Rock and Technology, Part 1

Here’s a foregone conclusion for ya: Technology changes the ways in which we create and consume art. For all it’s consumerist flaws, think about, say, art appreciation before cameras, and before presses that could print those photographs. How many of us have made it to the Louvre? How many of us can afford to? Advances in media technology are at their most valuable when exposure to singular masterpieces can be extended to many in an accessible form.

I’m far from an expert in this field, but I have been thinking about technology and music quite a bit lately. There have been so many significant changes to the music industry over the past decade that (I believe) we are on the verge of a major shakeup of the industry.

But I’m not going to talk about that today. Today I’m going to talk about video games.

‘Guitar Hero‘ and the yet-to-be-released ‘Rock Band.’

When I first heard of Guitar Hero, I thought it was a cool idea for people that didn’t already play an instrument, and that it wouldn’t be very popular since you have to buy a special guitar controller to go with it. A few million copies and a sequel later, I was eating my words on the popularity thing, but still didn’t bother trying out the game.

Last weekend, my buddy Piper hosted the second annual Video Game Olympics, where ten to fifteen friends get together and compete in a variety of games, mostly old school so friends of all skill levels can have fun. One of the events this year was Guitar Hero 2, and since both Bill and Kenan had guitars, we could play two players at the same time. Before recording my scores for the competition, I thought I’d at least learn how to play first, so I picked up the mini Gibson Explorer (all the guitars in the game are Gibson or Epiphone) and scrolled through the song list to find a cool track to play.

Here is what I was expecting: 1) lots of crappy new bands with new records coming out and 2) a handful of big hair rock hits with wicked solos. Again I was totally wrong.

This song list is totally awesome. There were only two of those terrible new bands (My Chemical Romance and Avenged Sevenfold). Sure, they have a few predictable tracks, but even then these are songs you would have a blast playing. I mean who doesn’t want to play ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ or ‘Free Bird’? Nearly everything else, however, showed that the developers have equal amounts of rock knowledge and taste, as well as a healthy dose of not-taking-yourself-too-seriously fun. Black Sabbath might be a predictable choice, but ‘War Pigs‘? Inspired. Is there a crazier guitar song than Rush’s ‘YYZ‘? From Maiden’s ‘The Trooper‘ to ‘Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo’ the big classic rock and metal songs are all great choices, and fun to play from beginning to end.

But the list really shines in the less obvious choices. Here are just a few of the totally unexpected, but totally awesome songs:

‘Search and Destroy‘ – Iggy Pop and the Stooges

‘Can’t You Hear Me Knockin” – The Rolling Stones

‘Tattooed Love Boys‘ – The Pretenders

‘Psychobilly Freakout‘ – Reverend Horton Heat

‘Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight‘ – Spinal Tap

My point here is not to shill the game (though it is pretty awesome). The Guitar Hero series has become very popular, and I can’t help thinking about the number of younger people who are going to be exposed to great rock that otherwise wouldn’t have been marketed to them.

It’s rare when songs and bands get second chances after fading once. I’m sure nobody thought too much about Radiohead between their ‘Creep’ success and the release of ‘The Bends.’ Black Sabbath (and Ozzy’s solo career) made a huge comeback after Beavis and Butthead made ‘Iron Man’ into an unlikely hit. These instances are exceedingly rare.

I was listing to a podcast a while back where it was suggested that video game soundtracks could be the new movie soundtracks. There was a time when the soundtracks to films contained well chosen, and many times exclusive songs written for the movie. While this is sort of common in indie films now, I remember big budget movies in the 90s, (The Crow and Singles for example) that had well crafted soundtracks which frequently contained original singles, and charted high on their own. This hardly seems the case now a days, where every music track of a sizable movie is inserted for marketing purposes.

The interaction with the songs brings yet another layer of engagement. Playing one of these games certainly won’t teach you how to play guitar (though it will increase your manual dexterity and rhythm) but it does make you feel like you are playing the song. The game is arranged in such a way that the player does feel like they are playing chords and runs, to the point that the solos are note for note on some of the hardest difficulty levels. Learning to play an instrument increases one’s appreciation of music; the game has a strangely analogous effect.

The team that made Guitar Hero no longer has access to the name (the owner of the name was bought by another company). Bad idea. Even though another company is coming out with Guitar Hero 3, The original developer (Harmonix, a weird collection of computer and music grads from MIT) was quickly snapped up by Mtv’s newish games division. Being the crazy geniuses that they are, Harmonix next game will instantly make Guitar Hero obsolete. ‘Rock Band’ features support for two guitar controllers, a karaoke mic that measures pitch and timbre, and a drum controller, complete with four pads and a kick petal. Unlike the guitars, that drum controller will teach you how to play drums; the mechanics are identical. How awesome will it be to play that with 3 other friends?

They have also outdone themselves with the song list. I mean, they have a Pixies song in there for God’s sake. I can’t wait.

~ by fistfullofcats on September 7, 2007.