An interesting view on Guitar Hero

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europop2005

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Guitar Hero Must Die!
Posted Fri Dec 19, 2008 4:40pm PST by Mick Farren in The MOJO Blog
The new generation of music games are sounding a widdly-widdly death knell for rock 'n' roll, argues MOJO's Mick Farren.

Saturation yuletide advertising has finally convinced me that virtual music games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, in which participants attempt to "play" classic metal solos by following flashing light sequences on guitar-shaped plastic peripherals, pose an even greater threat to the future of rock 'n' roll than Simon Cowell.

For confirmation that these games are an unpleasant victory for short-attention commercial exploitation, we need look no further than a South Park episode titled "Guitar Queer-o," in which Stan and Kyle become Guitar Hero heroes, and, when Stan's dad attempts to teach the fourth graders to actually play a real guitar, Cartman scathingly responds that "real guitars are for old people."

What's being exploited here is as old as rock 'n' roll itself. Few of us have not, at some time in our lives, or perhaps as recently as this morning, played clandestine air guitar or posed in front of a mirror pretending to be Elvis, Jimi, Joe Strummer, or even Joe Satriani. But the global electronic game corporations who have co-opted this youthful narcissism into a competitive game of manual dexterity, with plastic reproductions of Gibsons and Fenders, are having a negative impact on music's future. OK, so we tolerated Tom Cruise dancing around in his underwear to Bob Seger in Risky Business, but enough is, culturally speaking, enough.

Guitar Hero and Rock Band broaden the perceived gulf between performer and audience by pandering to the most juvenile extremes of rock 'n' roll idol worship. Worse than that, they betray the great populist promise of rock 'n' roll--which has held good from the days of The Shadows--that any garage band with a set of cheap instruments and perfunctory chops can achieve icon status if it gets the breaks and is sufficiently relentless.

Equally unpleasant is the unseemly rush by many of our current guitar "heroes" to lease their music for inclusion. Among the shameless are Aerosmith, Metallica, Motorhead, AC/DC and the Sex Pistols, while The Beatles and the Jimi Hendrix estate are reportedly ready to deal. Whether or not this is more heinous than flogging one's songs for TV commercials is open to debate, but the basic absurdity is underscored by the song "Thunderhorse" by DethKlok--the fictional death metal band from the U.S. TV cartoon show Metalocalypse--being incorporated in Guitar Hero II.

At a time when musical education in schools has become a cause célèbre, the promotion of video games that offer nothing more than a closed loop of virtual experience, devoid of creativity, does nothing to help. A spokesman for the game makers has claimed that they teach "sensitivity to rhythm, as well as develop the dexterity and independent hand usage necessary to play the instrument," but this seems disingenuous when the games do nothing to impart the real fundamentals of music.

And just to add injury to insult, an outfit called Mad Catz in San Diego, California will retrofit a perfectly good Fender Stratocaster, replacing strings, pickups and fretboard with the input controls for Rock Band.

Is nothing sacred?
 
if anyone is dim enough to mistake playing Guitar Hero for being a musician then, yes, there's trouble on the horizon
 
Annoying, but unfortunately mighty popular. It's nothing that could be banned, it's pure capitalism, genius marketing...

Don't mind the drums in the new big whole band thing they've released now, and some of the songs on there are admirable (She Bangs The Drumsssss....Pda.....) and not all " Jack Black School Of Rock" style cliche.

But the core of the game, those plastic guitars, are an absolute disgrace. Impossible to use, hate flicking that piece of plastic, feel like prat when I do. Won't be buying one....

Singstar is tolerable, but it's hardly authentic as a means of testing one's vocal ability.....just hav to follow the lines, doesn't matter if ya sound good or crap. Great drunken fun though.
 
Just a week ago I was discussing guitar hero with a music teacher who's been teaching over 30 years. He said he has seen the game help kids who don't have a good sense of rhythm, and we've both read about how band programs are becoming popular again at schools because, after playing GH, kids want to learn to play real instruments.

I don't know. I have played GH a few times, and I would never think that being good at that game meant I could play a real guitar with any sort of talent without practice. I know that my friends and I have also discovered songs we'd not usually listen to by playing the game. Sounds to me like the author of that article just needed an easy target to complain about. I would speculate that the majority of people who play GH either are smart enough not to confuse being good at a video game with being a good musician or else never even think to connect the two.

As for bands selling their souls to GH...meh. Everyone's considered a sellout at some point in their careers. I would guess that plenty of bands think it's an honor to have one of their songs chosen for the game.
 
It's colored dots on a fucking television screen, not the end of rock n' roll. Only a complete tool would be dumb enough to think that he actually is a rock star when playing the game, and, believe it or not, the games have actually raised awareness for the RAWK. Just look at the most played songs of an artist included in GH; the top spot is almost always reserved for the track that showed up in the game.

I will never, ever understand the anti-Guitar Hero arguments. Mostly because they're generally based on stereotypes and hyperbole instead of reality.
 
i thought playing super mario kart made me a real race car driver. thanks for dashing all my hopes and dreams, guys. so you mean when i run around the woods killing giant spiders and ridding azeroth of corrupt timberlings, i'm not really a badass druid night elf too?



