In case you hadn’t already noticed, we’re living in a post-superstar world — a place where stylistically far-flung artists like Devendra Benhart, Passion Pit, and the Gossip can be hugely popular in their own right, but unheard (and virtually unknown) outside their own small pockets of fandom, and where even a legitimate household name like Reba McEntire can score a Number One record simply by selling 95,000 units in a week. In fact, the top-selling album of 2009 — Michael Jackson’s Number Ones — is a compilation originally released in 2003, which should tell you pretty much everything you need to know about the current state of music.
Or how about this: the year’s most anticipated new release by a major artist isn’t a CD at all, but a video game — and one from one of the last true superstar acts, a band that’s been broken up for almost 40 years.
We’re talking, of course, about the imminent arrival of “The Beatles: Rock Band,” the new edition of the wildly popular game that, in the words of Bullz-Eye’s David Medsker, “allows the players to pretend that they’re in the greatest band of all time.” The game, like the freshly remastered versions of the Beatles’ catalog that fans are drooling over, won’t arrive in stores until September 9, but in the meantime, you can read Bullz-Eye’s breakdown of what to expect in a piece titled — of course — “While Our Plastic Video Game Guitars Gently Weep.” To read about the 10 tracks we can’t wait to play, the songs we’re hoping Harmonix chooses for future expansion packs, and assorted random thoughts on what’s sure to be the gaming event of the year, click the above image or follow this link!
