List of Songs

The nice people at Guitar Hero have released a preliminary list of songs that will appear in the fifth installment of the series. Now, this player of old video games finds it difficult to get into the new generation games (they're way too complicated) but I have made obvious exceptions for two kinds of games: fighters (which are essentially 2-D anyways) and music games. So the initial announcement of bands to be included in GH V got me way too excited, the list released today? not so much.

The preliminary list of songs is as follows:

Band Of Horses - "Cigarettes, Wedding Bands" ?
Beastie Boys - "Gratitude"
Beck - "Gamma Ray"
Billy Squier - "Lonely Is The Night"
Blur - "Song 2"
Bob Dylan - "All Along The Watchtower"
Children Of Bodom - "Done With Everything, Die For Nothing"
Coldplay - "In My Place"
Darkest Hour - "Demon(s)"
David Bowie - "Fame"
Deep Purple - "Woman From Tokyo ('99 Remix)"
Elliott Smith - "L.A."
Iggy Pop - "Lust For Life (Live)"
Jeff Beck - "Scatterbrain (Live)"
John Mellencamp - "Hurts So Good"
Kings Of Leon - "Sex On Fire"
Queens Of The Stone Age - "Make It Wit Chu"
Rose Hill Drive - "Sneak Out" ?
Santana - "No One To Depend On (Live)"
The Bronx - "Six Days A Week" ?
Thrice - "Deadbolt"
Tom Petty - "Runnin' Down A Dream"
Vampire Weekend - "A-Punk"
Wolfmother - "Back Round"

Not that these songs are horrible (on the contrary) but its a bit disheartening to think that that is the Bob Dylan song, that that is the Blur song, that that is the Bowie song. Guitar Hero has a history of including some deep tracks but when you only get one song per artist one has to hope that its one of the artists top one or two songs. Again, not that All Along the Watchtower and Fame suck but they're most certainly NOT Like a Rolling Stone, Rock n Roll Suicide of Changes.

The list contains a lot of standards as well as songs from bands that apparently are the next big thing (that I havent even heard of to be honest) and it does leave enough room to be hopeful that the White Stripes, My Morning Jacket and Gorillaz songs will be exceptional but it also leaves room for them not, well, not be.