Hello Rocksmith fans!
Rocksmith devs release a prioritization of charts already in the library for the month (on discord) to try to give community charters a heads up of songs not to focus, and with that information, we can also predict what the next patch is going to look like some.
This is never 1:1 for the patch – in addition to this being only songs already available in the library so it doesn’t account for any newly licensed or public additions, sometimes releases don’t quite make the cut for the next patch, sometimes songs that didn’t make the cut for last patch are released silently, and sometimes there’s just charts for already public songs that come out of nowhere.
Still, these tend to be far more accurate than not – probably 90+% matching the stuff we have in the library for any patch, so we can make a forecast about how the patch is going to look, and that’s what I’m going to do!
Looking to be a strong month for metal, with Alice Cooper’s cover of Spirit’s I Got a Line on You (already available in the game on lead and bass) and a live version of No More Mr. Nice Guy both getting lead and bass. This joins a handful recognizable songs already in this library: House of Fire, Poison, Spark in the Dark, and Why Trust You. Additionally, death metal sees Cradle of Filth’s The Fire Still Burns getting lead and bass while Empty Words by Death and Intoxicated by Obituary are getting bass in addition to their already available leads. Cradle of Filth already has two songs with authentic lead and bass charts, Desire in Violent Overture Remixed and Remastered and The Graveyard by Midnight; while Death has a live version of Crystal Mountain and Obituary has Bloodsoaked. Finally, while it’s maybe not a band anyone is shouting for, I do wanna note Cara de Pizza by Cuca is getting bass – the selection of stuff previously available I’ve played has been fun on both paths, reminding me a little of Primus.
Country gets a handful of bass parts for recognizable artists: Who Said Whiskey Was Meant to Drink a Woman Away by Jake Owen, Take Me Away by Morgan Wade, and throwing back a bit further, A Song for You Live by Willie Nelson. The Jake Owen song already has an enjoyable lead and joins LAX previously having lead and bass, while Take Me Away also had lead already and Morgan Wade additionally had a quite fun lead and bass on Wilder Days. Almost the entirety of that album is in Rocksmith+’s library, so we’ll probably see more as time goes on.
In blues, I Got Some Help (I Don’t Really Need) (a/k/a Outside Help) Live by B.B. King is getting bass, while soul is getting lead for Lonely Town, Lonely Street by Bill Withers just after the birthday playlist. The B.B. King song already has a very fun lead that seems to have a bit wonky of chord detection unfortunately last I checked, and live versions of Guess Who? and The Thrill is Gone have both lead and bass, and we had six songs with lead and bass featuring Eric Clapton and B.B. King release last patch. Bill Withers meanwhile has a sizable collection of songs in Rocksmith+ with lead and bass already, including well-known hits like Ain’t No Sunshine, Grandma’s Hands, Lean On Me, and Use Me. Check the library for what’s available in your region, but there’s certainly ways to change what region that is.
We’ve got some virtuoso work getting paths, with Paul Gilbert’s Gilberto Concerto’s getting an authentic lead, a really incredible, exciting addition, while Get It is going to get it, it being bass. The latter already has lead, and Down to Mexico previously has bass and lead added. Mr. Guitar by Chet Atkins, c.g.p., Tommy Emmanuel is getting a bass part, which already has a phenomenal lead part to destroy you. While this is the only track with have featuring all three, Tommy Emmanuel already has very fun lead and bass for Fiesta (feat. Slava Grigoryan) and Chet Atkins has lead for Road to Gundaghi/Waltzing Matilda and Poor Boy Blues (feat. Mark Knopfler) has both bass and lead.
Very heavy synth-pop and new wave month. Bury It by CHVRCHES gets lead, with the band already having a handful of songs with lead and bass: Better If You Don’t, Clearest Blue, Death Stranding, and Follow You, as well as being popular among community charters. Cocteau Twins are getting their first authentic charts, Evangeline getting both lead and bass while Summerhead is getting bass only at the moment (as far as it’s been signaled for this patch). The group’s offerings are only available in the US because licensing is weird, but well, I’m sure you can find a way to ‘visit.’ We Have a Technical Here Live by Gary Numan is getting both bass and lead, following Observer live having both lead and bass as well. Joy Division gets lead and bass for Disorder, following Atmosphere’s community charts being verified and Love Will Tear Us Apart bass and lead. New Order is getting lead and bass for Blue Monday Live, as well as a lead for Elegia in addition to its already existing verified lead and bass. Fascination Street Live by the Cure is getting lead and bass, joining live versions of Friday I’m in Love, Lullaby, One Hundred Years, and The Hungry Ghost. Killing Joke is getting lead and bass for Love Like Blood, joining Eighties released prior. We have a decent handful of Killing Joke tracks in the library, but unfortunately none yet from the album Dave Grohl played drums on. Would love to get that if drums roll out. :rimshot:
Anybody There by the Script is getting bass, lagging behind the rest of the band’s releases in June that had both lead and bass. Last song in the library from the band missing lead, which I wouldn’t be surprised if it pops up in the next month or two (if it doesn’t surprise us this patch!).
