Note: Videos may contain authoring issues that have been fixed, and are for preview purposes only. Video recording courtesy of Lowlander.

C3 releases for June 12, 2015:

New! Duets C01 3-pack (farottone)



Dennis Edwards – “Don’t Look Any Further (ft. Siedah Garrett)”

Michael Jackson – “The Girl is Mine (ft. Paul McCartney)”

Philip Bailey – “Easy Lover (ft. Phil Collins)”

New! LGBT Pride Month 2015 4-pack

Against Me! – “Transgender Dysphoria Blues” (Gigakoops)

(Gigakoops) Fine Young Cannibals – “She Drives Me Crazy” (farottone)

(farottone) George Michael – “Careless Whisper” (farottone)

(farottone) Queen – “It’s a Hard Life” (farottone)

Songs marked with are part of our month-long EIGHTIESTRAVAGANZA!

Check out our rad 80s Timeline to visualize these gnarly releases.

A red X denotes Pro Guitar/Pro Bass charts, a blue M denotes full multitracks, a blue K denotes a “karaoke” multitrack (separated vocals), and a rusty 2x denotes that a 2x Bass Pedal version is also available. FtV denotes a song previously released by a C3 author outside of C3.

Harmonies in Rock Band were, and still are, a Big Deal. Long gone are the dark ages where you heard a vocal part but couldn’t sing it, or had a bunch of vocalists crammed into one part. And while it’s satisfying to sing “block” harmonies in a group, Beatles-style, duets are truly where Rock Band harmonies shine. Grab a friend and belt your way through these Eighties-tastic songs, and don’t forget about the duets in official DLC, either!

It’s also June, which is widely recognized as LGBT Pride Month (in the US, anyway). To acknowledge this — and hit more 80s songs while we’re at it! — we’ve prepared a pack from acts with one or more openly LGBT members. Rock Band’s famous green, red, yellow, blue, and orange don’t quite represent the entire rainbow, but custom songs let us fill in indigo and violet a bit more.

Author comments for this week’s songs:

Duets C01 – farottone writes, “All songs in the duet pack have the individual singers assigned to one specific harmony. For Easy Lover, Phil Collins is on H1 and H3 and Philip Bailey is on H2. For The Girl is Mine, Michael Jackson is on H1, Paul McCartney on H2 and H3. For Don’t Look Any Further, Dennis Edwards is on H1, Siedah Garrett is on H2, backup singers on H3.”

“Don’t Look Any Further” – farottone writes, “X-Files fans will recognize this one from episode 7ABX07 in which the sonh was the centerpiece of the storyline. Bass player will recognize this from one of the raddest bass riffs of the history of the universe. The Temptations fans will recognize it as arguably the best known hits from one of the groupìs members. The duet is amazing to sing, the guitar has a simple but engaging solo and for the love of all that is holy do not look this song’s video up on YouTube.”

“The Girl is Mine” – farottone writes, “Very fun duet from Thriller, this is another great way that bass players can play the lead role in their band.”

“Easy Lover” – farottone writes, “The latest Phil Collins C3 appearance sees him sharing the mic with Earth, Wind & Fire’s singer Philip Bailey. About that… the falsetto he sings is quite straining! It’s such a good song on all instruments, with guitar having a very cool solo, not to mention the singing part.”

“Transgender Dysphoria Blues” – Gigakoops writes, “What’s a better way to represent trans* artists than with the opening song from an album about trans identity? This track opens up the album’s themes of the fight for trans acceptance, and acceptance oneself for who they are.”

“She Drives Me Crazy” – farottone writes, “One of the instantly recognisable guitar riffs of 80s pop songs just could not be ignored, so here it is along with that snare sound that drums lovers have come to love. Not challenging on any instrument but a blast at parties.”

“Careless Whisper” – farottone writes, “The first solo single from George Michael technically came when he was still with Wham! (hence the cover). It’s also one of this best singles and fun on all instruments. Not a lot of harmonies but if you don’t have fun singing this one we’re gonna be very surprised. Awesome sax parts and cool guitar licks finish the song off.”

“It’s a Hard Life” – farottone writes, “The intro for the song is taken straight from Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Vesti la giubba, an aria from the 1892’s Pagliacci opera. Weird connections: this author has lived 19 years in a street dedicated to the Italian composer who wrote the opera. The piece is also one of the most emotional intro I can remember in rock history. The song is fairly challenging on keys, which are also buried and tough to author so if issues are spotted we’ll make sure to fix them and update the file. Guitar is courtesy of Banzai85. Before you say anything: no, you can not have too much Queen, that is actually been proven by numerous scientific experiments.”

See you next Friday!

New! Duets C01

New! LGBT Pride Month 2015 4-pack