MTV’s Rock Band game has become a worldwide phenomenon, and now fans of the hard rocking music game will be able to download full versions of classic guitar rock albums to “play.” MTV announced last Friday that the classic heavy metal album, “Screaming for Vengeance” by Judas Priest will be released next week as the first Rock Band full album download from MTV’s online music store.

The Judas Priest album will cost $15, and versions will be available for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. In addition, Rock Band players will also be able to download individual songs from the album, including “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’,” Judas Priest’s classic metal hit from 1982.

mtv rock bandOther albums are currently in the works, and should be available for download by June 2008, including The Cars’ self-titled first album, and “Doolittle” by The Pixies. Individual songs from each of these albums will also be available on the MTV site, and are expected to be priced at two dollars each.

Add-on tracks have become a big moneymaker for the Rock Band franchise, and MTV claims that more than 8 million extra tracks have been purchased for the game so far. Motley Crue has even used Rock Band to debut their newest single, “Saints of Los Angeles,” allowing gamers to play along with the legendary 80s hair-metal band.

As recently satirized in an episode of Comedy Central’s South Park, Rock Band is encouraging a whole new generation to “play” classic rock songs, many of which were recorded before they were born. But where teenagers used to try to emulate rock stars by picking up an instrument or learning to sing, these days they’d rather “game” the songs and try to get a perfect score.

Either way, it’s undeniable that Rock Band has been beneficial to the careers of many hair-metal musicians from the 70s 80s and 90s. Bands like Judas Priest are getting rediscovered by a whole new generation of listeners, and even modern rock bands such as OK Go are keen to be immortalized with a rock band track.

In fact, it’s getting to the point these days where a new band can not really consider that they’ve “made it” until kids are gaming to their tunes on Rock Band. A sign of the times I guess. MTV has announced that there are many other classic albums “in the pipeline” to be released for the game, from artists as diverse as The Who and Nirvana.

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