Rocksmith+ Year 2 Retrospective (or Retro Round-Up)

Hey Rocksmith fans!

September 6th marked the second year anniversary of Rocksmith+, and if you haven’t checked in much since the first year – or even earlier, you might have missed out on some major news! Plenty of features and conveniences added, and most every major genre saw both returns from 2014 and hits that weren’t in 2014 – some with the same artists as RS+ allowed a larger breadth of their catalog to be represented!

Ideally you checked out the September build update post, but I’ll still touch on the features briefly in the context of other changes. This is long and if you read it all then like you can have treasure, but I’ve intentionally broken it down by section and used bold to try to draw your eyes to key points buried in here otherwise.

FEATURED FEATURES

Let’s start out with features. If you haven’t been checking in, you mighta missed a big one: Shortly after the first anniversary and the Warner deal announcement, releases switched from monthly grab-bags to more familiar weekly drops most often focused on specific artists or genres, much like 2014. In the past few months, there’s been a few weeks where there’s multiple drops throughout the week, even.

Before we knew RS+ was a thing, we knew Ubisoft had job postings for piano charting, and in Year 2 we both saw the beta and full release of the new instrument path, allowing for MIDI input in beta to a much wider amount of inputs in full release as well as sheet music view. Tons of iconic songs had piano arrangements at launch (ex. Piano Man, Foreplay/Long Time, All Out of Love…), and much like drops above, we’re often seeing piano added to songs in the library multiple times a week, including recently highly demanded songs like Smokin’ by Boston.

Speaking of sheet music view above, we got full tab view for guitar and bass as an option. I’m someone who thinks that the Rocksmith display – especially with the updates that have made it more in-line with the 2014 views like the recent camera update – has more benefit, but great to have the option, especially for people just trying the product.

Otherwise, perhaps the nicest features was one we never had any heads up on until it was released – Pitch Shifter let you stay in E Standard or Drop D for the overwhelming majority of songs (custom tunings still gonna get ya though). While the library was largely approachable in this regard through an octave pedal, having it done automatically has made it quick and painless, working especially well with the next feature:

My own experience with 2014 was mostly going into Nonstop Play with the amount of time I had, so that feature missing was definitely a bummer for me. Up Next is the spiritual successor – it lets you work through some queues with tons of adjustable options between songs – or just let it fly. Discover brings new songs to you, For You brings reccs, Saved Songs works from, well, you can guess. Options to turn off chord charts, limit to a certain tuning or genre. It’s not perfect, but it’s been getting marked improvement as well, very welcome.

While RS+’s immense library is a strength of the platform, it is also an inconvenience – the songs you don’t want to see can often get in the way of the songs you DO want to see and make the whole experience feel worse than it needs to. While Up Next and some of the queue changes with the release shifts have helped, the overhaul to filters and making many more options filterable including saved songs assist even further, as well as permanent artist spotlights help keep giving some sturdier landmarks in the expanse of songs available.

Speaking of returning features, the tone stick from 2014 has come back in the form of the Pedal Board. This brings a lot of power back to RS+ and makes up for some inflexibility, the only real notable hole in lead tones being lack of octave effects, which IS a bit unfortunate still with all the Jack White we have (we’ll get to that).

Last but not least, we saw a few fan-demanded genres get attention in kind. While it’s still leaning very pop punky (more on this later), punk did get broken off into its own genre. As did Children’s Music, which is nice for parents of young children or just weirdos that wanna play a lot of Wiggles easily like Elliott.

MOAR METAL

A fair criticism of Year 1 library is it didn’t have much in iconic or modern metal. That’s not such a fair criticism of Year 2.

The Warner deal started with 11 Sepultura songs, including Resist/Refuse. It also saw Allison Hell by Annihilator return, plus Crystal Ann, a beautiful and challenging acoustic piece. Also, Sacrificial Suicide and Once Upon the Cross by Deicide. ALSO, Souls of Black and Electric Crown by Testament. It was the first big drop of recognizable metal, but from the last.

Let’s hit the elephant in the room: RS+ has Metallica now, and a lot more than I think any of us ever expected. What started as ‘just’ Master of Puppets available in Europe and other regions thanks to the Stranger Things soundtrack, has surprisingly expanded in unexpected ways: About 27 songs from Metallica available worldwide, including the entirety of the album Ride the Lightning and tons of other iconic songs like Battery, Blackened, Enter Sandman, Fuel, One, and Welcome Home (Sanitarium). And that’s not all, there’s more to come this month too, the entirety of the album Death Magnetic.

RS+ joined in halfway with Sabaton‘s celebration this year, and has been consistently reaching one song a month by the band, going until the end of the year, with three of the six songs out: Carolus Rex, Night Witches, and The Lost Battalion, with the Red Baron arriving later this month. It’s clearly not enough for some diehard fans, but still more than we saw in DLC for 2014.

