have a new artist replace the work of the original artist and pass it off as a "master track".

Mystic @ Dec 4th 2007 12:48PM

Couldn't you use the master tracks for everything but the drums then? And lay down a new drum track?

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Dec 4th 2007 1:16PM

I think you can, but then you can't call the whole work "master tracks".

Ghen @ Dec 4th 2007 9:50PM

That would be fine by me.. Nobody can sing Ozzy but Ozzy as shown by whatever horror sang Paranoid on GH3.

rob @ Dec 5th 2007 9:41PM

ozzy does not have the right to sabbath ozzys wife sharon has the right to sabbath and ozzy sole too and its sharon that is a pro at sell ozzy ass. ozzy sold his sole to sharon along time ago and sharon osborn is the devil incarnate.

Yuccadude @ Dec 4th 2007 11:33AM

First two song names are unfamiliar, but I recognize the songs themselves. Will definitely have to pick this up when I get my new 360 sometime soon.

vidGuy @ Dec 4th 2007 11:38AM

NIB! Alright. Glad I beat GH3 already, Rock Band's going to be taking up a lot of time now.

Richard Mitchell @ Dec 4th 2007 11:40AM

War Pigs was definitely one of my favorite songs on GHII. Looking forward to grabbing it once I actually get Rock Band.

Martin @ Dec 4th 2007 11:40AM

What the hell happened to all the master tracks? I couldn't give a shit either way, as I'm not an audiophile, but wasn't that the big thing with Rock Band?

XanthouS @ Dec 4th 2007 11:47AM

Learn2read:

Of the few cover songs in Rock Band most can be attributed to either lost master recordings or the fact that the individual drum sections have been mixed into a single layer. This was commonplace before the early 80s and the reason that most pre80s songs in RB are covers.

CubeGuy @ Dec 4th 2007 12:02PM

I'm pretty sure they even had some of the original artists go back and re-record songs just to have the masters. Don't dock RB because they aren't putting their heart into it.

Dream to Dream @ Dec 4th 2007 12:13PM

@ XanthouS: Where'd you dig that up? Might be an interesting read.

XanthouS @ Dec 4th 2007 12:27PM

I've been following RB's development since it was first announced. It took some work but I tracked down a good discussion of covers.

http://community.rockband.com/vbforum/showthread.php?t=6208

Above is a good discussion on the topic. Be sure to read Bakkster and tbradshaw's posts. A Harmonix employee also states this in the topic on page 3:

"Any covers we do have, which are very few, are due to masters being unavailable or unusable for some reason."

Dr. @ Dec 4th 2007 11:54AM

Now if only the songs were available in Canada... :(

CubeGuy @ Dec 4th 2007 12:03PM

Is the chart on War Pigs the same as in GH2? That would be sweet. =3

Alex @ Dec 4th 2007 12:25PM

paying $$$ for cover songs... I don't think so

JJ Rooster @ Dec 4th 2007 1:00PM

Who gives a crap if the song is done well? That Aerosmith song in Rock Band sounded like Steven Tyler to me!

XanthouS @ Dec 4th 2007 12:28PM

I guess you never purchased GH1, GH2 or GH3 then.

Shame.

Wubbytoes @ Dec 4th 2007 12:48PM

I don't mind these being covers as long as the singer sounds decent.

baby sea tuna @ Dec 4th 2007 1:00PM

I don't mind cause the singer's gonna sound like shit anyway...the singer being me.

Anyway, War Pigs? Sold.

zachs @ Dec 4th 2007 12:54PM

I wish Rock Band would set up a request site for downloadable content.

R2P2 @ Dec 4th 2007 1:01PM

Needs more Iron Man.

T3H WICKERMAN (FDF) @ Dec 4th 2007 1:07PM

Yeah Rock Band keeps chugging right along. Taking a pass on GH3 for rockband is starting to look like the best shopping decision ive made all year! If only rockbands rocking power could get my money back for Two Worlds...

Jonah Falcon @ Dec 4th 2007 2:23PM

Until Guitar Hero IV and UMG's music catalogue behind it. UMG vs. MTV hee hee

rodrigo @ Dec 4th 2007 1:13PM

I loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooove Black Sabbath but come one add other songs other than these, Into the Void, Fairies Wear Boots, Children of the Grave, Supernaut, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Killing Yourself to Live would all be great

actually they need to release a Black Sabbath version of Rock Band with every Sabbath song (except that Heaven and Hell bullshit)

Burritoclock @ Dec 4th 2007 4:11PM

I'm sure they plan to... it's only been out for 3 weeks.

Razorback @ Dec 4th 2007 1:13PM

I wish Guitar Hero III would have weekly songs to download!!!!

toLkKi @ Dec 4th 2007 1:14PM

no wicked world or into the void = Fail

deaftly @ Dec 4th 2007 1:29PM

or snow blind for that matter

Jonah Falcon @ Dec 4th 2007 2:23PM

How do you know those songs are not coming?

ima747 @ Dec 4th 2007 2:01PM

just wanna say thanks to the Stiq for providing the vids (i.e. letting us listen) conveniently along with the post. Saves me time when deciding what to piddle my precious few points on without wasting them since i don't always remember a tune just from a name and I'm a lazy schmuck and can't be bothered to poke youtube on my own most of the time.

Plz make it a regular part of the posts?