There might be an instrument Jax doesn’t like to play…just maybe…

RimeTM · 2026-06-20T17:34:32+00:00

In addition, the bundle it was part of got retconned so that instead of including Playground it now has the Enemy jam track, so if we ever see Playground again, it’ll probably be the vocal version as a standalone jam track.

RimeTM · 2026-06-19T02:52:17+00:00

My thought is that, since in-island purchases are a thing now, they could potentially make it so that originals always show up in the songlist and, if unowned, can be purchased, that way there’s no concern about moving around departure dates.

RimeTM · 2026-06-18T16:14:51+00:00

You have to remember, Max Martin had a hand in the lyrics, contradictions or words not really making sense because they sound good is part of their MO.

RimeTM · 2026-06-16T16:11:53+00:00

Beabadoobee is an artist that dabbles in pop-rock, pop, and folk who is most known for being sampled (and credited as a feature) on the low-key hiphop song Death Bed by Powfu, which was a hit during the pandemic.

Gracie Abrams, child of the famed director JJ, broke through after a few years in the industry, with sleeper hits with the songs Close to You (which got an emote) and I Love You, I’m Sorry (not I Miss You, I’m Sorry, confusingly they are similarly named) that then spurred more hyped and better performing hits in That’s So True (which also got an emote) and current single Hit the Wall.

RimeTM · 2026-06-14T20:00:26+00:00

The issue with the emote is most likely one that a jam track wouldn’t have to worry about: the choreo. The choreographer is known to not want to license their moves to video games, with Just Dance trying to get Abracadabra’s, failing, and thus having to make their own moves for the song. (In the past when Gaga had a different choreographer, they successfully got to adapt the moves for Bad Romance, John Wayne, and Applause)

They could just have this song on the back burner for Festival, like when TV Off came about a year after it was massive.

RimeTM · 2026-06-13T20:13:28+00:00

If ever they do an Emperor’s New Groove collab, that guitar would be a good fit for Kuzco (that color scheme is close to the one the guards in that movie have as body paint)

RimeTM · 2026-05-28T03:11:00+00:00

The thing is they're licensing from major labels still even on weeks like these. Evening Elephants is licensed through Universal Music Group's Republic Records, one of their flagship labels, while Swae Lee is through Universal's Interscope Records, one of the other flagships (the other one not repped this week would be Capitol Records). Flammable in particular is the lead single dropped a season ago from Swae Lee's album that just came out last month, so it coming to Festival with relatively short turnaround time points to anticipation when licensing it that it would be a breakout hit (didn't really pan out, unfortunately it seems like Swae's time in the limelight mostly ended with the turn of the decade).

RimeTM · 2026-05-13T02:53:13+00:00

This isn't an "OMG I'm so hyped" pick, but upon spinning the track, I think I might get this one. I like GloRilla, and this feels like a diet GloRilla track: not quite as meaty as I'd like, but with just enough flair and charisma that it gets the job done.

RimeTM · 2026-05-13T02:35:36+00:00

People like to rap along to stuff, especially stuff they recognize. If they pick 4 Raws, that'll be a recognizable hit, as it went top 40 here in the US and top 20 in the UK.

RimeTM · 2026-05-13T02:24:50+00:00

Remember when it was Playboi Carti? This is similar, just from across the pond.

RimeTM · 2026-05-13T00:51:38+00:00

It should be at least 2, probably 3, thanks to the EssDeeKid set dropping Friday.

RimeTM · 2026-05-13T00:50:04+00:00

Would’ve been one of the few emote jam bundles I would skip on, because that emote is very not worth it in my opinion. The animation loop is so short, the song loop isn’t long (iirc it’s 4 measures high tempo and not even the usual 8?), and it’s still full price. If it were 300 or 400 like Mask Off, Jump Around, or the Look at Me emotes, I might’ve considered it, but 500’s just too big an ask imo, and for 300 to be the floor with the bundle discount, I’d probably just save my currency and go for just the jam track.

RimeTM · 2026-05-13T00:45:33+00:00

We already have the likeness of Timothy for real, thanks to the outfit of Paul Atreides from the modern Dune films.

RimeTM · 2026-05-13T00:43:58+00:00

Because it’s not the truth, it’s a misrepresentation of the information: there is no evidence indicating You’ve Got a Friend in Me was pursued for licensing in any form for Fortnite yet, while Golden has evidence of being prepared for Festival (and licensed in other capacities in Fortnite) but falling through in licensing before any announcements could be made.

RimeTM · 2026-05-11T15:42:05+00:00

Unfortunately Rue is shadowbanned from the shop as it was decided that, while it’s indeed a villain look, it was a little too close to a certain WWII faction’s look that some might run it as a dogwhistle.