Megadeth has only been returns so far with Hangar 18, Symphony of Destruction, and Tornado of Souls (all welcome but so is more); but Marty Friedman‘s solo work has gotten good representation with the June PlayStation/Japan launch. Additionally, Marty Friedman has been involved with promotion, and provided lessons in-game for how to play his songs.

Through the Fire and the Flames by DragonForce also returns, alongside a fairly hefty drop, including the Power of the Triforce which is generally considered even more demanding for folks looking for challenges. Like Marty Friedman, Herman Li breaks down how to play some of these songs in-game as well.

Veering more towards glam metal offerings, Ratt saw Round and Round and Lay It Down return, as well as adding Dirty Jobs and Shame Shame Shame. Twisted Sister returns with I Wanna Rock and We’re Not Gonna Take It, as well as eight other songs, The Fire Still Burns being especially notable as a harder song than expected from the band’s hits otherwise. Finally, while we haven’t seen any masters just yet, we have seen some pretty accurate covers of Van Halen, bringing Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love, Eruption, Jump, Panama, and Runnin’ with the Devil.

More on the nu-metal side (though these bands did move on from the song as the genre’s popularity waned), we saw all of the picks from 2014 Disturbed packs return, as well as three tracks from Divisive. KoRn, a band conspiciously absent from 2014 probably in no small part because of the low tuning required, face no such trouble in RS+, bringing 8 songs including A.D.I.D.A.S. and Freak on a Leash, and a lot of that in Drop A or A Standard.

For more modern metal, we saw a Jason Richardson three song drop that really challenges veteran players with six-string transcriptions provided by Jason Richardson himself. Less daunting prospects come from Halestorm, who had a handful of songs released before the June drop (Bad Girl’s World, covers of I Hate Myself for Loving You and Ride the Lightning), but with that we saw the majority of the album Back from the Dead in the library as well.

For how much Year 2 did deliver on metal, Year 1 might not have been as lacking as some folks recall, just off the top of my head: nearer nu-metal we had a collection Mudvayne and Coal Chamber, nearer glam metal we had Krokus and Autograph, and we also have some Cradle of Filth doing their own things. Hopefully some of the new filters can make folks who are feeling metal thrashing mad connect more easily.

ROCK ON

Blues rock had some representation in the massive collection of blues songs at launch, but we got some good representation of modern acts with the genre’s influence among the 15 Gary Clark Jr. songs (Bright Lights and real fun live blues covers), ten songs from Kaleo (with all three songs from their pack returning), and just tons of Jack White and White Stripes with Sixteen Saltines from 2014 disc and all the White Stripes DLC returning (though some of this was technically Year 1 release). Naturally, though each of these artists have some out-of-genre variety in this sound as well.

If that rock is a bit too recent for you, there were massive drops themed around Incubus with 31 songs, almost all their 2014 DLC (Love Hurts being the only absence), spanning from hits with crossover appeal to pop radio like Dig and Wish You Were Here to their more niche funkier early stuff like New Skin and Take Me to Your Leader. Deftones, and 17 songs from Linkin Park, including almost all the 2014 DLC (Guilty All the Same has yet to return) plus more hits from Hybrid Theory and Meteora than we saw before like Crawling, Faint, Lost, and Somewhere I Belong, as well as almost the entirety of the album The Rising Tied by Fort Minor. Going back further, we got Angry Chair by Alice in Chains.

If that’s too mainstream for your tastes, in more indie and alternative circles we had an eight song drop of Flaming Lips including She Don’t Use Jelly and adding a Japanese version of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and re-adding, alongside an eight song drop of the Shins re-adding Caring is Creepy and adding New Slang made famous by Garden State, all sitting comfortably alongside the two fully charted albums by the band in the library already.

And if guitar’s too mainstream of an instrument for you, we got still Royal Blood (the three from 2014 DLC + seven more) for you. Of course, even in indie offerings, Jack White abounds, there’s no escaping the dude in the RS+ library, with Steady, As She Goes by the Raconteurs being added as well.

CLASSICS

If 90s was still too recent to you, well good news, been a slew of classic rock hits this year as well.

We got more than ten Foreigner songs, most from 2014 back (Feels Like the First Time is a bit weird) plus several other hits that work well with the addition of piano, such as Blue Morning, Blue Day, Urgent, and Waiting for a Girl Like You. We also got the seven Doobie Brothers tracks, including China Grove (with piano!) and Long Train Runnin’, plus five other hits including Black Water and Listen to the Music.

Year 2 saw the introduction of Bad Company – nine songs including the eponymous Bad Company (from the album Bad Company) – and three hits from Alabama (joining the two in the library from launch), and For What It’s Worth by Buffalo Springfield.

