Okay, so I’m several days late, and as you read on you’ll understand why I’m also several dollars short… I put my Rock Band disc into my 360 this weekend after a lengthy hiatus because I was in the mood for a little “music therapy.” I was prompted to update the game, which I was expecting, and then I immediately checked out the new Rock Band Store. What I wasn’t expecting was how two subtle changes to the way we can now buy Rock Band tracks has changed how I will buy them forever.

The first feature, which lets you preview songs before you buy them, is a no-brainer. The Rock Band Store lets you hear about a 30 second clip of each song, which is really great for those of us that know most of the songs, but may not know them by name. It’s also great for those of us that thought we liked Nine Inch Nails and bought the NIN pack to realize A) we didn’t know any of those songs, and B) they were all pretty crappy. Spare me the angry email/comments, if you liked the tracks.

The other great feature with the Rock Band store is a breakdown of each song’s difficulty, scored under the categories of: band (ie. as a group how hard it is), guitar, vocals, drums, and bass. I know a lot of folks play mainly on guitar or mainly on drums, so this gives them an instant idea whether a song will be too hard to play, or not hard enough. I’m all for learning as much as you can before spending money on things you can’t return or resell.

The new store isn’t without its faults though, which may be addressed in future updates. While buying a song brings up the normal looking “purchase blade,” background downloading isn’t supported at all. So, when you buy something like a song pack, you’re stuck looking at that blade for quite a while. Worse yet, if you happen to buy a track after previewing it, the preview clip loops over and over and over while the download takes place. If you attempt to exit the blade, it cancels your download. I would love to see background downloading supported with a manual option to “rescan for new songs,” or something to pick it up after the “download completed” message pops up.

The store is growing quickly and there are a few different ways you can sort the song lists (which over time will take longer and longer to scroll through.) You can sort songs by year, difficulty, band name, song title and you can even press Start which enters Short Cut mode, allowing you to jump directly to a specific letter of the list without scrolling through it.

Songs are clearly labeled as “by <insert band>” or “made famous by <insert band>” so you can distinguish whether they’re master tracks, or covers fairly easily. Combined with the song preview, you can really ensure your Rock Band music collection grows with only songs that you consider worthy sounding.

I wasn’t expecting a Rock Band Store like this until Rock Band 2, whenever that happens, but I think they really delivered a nice addition to the gaming experience here… They’ve taken the hassle out of buying new music and catered to the informational and organizational needs of the end user, which, to me, is icing on the cake!

Now, if they can just fix the silly arbitrary rules surrounding switching band members around from instrument to instrument without creating 600 character profiles. What’s so hard about one profile wanting to play all the possibly ways? I’m waiting Harmonix…

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