And Right Here Right Now by Fatboy Slim is getting lead and bass. You probably know this one if you grew up in the 90s, it’s the one that says ‘right here right now.’ No, not by Jesus Jones. No, not GO!!! by FLOW from Naruto.
Although speaking of, FLOW does have some presence in the Rocksmith+ library, though not that song (though there are some other Naruto themes!). Freedom already has lead and this patch is getting bass, while Sign has both already.
The Clash continue to get a trickle of songs in, as the majority of their discography is available in the Rocksmith+ library. This patch the focus is Know Your Rights bass and Spanish Bombs lead, the former having lead already. This joins… Oh gosh, like thirty authentic lead parts and twenty-five authentic bass parts, as well as a few verified community bass charts like Rock the Casbah and Train in Vain (Stand by Me). A LOT of The Clash’s greatest hits are already available to play lead and bass to in Rocksmith+ (and all of their album), the only major exception being I Fought the Law, a rarity of a cover missing from a recognizable artist’s library.
Toots and the Maytals’s hit 54-46 Was My Number is getting authentic lead and bass, following Pressure Drop previously. Folks not into older reggae might recognize it more from the partial cover by Sublime Ball and Chain/54-46 Was My Number. Sly and Robbie, a famous producing duo behind songs such as Hey Baby and Underneath It All by No Doubt, also perform as musicians as well, getting with Soul Limbo getting bass and lead this patch.
In rap, Nas is getting lead and bass for Life is What You Make of It as well as lead for What Goes Around (feat. Keon Bryce). Well-known rap producer DJ Quik has done solo releases of laid-back instrumentals mixed throughout his career, with Quik’z Groove II and Tha Bombudd getting bass in this patch. Both already have lead as well as three others having lead and two others having bass.
And finally, for all you Eurovision fans, Lena Philipsson, the Swedish singer from 2004, has rhythm coming to her song På gatan där jag bor. I’m genuinely sure that’s exciting for somebody, that’s how this library goes. Also, I mean, a handful of other artists write about because of obscurity or simply space.
Anything exciting in there for you? Catch anything you didn’t know was in the library before that’s exciting to know? If not, there’s always a chance something will pop up in next patch or a surprise content drop instead, and there’s always the next after that.
All that said this is a forecast based on songs already in the library, and reality is a fickle thing. There’s almost always a song in these that doesn’t make it in time for the content drop and is bumped back one, and there’s almost always some surprise or another that wasn’t listed on here in the library that pops up.
Thanks for the article, “Our Time is Now” looks fun to play. I still don’t really understand who learns lead guitar to play rap songs, really bizarre to me that some of those songs had lead but no bass yet. I appreciate the work you both put into these articles.
I recently did a 7-day trial for RS+ after not playing it since beta. IMO RS+ feels like it’s menus still need a LOT of work. In the off-chance any RS+ devs still lurk around the comments here. (they certainly don’t lurk around the dumpster fire on Facebook or Twitter for RS+ if they value their sanity) Here’s some things I hope get fixed for people that play the new game.
Major RS+ Gripes:
>In the search section if you click a genre, then filter by a specific tuning, (to avoid re-tuning all the time). You scroll down the list and play a song, then if you go back to the list after playing to find a new song…. instead of saving where you were in the song list to continue down the list and find new songs, you’re put back at the top of the list and have to scroll down and try to find where you just were in the list.
>The “My saved songs” list of your favorited songs for some reason is listed in the order you added the songs instead of being alphabetical or sortable at all. At best you could remove and re-add songs back to the list to bump them to the top.
>Genre organization is terrible, maybe they need more genres to filter things into or something. Things like “Islands” cover by Shakira show up in the “Rock” Genre search. It’s certainly not the only song that felt very misplaced being lumped into “Rock”. Poor organization of songs wastes everyone’s time trying to find a song when it’s not where it’s supposed to be, or surrounded by other songs that aren’t where they’re supposed to be.
>It feels like a lot of time is wasted at the beginning and end of songs. I’m not a fan of flashy un-skippable animations or other stupid stuff like watching a pointless XP bar fill. Combined with slow song starts, that junk wastes like 25-30 seconds every song. Admittedly it’s an area RS2014 could have done better as well. But it’s bad regardless, and on Xbox 360 it felt somewhat justified as loading time, there’s no excuse in 2023 on SSD’s.
Minor RS+ Gripes:
> Some menus like the tuner don’t have navigation hotkeys (in RS2014 you can press space bar and quickly run the tuner again if you’re changing to a drastically different tuning).
>Ditching the Guitarcade is a mistake. The simpler games were great, especially the beginner level ones when starting with 0 experience on guitar. There’s honestly no excuse for their absence. It would hardly take days, maybe a week or two of dev time to remake those simple Atari style games, especially for the first few beginner level ones.