Also introduced, on the strummier side, we got eight songs from America (joining the launch song we had) and eight more from Gordon Lightfoot. Play along with folksy favs of Horse With No Name, Ventura Highway, and Wreck of the Ella Fitzgerald. Of course fans know this, but it’s not all strummy, songs like Sandman and Sundown will challenge players beyond making acoustic strumming along sound good.

POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC

For modern acoustic strumming, we got Riptide by Vance Joy and eight other songs from him. About half of them are actually good fingerpicking practice, so if you don’t know them they’re worth checking out.

Common complaints about the launch library and Year 1 was the abundance of unfamiliar jazz and Latin songs. But even in US-centric pop music, there are familiar songs in the genre, and we got a few more in Year 2. Laufey brings a smoky jazz sound of the 1920s that will shock you a bit when you hear ‘Instagram’ in the lyrics, while La Bamba was a notable cross-cultural multiple times and we’ve got both the Ritchie Valens and Los Lobos versions, both are enjoyable but the outro of the latter will do quite a number to unsuspecting guitarists.

Pop is a genre that could always be a bit at odd with Rocksmith 2014’s DLC, as guitar especially can end up a bit missable due to piano or vocals pushing them out of the lead spot. But with the addition of piano, a lot of pop becomes not only welcome but desirable. Most of Elton John hits wouldn’t have translated well to previous entries in the franchise, but Your Song, as well as covers of Bennie and the Jets, Rocket Man, and I’m Still Standing, are absolutely iconic to play on keys. Similarly, Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain and Anticipation – as well as her other offerings – strengthen the library of piano.

Coldplay runs away with 21 songs (including all 2014 DLC returning), all with piano, great variety. But of course, Alicia Keys gets many new songs on top of her re-activated launch songs that range from good practice to hefty challenges. Seal also sees Kiss from a Rose return from de-activation, along with an acoustic version of the song and Crazy.

And we see some new to the library pop icons with Material Girl by Madonna and Padam Padam by Kylie Minogue in the library too! Material Girl is a surprisingly fun offering with its new wave sound, Padam Padam is… also there.

And on the rockier side of pop, we also got I’m A Believer by the Monkees, the Rocksmith debut of Goo Goo Dolls including Iris (with nightmare rhythm tuning preserved), and the Rocksmith debut of Death Cab for Cutie with I Will Follow You into the Dark.

NEW WAVE AFTER WAVE

I coulda collapsed this under another heading, sure, but I like the genre, it had high launch/Year 1 representation, and that continued into Year 2. And one reason I think it’s worth bringing up in their own category: New wave bands tend to offer a weird variety of playstyles on all instruments, including the addition of keys!

So the inclusion of Joy Division, New Order, The Cure (all 2014 DLC plus more), Type O Negative (Christian Woman plus eight more including Love You to Death, I Don’t Wanna Be Me, and My Girlfriend’s Girlfriend), and She Drives Me Crazy by Fine Young Cannibals are all welcome by me, beyond my usual biases towards the genre.

WHY IS PROG NOT ITS OWN IN-GAME GENRE YET

While we’re still eagerly awaiting the return of a handful of Muse we already had (Plug In Baby, Unnatural Selection, and Muscle Museum), we got most of 2014 DLC back and quite a bit more: a total of 25 songs, including almost all of the album Drones, half of the album Simulation Theory, and some singles from Will of the People, including the eponymous song.

Dream Theater, meanwhile, saw all the 2014 DLC return and more: The entirety of Images and Words album and select songs from other albums, including Panic Attack(!) and Octavarium(!!!).

PUNK (DEPENDING ON YOUR DEFINITION)

As mentioned above, punk did get broken off into its own genre this year, which is nice. It’s still mostly dominated by the Clash and the two below, which is less nice, but I’ll take it for now and see it grow with time.

While Green Day was not unrepresented by any means in 2014 DLC, we got the entirety of the album Dookie plus so much more for a total of 31 songs. Still missing Jesus of Suburbia, Fire Ready Aim, and Father of All… from 2014 DLC, but we got almost all the 2014 DLC otherwise and so much more, including newer singles like The American Dream is Killing Me as well as old hits we just never saw before like Hitchin’ a Ride.

Paramore we saw a bit but see a lot more now, including the entirety of the album Brand New Eyes and almost the entirety of All We Know Is Falling as well as many singles from other albums, including all 2014 DLC and new ones.

CHIDLREN’S MUSIC (i.e. ELLIOT’S SAVED SONGS LIST)

The first week of April saw the appropriately timed drop of Children’s music as a seeming joke, but while it might be easy to write off the whole drop as a one-and-done novelty there’s some surprising depth to it.

