Friday 22 June 2012

DLC 6/26: Carrie Underwood



This week's DLC comes courtesy of the first country artist to ever win American Idol, Carrie Underwood.

Carrie Underwood - "Before He Cheats"
Carrie Underwood - "Cowboy Casanova"
Carrie Underwood - "Good Girl" - Pro Available


Now, as an artist, I'm pretty meh on Carrie Underwood, but will that stop me from liking the DLC?

Before He Cheats

Here we have a country song about heartache. I love your originality Carrie! Although, country songs in Rock Band do have a tendency to be fairly enjoyable on guitar, this is not one of those cases. The entire song can be down-strummed, and the notes are fairly far apart. In fact, I'm willing to wager that my cousin, who hasn't played any music game since shortly after Guitar Hero 3 was the hottest thing on the Wii and was never able to get past medium, could beat this song on Expert. The bass on the other hand is quite fun. It's filled with HOPOs that will surely keep you on your toes, as well as take you all over your fretboard. Not much else to say really. The keys are a bit of a challenge, they've got a few fills here and there, nothing that a seasoned keys player would find all that difficult though. As someone who will only ever play drums for the sake of these reviews, when I can get 98% on a sightread of a drum song, you know it's easy. There is exactly one beat; snare, cymbal, snare, cymbal/bass, snare, cymbal, ect. Granted, the cymbal will change at different moments in the song and there may be the odd fill here and there but the actual drum part is incredibly easy, and maybe even a little boring.

Cowboy Casanova

Here is a country song with "cowboy" in the title. Where on Earth do you get your ideas Carrie?!? Although Carrie Underwood songs (so far) have a tendency to have crap guitar parts, this one is actually rather enjoyable. It's not all that hard but it has got some tricky bits going for it. If someone can explain to me how on Earth Before He Cheats got a tier 3 difficulty rating but this only got a 2, it would be greatly appreciated. The part does use HOPO chords a bit excessively but fortunately they are easy to hit, save for possibly one part in the chorus where it moves quickly between 3 HOPO chords. The other part of the song that was difficult is during the bridge, where there are some moderately quick notes coming that require some minor alt-strumming. It seems that this week, the good guitar songs have crap bass and the crap guitar songs have good bass. The bass on this is one of the more boring things I've played so far this week, and that includes JAM Live Music Arcade. The main problem with the bass is that it just doesn't go anywhere, you just do the same monotonous patterns over and over again until the song ends. The keys are easily the hardest part of the week. They're all over the place, fast as well as being incredibly complex. I would keep away from them unless you are an excellent keys player. The drums here are rather difficult due to the awkwardness of the bass pedal throughout. I personally found it overwhelming, but as I mentioned, the only reason I play drums is for these reviews. I'm sure that a more dedicated drummer would have no problem with this and find it fun.

Good Girl

I wanted to make a quip about how generically country the lyrics of this song are, but, save for the chorus, I wouldn't really consider this country, more pop-rock. The actual guitar part was really fun, featuring a few little challenges here and there. Nothing major, but just enough to keep the part interesting. As a dedicated guitarist though, none of the songs are amazing enough to want me to come back and play them again. As far as bass goes, it's not all that great. The chorus is somewhat interesting but the rest of the song is littered with long breaks or one note sections. In fact, one could say that the bass part is as bland as an American Idol alumni. The drums here are incredibly fun, easily the best drumming song of the week. The difficulty here doesn't come from the awkward bass pedal, but rather the interesting toms. On PRO Drums that gets made even harder by the constant moving between cymbals and toms for what becomes a very fun song to play.

Pick of the week: Cowboy Casanova
What should you buy: Cowboy Casanova
Instrument of the week: Guitar

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