andPOP - Pop Culture With Substance

Today, MTV Games and Harmonix announced that it will be releasing a new downloadable pack of The Who’s songs for their popular Rock Band video game. On July 15, a downloadable pack of 12 songs from the famous band The Who will be made available to Rock Band users.

“We’re really pleased to have our songs featured in Rock Band,” said Roger Daltrey, lead singer of The Who in a press release. “It allows our established fan base to interact with our music in a way that’s fresh and exciting, while also exposing our songs to new audiences.”

The 12 songs selected for the downloadable pack were chosen by Harmonix and MTV Games in collaboration with Roger Daktrey and Pete Townshend of The Who. Each track will be available for $1.99 at the Playstation Store and the Xbox Live Marketplace (both are online stores for the gaming consoles). The entire collection of songs can be purchased for $19.99.

Weezer fans are getting the ultimate Christmas present this year: a collection of home recordings by Rivers Cuomo.

The record, entitled “Alone – The Home Recordings Of Rivers Cuomo,” should not be seen as a solo album, but rather a kind of musical scrapbook. According to Cuomo, who posted on his Myspace page, “This is a CD of my favorite home demos from ‘92 to ‘07 featuring a lot of never heard before songs, a few covers, a few songs from my unfinished rock musical ‘Songs From The Black Hole’ and my original demo for ‘Buddy Holly.’”

Geffen records will release the album on December 11. Cuomo said he may put out more demo collections in the future.

To hear a sample of the song “Blast Off,” the Windows Media file is here, and the Real Player file is here.