Rock Band Network Bringing You Indie Music

I have a fondness for Canadian music. Unfortunately, Rock Band doesn’t share my love so the Canuck tunes are few and far between. I don’t mind Rush, Alanis Morrisette, or the New Pornographers but who wouldn’t want to rock out with the Tragically Hip, Metric or Joel Plaskett?

Thanks to the Rock Band Network that launched today, independent music makers can now post their works to the world.

Music makers download the Xbox 360 software from Harmonix and create the individual song tracks from the master recordings. Then they upload the results which are critiqued by other indie musicians and then published. Harmonix can also help publicize their work, but details are still forthcoming. After that’s all done, artists get 30% of the revenue.

To us faux-musicians it will look like content from Harmonix albeit not really mainstream stuff. And that’s fine with me, since we could stand to be exposed to new music.

The tracks will be available on the Xbox 360 right away while PlayStation 3 and Wii owners will see the tracks no sooner than 30 days. Currently, 100 tracks are available, but surely that number will go up as more bands and musicians tinker with the new tool.

[Rock Band Network via GameLife]