Billy Joel is one of my favorite musical artists. Only the Good Die Young, Piano Man, Vienna...he's written so many classics. In fact, if I was on a desert island and could only listen to one artist for the rest of my life, I very well might choose Billy Joel.
It is for that reason that I am ecstatic about his presence on the new Rock Band 3 game, being released this Tuesday, October 26. He won't be featured on the actual game disc, but his music will be available in the Rock Band online music store. And I'll be first in the virtual line to buy each and every song.
I'm especially excited about this because I'll be able to use my full-sized MIDI keyboard to play along with Mr. Joel, and be able to learn his guitar riffs on their exciting new pro guitar.
Better than the news of Billy Joel being on Rock Band, however, are his reasons behind the decision.
In the past, Billy has rejected Harmonix and has wanted nothing to do with musical video games. That all changed after a joke during a recent episode of The Office. In the episode, members of the office play a fictitious game, Rock Band: Billy Joel. In his review of the episode for Entertainment Weekly, Darren Franich, in reference to the Billy Joel edition of Rock Band wrote: "God forbid that should ever happen!"
After reading that, Billy Joel told USA Today that he "called my people and said, 'Get me on that Rock Band game.' Then I wrote the critic, saying that every time I get a check, I'll give him a little nod."
You've gotta love Billy Joel. If that isn't some of the cleverest spite I've ever heard of, then I don't know what spite is...
Read the full tale from Mr. Joel himself over at USA Today.
3 comments:
Kudos to Mr. Joel, knock 'em dead! Jackilyn Pyzocha
Is it just me, or he really looks like Stallone on this picture?
I was thinking the exact same thing. Actually I found this page when I google'd "Billy Joel" and for a second I thought google mixed up!
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