:shrug: it's a video game. if you don't like it, don't play it.
 
I have heard that playing the drums in Rock Band on an expert level actually means that you have potential for being good at playing actual drums. True or false?

I find the guitar play in Rock Band and GH annoying because it's so unlike real guitar. I say that to everyone who plays it, and they always say, "Yeah, I know, but it's still fun." Which means they all get it, which is good.
 
I have heard that playing the drums in Rock Band on an expert level actually means that you have potential for being good at playing actual drums. True or false?

I find the guitar play in Rock Band and GH annoying because it's so unlike real guitar. I say that to everyone who plays it, and they always say, "Yeah, I know, but it's still fun." Which means they all get it, which is good.

The two best people I've seen at the drums in Rock Band both had at least "some" previous experience playing real drums, so that may be possible.

I always enjoy when I play a song on Rock Band or Guitar Hero that I know I can actually play on the real guitar, and it's more difficult to play in the game.

I think it's all in good fun as well, and I've seen more "good" for music in general come out of if than bad. One of my friends went out and bought a real drum set after playing Rock Band at my place a few times. Same friend has also bought a few albums after finding out about the artists on Rock Band/Guitar Hero. I've bought a handful of songs off of iTunes (and at least one full album) because of the games. I know I personally have gotten back into bands I hadn't listened to for quite some time because of the games as well.

I think it's a very cool thing when you're playing a song you like with some friends and one of them says, "What is this? I really like this song." :up:
 
My family room is constantly filled with teens playing GH. One of them is a celebrated acoustic guitarist at the high school and one of them plays bass like no one's business. Clearly, the kids in my neighborhood also get it.

The exposure these kids are getting to songs they might not have heard were it not for this game is hilarious. The death of rock? Hardly. Not when my fifteen-year-old daughter can be overheard singing "The Joker" by The Steve Miller Band on any given day.

I also think it's absurd that this article cites something a cartoon character said on South Park as some kind of evidence.
 
I'm just thrilled that our playing Guitar Hero has opened my musically challenged friends (who all seem to think Nickleback is one of the greatest bands ever) up to some great, real rock music. When I discovered one of my friends now has "Carry On, Wayward Son" on her iPod, I almost cried tears of joy.
 
yeah, you could argue all day sell out vs. the game putting music from bands out there in a different way, thus getting people into it. i know i rolled my eyes angrily and chalked up the dropkick murphys download pack of songs that came out with the last album to being one more nail in the coffin containing the corpse of their old awesomeness--if "tessie" in the MLB game wasn't bad enough. but if people are discovering new music, then cool.

although i do think metallica putting out a 40-dollar bonus edition with the songs off the new album for guitar hero/rock band is asomewhat of rip-off. but then again, i 1) don't play the game 2) avoid new metallica like the scary shit that it is.




I'm just thrilled that our playing Guitar Hero has opened my musically challenged friends (who all seem to think Nickleback is one of the greatest bands ever) up to some great, real rock music. When I discovered one of my friends now has "Carry On, Wayward Son" on her iPod, I almost cried tears of joy.

wait, how in the holy hell is kansas an improvement? :eyebrow:

:wink:
 
I love when people toss around the words "sell out" like their lives are 100% pure and devoid of ever doing anything because it brought them a little more $$. Pack of fucking precious hypocrites.
 
It's fun. As others have said, you have to be delusional to think you're really a rock star by playing Guitar Hero. It's like thinking you're a professional dancer because you're decent at Dance Dance Revolution.

It's not a sell-out game; it's a good way for artists to get exposure. The Fall of Troy got a lot of fans just because of F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X. being in the game (ironically, most fans hate that song. seems fans always hate the most popular songs, like U2 fans and Vertigo).

The only people that annoy me are the people who get all uppity because they can play whatever song on Expert but have never touched a real guitar in their lives. As long as they treat it like a fun video game and nothing more, I have no problem with it. I do think it's silly to practice the game hours on end, but it's no different than playing any other game for hours on end :shrug:
 
i've read articles about this since the franchise became popular. i'm just echoing other posts at this point, but it's ridiculous for someone to claim people are substituting the game for playing an actual instrument. sure, there's bound to be a couple morons out there who really are, but they're definitely the very small minority. i love playing it, but i would never expect to be able to pick up a bass and sound anything other than terrible. this kind of crap happens with every type of game - do fps games make people go on murderous rampages? of course not.
 
It's been pretty slow. All the clients have been home with their families for the holidays, but you know, we still have our regulars...like your dad.

Oh no he didn't.....?!

The games are great for what they are but I would never regard someone that is great at GH as a talented musician.....just sounds pathetic.

I see more potential for new, upcoming bands to introduce their material as downloadable content. It was pretty cool when at my department's Xmas party I picked to play Electric Version by New Pornographers and others wanted to play it too because they genuinely enjoyed the music. It's also crazy to see what happens to people when Beastie Boys is playing.....
 
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