April 1, 2008
The Missing Rock Band Song Instrument Difficulties
One of the few things Rock Band gets wrong is the complete lack of information on per-instrument difficulty levels. A song’s difficulty tier is a composite of the individual Drum, Vocal, Guitar, and Bass instrument difficulties — but there’s no way to see what those are! It’s all too common to get surprised by a song that’s easy for 2 or 3 band members and incredibly difficult for the other band members.
Fortunately, some kind souls on the ScoreHero Rock Band Forums put together a difficulty list for of all the songs, including all the downloadable content songs:
- Master Rock Band Song List
- Master Rock Band Song List, Excel Format
- Master Rock Band Song List By Tier (widescreen)
For my own convenience, I reformatted the standard 58 songs in the default Rock Band song list into this simple table.
| Order | Tier | Song | Max Score | Gtr | Bas | Drm | Voc | Avg |
| 1 | 1 | Say it Ain’t So | 1,228,868 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 2 | 1 | In Bloom | 2,273,959 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 3 | 1 | I Think I’m Paranoid | 1,151,992 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1.75 |
| 4 | 1 | Mississippi Queen | 788,975 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 8 | 3 |
| 5 | 1 | Here It Goes Again | 1,395,564 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1.75 |
| 6 | 2 | 29 Fingers | 940,890 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 3.25 |
| 7 | 2 | Creep | 1,550,714 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 2.75 |
| 8 | 2 | Wave of Mutilation | 777,379 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 2.75 |
| 9 | 2 | Should I Stay or Should I Go | 1,383,039 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 2.5 |
| 10 | 2 | Maps | 1,153,969 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1.5 |
| 11 | 2 | Seven | 2,004,533 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 8 | 4 |
| 12 | 2 | Gimme Shelter | 1,767,345 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 8 | 4.5 |
| 13 | 3 | Sabotage | 1,280,021 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 3.75 |
| 14 | 3 | Blitzkrieg Bop | 1,130,582 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 3.75 |
| 15 | 3 | Celebrity Skin | 1,349,772 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 3.5 |
| 16 | 3 | I’m So Sick | 1,010,165 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 9 | 4.5 |
| 17 | 3 | Time We Had | 1,453,604 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 2.5 |
| 18 | 3 | When You Were Young | 1,353,389 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 6 | 5 |
| 19 | 3 | Black Hole Sun | 1,417,261 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 4.25 |
| 20 | 4 | Blood Doll | 1,074,466 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 7 | 3.75 |
| 21 | 4 | Wanted Dead or Alive | 1,509,069 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 5 | 4.5 |
| 22 | 4 | Day Late, Dollar Short | 1,814,165 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 9 | 4.75 |
| 23 | 4 | Learn to Fly | 1,540,846 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 3 |
| 24 | 4 | Nightmare | 1,196,277 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 4 |
| 25 | 4 | Orange Crush | 1,154,851 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 3 |
| 26 | 4 | Main Offender | 1,026,162 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 4.5 |
| 27 | 4 | The Hand That Feeds | 1,394,731 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 3 |
| 28 | 5 | Epic | 2,056,843 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 4 |
| 29 | 5 | Suffragette City | 1,585,488 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 9 | 5.5 |
| 30 | 5 | Ballroom Blitz | 2,580,884 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 6.5 |
| 31 | 5 | Dead on Arrival | 1,518,559 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 6.75 |
| 32 | 5 | Train Kept a Rollin’ | 1,437,449 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 8 |
| 33 | 6 | Are You Gonna Be My Girl | 2,046,816 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 7 | 6 |
| 34 | 6 | Pleasure (Pleasure) | 1,341,127 | 9 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| 35 | 6 | Paranoid | 1,308,442 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 4.5 |
| 36 | 6 | Brainpower | 884,265 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 6 |
| 37 | 6 | Welcome Home | 2,631,217 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 8 | 7.5 |
| 38 | 6 | Can’t Let Go | 1,178,551 | 8 | 4 | 5 | 9 | 6.5 |
| 39 | 6 | Go With the Flow | 1,248,177 | 3 | 3 | 7 | 2 | 3.75 |
| 40 | 6 | Dani California | 2,381,086 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 5 |
| 41 | 7 | (Don’t Fear) The Reaper | 1,914,422 | 6 | 6 | 8 | 2 | 5.5 |
| 42 | 7 | I Get By | 1,761,582 | 5 | 1 | 6 | 9 | 5.25 |
| 43 | 7 | Outside | 1,744,686 | 5 | 1 | 8 | 6 | 5 |
| 44 | 7 | Reptilia | 1,564,762 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 6 | 4.75 |
| 45 | 7 | Electric Version | 1,424,427 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 7 | 5.25 |
| 46 | 7 | Vasoline | 1,134,860 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 4 | 6 |
| 47 | 7 | Detroit Rock City | 1,056,072 | 3 | 3 | 7 | 6 | 4.75 |
| 48 | 7 | Timmy & the Lords of the Underworld | 1,028,823 | 9 | 4 | 7 | 9 | 7.25 |
| 49 | 8 | Next To You | 1,209,073 | 7 | 7 | 9 | 7 | 7.5 |
| 50 | 8 | Cherub Rock | 2,481,737 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 5 | 7.25 |
| 51 | 8 | Tom Sawyer | 1,493,375 | 8 | 8 | 9 | 9 | 8.5 |
| 52 | 8 | Enter Sandman | 1,752,291 | 8 | 9 | 8 | 6 | 7.75 |
| 53 | 8 | Green Grass and High Tides | 3,438,214 | 9 | 9 | 6 | 7 | 7.75 |
| 54 | 9 | Highway Star | 2,570,115 | 9 | 9 | 8 | 9 | 8.75 |
| 55 | 9 | Foreplay/Long Time | 2,228,909 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 9 | 8.25 |
| 56 | 9 | Flirtin’ With Disaster | 2,437,515 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 7 | 8.5 |
| 57 | 9 | Won’t Get Fooled Again | 2,355,217 | 7 | 7 | 9 | 8 | 7.75 |
| 58 | 9 | Run to the Hills | 1,504,336 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 |
Tracks in grey are bonus tracks; scores marked in red are the top 10 scoring songs in the game. Print this out and keep it in your practice space — don’t get surprised by a song difficulty again!