R.E.M. and The Offspring Coming to Rock Band 2

Harmonix and MTV Games, the makers of the Rock Band series, are announcing that more tracks are coming to the Rock Band Music Store. This week’s releases are pretty high profile, with alternative rock gods R.E.M. and upstarts The Offspring providing tracks alongside British songwriter and guitarist Richard Thompson.

R.E.M. is already featured in Rock Band with “Orange Crush,” but its most known hit “Losing My Religion” from the 1991 album “Out of Time,” was the song that gamers demanded to hear from the alternative band. Harmonix has managed to get the master recording for the track and now all players will be able to enjoy the track in the game.

Meanwhile, The Offspring is also providing two of the best tracks it has released. Players will get “All I Want” from the “Ixnay” album, launched in 1997, and the better known “The Kids Aren't Alright,” a punk rock anthem initially released on its best album, “Americana.” With the addition of these two tracks, the band has seven songs in the Rock Band library.

Richard Thompson is featured for the first time in the music simulator with the song “The Way That It Shows” from the 1994 album entitled “Mirror Blue.” While Thompson might be less known than R.E.M. and The Offspring, he received a nomination in the Rolling Stone’s Top 20 Guitarists of All Time, which appeared in 2003, and he got a BBC Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006.

As always, the four tracks will be available on both the Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Store, on March 10, and respectively, on March 12. Each of the tracks will cost 1.99 dollars or 160 Microsoft Points if you plan to get them on the Xbox 360 version of Rock Band 2. Harmonix is mentioning that all the tracks are master recordings, which means premium audio quality for those playing them.