Boredom-Fueled Blog

With the release of The Beatles: Rock Band, it seems only natural that the Rutles should release their own parody. Chances are it’s not going to happen. All the odds are against it happening: The Rutles haven’t released enough songs to constitute a full game; kids these days just don’t care about the Rutles; everything the Rutles have done in the last twenty years has flopped. However, I’m a firm believer that the Rutles should try to parody every major thing the Beatles do (don’t get me started on The Rutles’ Love parody of my own creation, known as Indifference). This could be the perfect opportunity for a much needed Rutles reunion.
Here’s my suggested track listing for The Rutles: Rock Band, including venues chosen by me. The Rutles didn’t release many songs, so each venue will only have three songs.
Location 1: The Rat Keller
- The club in Hamburg where the Rutles played. It is infested with rats.
1. Goosestep Mama
2. Blue Suede Schubert
3. Baby Let Me Be
Location 2: The Royal Variety Performance
- Where the queen yawns during their performance.
1. Number One
2. With A Girl Like You
3. I Must Be in Love
Location 3: Che Stadium
1. It’s Looking Good
2. Hold My Hand
3. Living in Hope
Location 4: The Studio
1. Major Happy’s Up and Coming Once Upon a Good Time Band
2. Good Times Roll
3. Nevertheless
Location 5: The Rooftop of the Rutle Corps Offices
1. We’ve Arrived (And to Prove it We’re Here)
2. Let’s Be Natural
3. Get Up and Go
And that’s it. I envision this as sort of a bonus tie-in with The Beatles: Rock Band, or just a twenty-dollar stand-alone game with a limited supply of copies produced. I’m sure the game producers would lose tons of money, but I know at least one Rutles fan who would love this… me.

Music, Nintendo The Beatles, The Beatles: Rock Band, The Rutles

Microsoft:
The Beatles: Rock Band: On Monday, at E3, announcements were made about the Beatles: Rock Band, namely announcements regarding the song list and locations used in the game. The song listing includes such great tracks as “Get Back” and “Octopus’s Garden” alongside tracks with minimal or no lead guitar part like “I Am the Walrus” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” You can also play at venues such as the Ed Sullivan Theater, the Cavern Club, and the Apple Rooftop. It should be noted that I made several predictions regarding this game a couple of months ago. Every venue that has been officially announced as being in the game was included in my prediction, and the only two songs I neglected to include in my prediction were “I Am the Walrus” (because it is mainly played on piano) and “Taxman.” Another thing that caught me off-guard was the fact that the entirety of Abbey Road will also be included. I’ll be interested in seeing how this game really is, as, when you get down to it, very few Beatles songs actually utilize all the peripherals included in this game.
Nintendo:
New Super Mario Bros.: Wii: A very disappointing announcement was made about this game. It was introduced as being something completely new, although it was the opposite of new. It was pretty much exactly like any other sidescrolling Mario game ever made, the only difference being that there will now be four players cluttering the screen and forcing the camera to pan out until your character is the size of a dime on a 52″ plasma screen.
Wii Sports Resort/Wii Motion Plus: I had high hopes for this game, but they were squashed when the presenters kept bringing up the “physical reality” of the game, and remarking that every mistake you’d make “in life,” will be duplicated in the game. So… since I’m not good at basketball in life, I won’t be very good at this game. At least in the original Wii Sports you could manipulate the controller so that the sports became nothing like the real sports…
Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story: …an RPG where Mario and Luigi wander around inside Bowser’s body. This is a great idea for a game, and it would’ve made a great 3D adventure for Wii, but instead they ruined it by making it an RPG and sticking it on the Nintendo DS.
Wii Vitality Sensor: When they announced this at first, I thought it was a joke, like that YouTube video where there are Wii accessories for random stuff like frying pans and egg beaters. The Wii Vitality Sensor’s presentation was very vague, stating that it can read what’s not visible, namely heart rates and other health garbage… but the way it was described it seems like it also reads minds and controls your emotions.
Super Mario Galaxy 2: When all looked hopeless, Nintendo redeemed themselves by saying that there will be a second Super Mario Galaxy for Wii – this time with Yoshi. This should be good. I still maintain that Super Mario Galaxy is the best game for the Wii, so I’m happy that they’re giving it a sequel.

Well… I clearly have too much time on my hands.

Nintendo Super Mario Galaxy, The Beatles: Rock Band

Twist And Shout
Why It Shouldn’t Be In: As great as this song is, it would be pretty easy in a Guitar-Hero-style game. It pretty much repeats the same thing over and over again until the solo which, I think, also wouldn’t be very difficult to play Guitar-Hero-style.
Why It Will Be In: It was one of the Beatles’s biggest hits from that era, and it’s one of their most recognizable songs even if they didn’t write it.

A Hard Day’s Night
Why It Shouldn’t Be In: Aside from the really cool solo, which I think would be great in a Rock Band game, the lead guitar does just about nothing in this song.
Why It Will Be In: They’ll probably put this in just for the guitar solo. I can’t think of a more famous Beatles guitar solo. Also, it might be kind of cool to have the player (on Expert skill level) hold down all five of the guitar buttons to hold down that famous opening chord. This would be mildly challenging because you only have four fingers to play with.

Help!
Why It Shouldn’t Be In: It has pretty much no lead guitar part.
Why It Will Be In: Again, it’s recognizable; people like this song. Also, they’ll probably throw it in to utilize the microphone: this song has one of the better vocal parts.

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Why It Shouldn’t Be In: It only has guitar parts at the beginning and at the end; the rest of the song is pretty much just the horns.
Why It Will Be In: It would still be the best song from the album of the same name to be included. They’ll probably want to put in a song from this album because it’s one of their most famous albums, and they don’t have many choices – what are they going to choose: “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!”? “A Day in the Life”? Those songs have even less guitar parts than this one.

The Solution?…
It has already been announced that this game is going to include previously unreleased and/or/morphed with new material. The main problem with all the above songs is that they don’t have guitar parts throughout the song. What the makers of the game could do is put all of those solos into some sort of a medley song, and all their problems would be solved.

Music, Nintendo The Beatles, The Beatles: Rock Band