Sesame Street offerings cover a variety of folk and public domain songs, but also bring in some guests we probably wouldn’t be able to see with the current master rights: Gloria Estefan, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, the Fugees, and Shiny Happy People by R.E.M. These songs all sound like any other offering from these bands’ catalogs, which means they’re all pretty fun to play too.

Similar to R.E.M., we’ve got a Dora the Explorer cover of We Got the Beat, which sounds pretty close to the original and means you get to practice the scale exercises that song is written around.

Other offerings include some short jazzy tunes from Blue’s Clues or a couple more iconic SpongeBob SquarePants songs, which are to good to have for parents that grew up with them sharing them with their children, or y’know, just nostalgia from the same age group, no judgin’.

And as infamously reviled the franchise ended up by the nineties kids that grew up with it, I Love You by Barney plays surprisingly well on music box keys and bass.

NINHONGO NO UTA

June saw the official launch in Japan, and only PlayStation, and Steam. It was a big month with a big Japanese drop, and I’ll admit I’m not tuned in every artist we got, but did notice a few.

Easy Breezy by chelmico is a big one, this was the opening for Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! and pretty wide-spread meme in certain parts of the internet at the time. It’s only a bluesy slide guitar, sure, but still.

gesunokiwamiotome is another band I recognized, and was stoked to get six songs from – certainly more than we’d get in the previous model. Very prog, very jazz fusion, spread this stuff on bread and I’ll eat it right up.

I already mentioned Marty Friedman under metal, but we got another US-born guitarist that’s found success in Japan with Dr. Capital. He was also featured in videos and wrote an article about the piano too. The songs he brings are very bright and melodic, great fun to try and fail play along with. Still tough!

…AND MORE!

I just made note to mention big universally bands that have new songs. We also tons of returns of 2014 DLC that haven’t been expanded on yet:

Like Laid to Rest by Lamb of God, Every Rose Has Its Thorn by Poison, Counting Stars by OneRepublic, Counting Cars by Snow Patrol, Hey Ya! by OutKast, More Than Words by Extreme (joining Play With Me from Year 1), Kryptonite + Here Without You by 3 Doors Down, Zombie by Cranberries, Santeria by Sublime (and a cover of Badfish), Champagne Supernova + Don’t Look Back in Anger + Wonderwall by Oasis, American Pie by Don McLean, Free Bird (with slide solo charted in E Standard) + Simple Man + Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd, Redemption Song + Three Little Bird by Bob Marley and the Wailers, Wanted Dead or Alive + You Give Love a Bad Name + Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi, (Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly, Dust in the Wind by Kansas, Every Breath You Take by the Police, Raining Blood by Slayer, Mr. Brighstide by the Killers, Are You Gonna Be My Girl by Jet, Eight Ball, Coroner’s Pocket by Hail the Sun (joining the five songs from the new album in a Year 1 drop), and covers of Creep + Karma Police by Radiohead.

As well as artists that aren’t of the same renown, level of focus, or I was just devolving into nonsense too quickly to detail enough: Iron and Wine (with Fiona Apple), Jaymes Young, Jonny Polonsky, Wolves of Glendale and Tom McGovern, Elmore James, dv/sn, Aretha Franklin, Elle King (joining her cover of American Girl from launch), Morgan Wade (joinig most of the album Reckless from launch), modern country with Zach Bryan, Bailey Zimmerman, Sam Barber, Ryan Bingham, and Warren Zeiders (some of these are big deals, but probably not to the general audience here), David Lee Roth, INXS, Frankie Valli, Tom Walker, Dead and Company, Bonnie Raitt, the Pogues, The Highwomen, [spunge], Chainsmokers (honestly probably shoulda included this under pop maybe I’ll bump it up but I didn’t if you’re reading this), Misfits, Fear Factory (a full album, though not fully charted), ††† , aimyon, Ali Gatie, ASTN, CAPSULE, chanmina, Dirty Honey, Faces, Feed Me, GROUPLOVE, Illiterate Light, IV of Spades, Josh Bassett, KOBUKURO, Leanne and Naara, Lola Amour, the Blues Brothers, Wilson Pickett, jordan.wav . . .

(inhale) Various Ubisoft title themes (including Another Winter by Anamanaguchi for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), various Notetrackers offerings (including tons of genres of piano classics to practice!)

(inhale) and in appreciation of the community, Kate and Audrey (including No Reason), the Good and the Damned featuring Elison of the Riff Repeater YouTube channel, and Kyberpunks featuring Dan Amrich.

There’s probably even more I missed, it’s been a big one! If there’s still not enough that catches your eye in there, well, you can always just tune in a couple more months, the library’s always expanding!

“What about your treasure you said we could have?” The true treasure was friendship.