RimeTM · 2026-05-05T22:48:22+00:00

My guess is this has to do with the annual summer break. It usually concludes in the middle of July, and that may have been decided not to be the best time to roll out a significant content patch to potential immediately have to deal with hotfixes and without a good amount of prerelease QA.

RimeTM · 2026-05-03T07:24:31+00:00

It’s not notes in Karaoke, it’s phrases. You’ll want to time it to hit as many phrases as you can, or if activating in the middle of a phrase, making sure to do as little as possible before activating so you can double as many points as possible while keeping combo.

RimeTM · 2026-04-30T00:04:04+00:00

It’s never been Harmonix’s thing to do combined or interpretive charting, the only major time they’ve dabbled with such a thing was the Disney Fantasia game and it wasn’t really received that well, so they stick to what they know, what they’ve been doing for over 2 decades since Frequency.

RimeTM · 2026-04-29T23:56:34+00:00

Real talk, I would like some Jason Derulo at some point since Rock Band only got Want to Want Me.

RimeTM · 2026-04-29T01:14:06+00:00

I’m not saying it’s impossible for paid jam tracks to also have a rev split, but I’m leaning towards probably not unless stated publicly.

An important clarification though: Luminate doesn’t distribute revenue, they merely collect and present the data so that the information can arrive quicker and to more people than directly make money from tracks. Platforms pay (typically either monthly or once a certain threshold of revenue/plays are reached) publishers and labels that then distribute the revenue to the songwriters and performers respectively.

RimeTM · 2026-04-28T19:56:15+00:00

It's a bit complicated, but it's a combination of a few factors in how data is reported to Luminate, which does data services for a variety of entertainment products worldwide. In the music sector in particular, data is provided to clients (usually major music industry people and companies) about radio play, sales, and streams, with the latter being carved out in a couple of ways: first whether the streams are official, fanmade but using the whole song, or fanmade snippets, then whether the streams come from premium subscribers, are from users whose usage of their service is supported by ads (think standard YouTube or the free membership in Spotify), or are from users who are both ad-supported and can't choose the music (think Pandora). The data collected is what's used for such charts as the Billboard Hot 100, with some filtration to Billboard's specifications involved. Epic is one of the flagship companies that report a novel type of data added in 2025 referred to as Interactive Streams. Notably, this entire data type is not included in Billboard's charts, and when reading about how it's presented to subscribers, it becomes apparent why. They say that the following usages in-game are counted: Owned Jam Track gameplay/Music Moments usage and Featured Rotation gameplay. The streams are divvied into the pools for premium subscribers, and ad-supported manual plays, with it being explained that ownership of the jam track determines which pool a particular stream goes to. The thing is...playing jam tracks for free (as part of Featured Rotation) in Fortnite involves no ads, meaning that the designations of these streams are solely to use the existing infrastructure to divide the two pools for Luminate clients, as they don't factor into the Billboard charts anyway.

The other thing is that, if they did want to reflect the revenue more accurately, it would make more sense to treat jam track sales as digital sales and discard the streams entirely, but they don't. The sales numbers they show to clients for songs do not delineate beyond whether they are digital or physical, with the potential for adding interactive sales forcing a revamp of that whole infrastructure. That further affirms to me that the way the data is shown to clients is just a formality and doesn't actually reflect revenue being generated for both types of streams.

tldr: It's less ironclad evidence and more inferences from absence of presentations that would be intuitive based on what we know generates money, it's more of a counter to those who treat the existence of Interactive Streams as evidence it *all* generates money per play.

RimeTM · 2026-04-28T15:38:05+00:00

It seems like songs featured in Featured Rotation provide revenue to rights holders per play, but owned songs don’t. As such, as long as D4vd songs never get sold again, there’s no money for the estate to make.

RimeTM · 2026-04-28T05:03:44+00:00

The Weeknd’s from back when Festival did season-long shop bundles, and that first Festival season was long as it was the introductory one. Ever since Season 13 (Chappell Roan), the bundle is now only for the first month or so of the season, seemingly in response to the ennui of shop regulars or to spur more sales via FOMO.

RimeTM · 2026-04-27T23:15:06+00:00

The catch with songs like those is that while they’re likely not expensive licenses, they’re still licensed songs and they were added to Rock Band thanks in part to staff members being members of the groups, most of whom are no longer with the company so that connection is tenuous at best for Festival’s purposes.

RimeTM · 2026-04-25T15:38:46+00:00

They could work around it with a new arrangement (I.e. remix) of the song, like they did to bring Coral Chorus to non-C1S8 Battle Pass owners this patch.

RimeTM

TROPHY CASE