Finally tried Rock star out this Friday November 24 2023 at the Ann Arbor Michigan hall of fame, and a nice example. It was my favorite pinball at the show. The chimes and bell was music to my ears. I enjoyed the art work as well. Game play was incredible, the plastic spinners feel funny and cheap(the metal ones is the way to go) I'm not typically a stand up target kind of guy but it does work well on this machine. I would be intrested in adding a Rock star to my own place. Really like the free ball aspect to this game and lighting up the 100,000 point light. Such a wonderful pinball

Rock Star / Blue Note is one of the last EM designs from Gottlieb.

The Pros:
An interesting layout that is better than it looks at first glance. The spinner design will alternate the scores with the right spinner and collect the lit value with the left spinner. A simple concept that works incredibly well. Lots to shoot for all the way up the left hand side of the playfield. Shooting for the lit target on the left hand side for 5k is a dangerous proposition lower on the playfield and hard to aim for at the top.

The Cons:
The flipper layout is asymmetrically oriented and the left side has no inlane and outlane. More "traditional" players will not like this.

The Takeaway:
A better game than most will ever take it for due to the flipper layout. Most copies that I have seen (Totem as well) are incredibly good shape and inexpensive as the game did not make much money on location.

This review applies to both Blue Note (Gottlieb 1978) and Rock Star (same), the Italy export version. Identical layout with slightly different artwork, just the logo, I believe.

My least favorite component in all of pinball might be standup targets surrounded very closely by posts, and this game has eight of them! So, yeah, off to a rough start here. The standup between posts is usually such an unsatisfying shot. Often it's hard to know if you even got the target or the post, if you're off by a hair the ball is going to go careening around, and there's just no satisfying physical feeling when hitting the target, unlike drop targets or spinners. Did I mention there's eight of them here? Not fun to shoot at.

But, Blue Note/Rock Star makes up for this clunkiness my eliminating the left outlane entirely, and putting a pair of spinners in easy to reach locations just in case you'd like to have some fun while playing. Assigning Do, Re, Me, (etc.) to each target is clever, and the art is fun if kind of generic. Rules are straight forward but hard to accomplish -- get all the Do Re Mes so you can light the WOW saucer, land in there for extra balls. Not a terrible game, just mediocre.

Odd flipper setup and spinner layout (side-by-each), but an extremely satisfying game to play. Have only ever played (or seen) the add-a-ball version of the game at Clay Harrell's VFW in Brighton, MI. Late model wedgehead add-a-ball that was made for export. Perhaps the game is satisfying at the ease of accomplishing the goals and achieving extra balls. Setting up the spinner at maximum points and ripping it for all its worth feels REAL good. The art package connotes a Tom Jones, Dean Martin or Conway Twitty version of a “rock star” and not Mick Jagger, Sid Vicious or Iggy Pop. Gottlieb was never known for its edginess. Regardless, its worth a try if you can find one.