I was bored & curious (a dangerous combination, lol) so I figured I'd do a breakdown of how many bands have only builtin songs, only DLC, or both. This is current as of today (up to/including the 38 Special DLC) and includes all RS2012 & 2014 builtin songs (minus the unlockable ones, as those are all by Ubi employees) and all DLC (except for the Bachsmith & Holiday packs, same reason). Artist name variations are grouped, so "Tom Petty" & "Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers" are counted as the same artist- same for Jimi Hendrix/Experience, Santana feat. Rob Thomas, etc.

• RS2012 builtin only: 28 bands/artists
• RS2014 builtin only: 22 bands/artists
• RS2012 >1 song builtin: 5 bands/artists (3 builtin songs for The Rolling Stones, 2 each for the Black Keys, Muse, Nirvana, & Stone Temple Pilots)
• RS2014 >1 song builtin: 0 bands/artists
• builtin on RS2012 AND 2014, no DLC: 3 bands (Nirvana, Red Fang, and The Rolling Stones)
• builtin (either/both), no DLC: 53 bands/artists
• builtin AND DLC: 41 bands/artists
• DLC only: 206 bands (!)

 

Bands with the most songs (builtin and/or DLC):

• 12: Jimi Hendrix (Experience)
• 11: Foo Fighters, Black Keys
• 8: 5 bands - Megadeth, Muse, Queen, Radiohead, Stone Temple Pilots
• 7: 7 bands - Kiss, Queens of the Stone Age, Rage Against the Machine, Rise Against, Rush, The Smashing Pumpkins, Tom Petty (& the Heartbreakers)
• 6: 16 bands - Aerosmith, Alice in Chains, Billy Talent, Boston, The Doors, Iron Maiden, Linkin Park, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Oasis, R.E.M., Slayer, Soundgarden, Three Days Grace, Weezer, The White Stripes, The Who
• 5: 24 bands/artists
• 4: 22 bands/artists
• 3: 37 bands/artists
• 2: 18 bands/artists
• 1: 168 bands/artists

 

I'd expect it to be easier to license songs from bands that already have builtin songs (there are 41 such bands/artists). Which means the 53 with builtin songs & no DLC miiiiight be more likely to have upcoming DLC? Then again, since DLC-only bands far outnumber those, perhaps not. But for those curious, those bands are:

 

Alice Cooper, The Animals, Arctic Monkeys, Best Coast, Blur, The Boxer Rebellion, Cream, The Cribs, Dan Auerbach, The Dead Weather, The Dear Hunter, EarlyRise, Eric Clapton, Fang Island, Franz Ferdinand, Gold Motel, The Horrors, Interpol, Jack White, Jarvis Cocker, JAWS, Jenny O, Joe Satriani, Kings Of Leon, The Kinks, La Sera, Lenny Kravitz, Little Barrie, Magic Wands, Minus the Bear, Monster Truck, Nirvana, Paramore, PAWS, Ramones, Rapscallions, RATT, Red Fang, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Rolling Stones, Screaming Females, Sigur Rós, Silversun Pickups, Splashh, Spoon, Taddy Porter, Tak Matsumoto, Titus Andronicus, Velvet Revolver, White Denim, White Zombie, The xx, The Yellow Moon Band

Velvet Revolver and Slash DLC are kinda linked together and the Velvet revolver isn't really active anymore...

 

Since Cream didn't accepted to relicense his song on RS2014, it seems quite unlikely to see any DLC.

 

Red Hot are known to be against licensing their own music for video games (the only song is only a cover they did).

 

Those list also depend a lot on request by the user, the most known band are those with the highest number of song while the lesser known ends up with 1 song.

 

What i find really interesting is that Ubi clearly try to give a great quantity of bands which makes everyone happy at one point in time (it's hard for anyone to say that they don't like ALL the DLC available).

 

One thing you can look at is the band licensed to Guitar Hero and Rock Band too since they are now actively licensing bands for their own game, it makes the list of artist willing to sign a lot biger too.

Red Hot are known to be against licensing their own music for video games (the only song is only a cover they did).

I remember a whole album DLC for Rock Band, so that seems odd to me.

They did got a lot of song during RB 3 era but all their song was take down because Harmonix was unable te relicense them during 2013.

 

Can't remember where i saw that their was some trouble getting license from there, or maybe i'm just mistaking with another band as i can't find anything to confirm what i said...

One thing you can look at is the band licensed to Guitar Hero and Rock Band too since they are now actively licensing bands for their own game, it makes the list of artist willing to sign a lot bigger too.

 

I thought about that, but I assume at least some of those bands (notably The Beatles & Metallica) were only willing to license their music because they got an entire game with just their songs (or songs they picked themselves), and had extra special goodies like custom themes & video/animation stuff built into it. I also wouldn't be surprised if their licenses were exclusive for a certain period of time, meaning those songs (or possibly any of their songs) couldn't appear on any other games. I asked about this in the comments on one of Dan's posts somewhere, but just got the very general "it depends on the artist" answer (and that about 6-8 months later, lol).

Well it's always the artist that have the last word on signing anyway (well the right holders but it is often the same people).

 

We do see many common song between the setlist RB4 and GHL have and Rocksmith on disc or DLC song and many DLC we get have already been available at one point in a RB or GH games so it's still an important factor (and it clearly indicate the willingness of a band to sign).