Bitching Musicians

I’ve been called a lot of names when I was growing up, and today I’m going to add one more to the list: Judas. To be fair, I totally deserve it, but just because I happen to belong to both groups involved in this debate, and I’ll have to betray one of them. You’d never think people could be this petty, but it’s time to inject some rationality and common sense into the Guitar Hero debate.
This jumped off the “really stupid internet forum” list and into the real world after I talked to a real musician about it while I was in the recording studio. To be honest, I don’t know if this person was taking any of the marijuana being passed around, but I’m going to operate under the assumption that he wasn’t, because a lot of people have the same argument and I can’t assume that they’re all high. This person I spoke with had a problem with the popular Guitar Hero games because he felt, as others have felt, that if you want to play guitar, you should pick up a real guitar and do it for real. I could also detect some resentment because the game, in his mind, cheapened the art form by bringing it down to the layperson level.

This has been debated ad nauseam online, so I’ll keep it brief, but this argument is absolutely ludicrous and smells of the sort of fear that comes your job can be done by computers. We all know somebody who’s lost his or her job because a machine can do it better, and with Guitar Hero, the same feeling is felt by musicians. Here we have a talent, which had previously separated a group of people from the masses, now become trivialized to the point where anyone in a bar can pick up a plastic controller and play “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.” I can understand how pissed they’d be. If a computer were able to spit out political and social ramblings as well as find YouTube videos of Rube Goldberg machines in Halo 3, I’d be left out in the cold and feeling pretty sore about it. But with Guitar Hero, it’s a slightly different story.

It may be true that Guitar Hero trivializes music by bringing it down to the Average Joe with no talent. But honestly, it does so to an even less degree than the Punk movement! As much as I hate them, Blink-182 can come up with their own two/three chord compositions and make a hit record out of it. You’ll never see someone at Bob Dick’s Sports Bar pick up that little plastic Les Paul and turn it into a hit record. It is physically impossible. All those people know are the joys of getting on stage in front of people and playing cover tunes, which isn’t a bad thing. There is a difference between being a musician and being a live performer. They’re not mutually exclusive, but also not mutually compatible either.

This then leads to the idea of “Well, these people in front of a crowd now think they’re as good as any one of us!” Again, untrue. A Guitar Hero show may be just as entertaining as a live performance from your favorite club band, but that’s as far as it’ll ever go. And again, I think people know the difference between a 250 lbs construction worker playing a video game and The Cure. If, for some reason, someone gets too big an ego, all they have to do is pick up a real guitar and realize how different the two are. As one who enjoys both, I can tell you that there are two different skills to play Guitar Hero and play guitar. Playing real guitar requires finger dexterity, finesse, memorization, and a versitile picking hand. Playing Guitar Hero requires finger dexterity and the ability to sight-read, or read a series of notes as they come at you in real time. I can, and will, say that someone who has trained on Guitar Hero, even as an expert, will become a complete novice when picking up the real guitar and trying to wail.

That is the one thing that musicians will always have over the wanna-be’s. Music comes from the heart, and requires an ear and a talent for it. I am living proof that unless you know what you’re doing, you won’t be able to write a decent song. Talent the size of Eric Clapton or Jimmy Page or even Dave Grohl doesn’t spring up overnight. That is why musicians will always have a place. On the flip side, borrowing a lyric from Bad Company, “it’s a part of my rock & roll fantasy.” We all want to be rock stars, but don’t have the ability to be rock stars. Games like Guitar Hero, and for a fuller experience, Rock Band, allow people to live out their fantasies and have some fun, which is all it is to all those people playing these games: fun.

So to all the musicians out there with a stick up their ass about these games, quit your bitching. Trust me, your jobs are safe.

REVIEW: Rock Band

I’m not writing this one because I used to work with MTV or because I’m a music nut. I’ve been intrigued by Rock Band ever since I saw a live demo at E3. The game has been championed as “Guitar Hero for the whole band” and was even developed by the company responsible for the first Guitar Hero. First looks have been promising, and the multiplayer aspect hinted at a party game that could blow Guitar Hero right out of the water. However, the game is not available with individual parts, meaning that a total rock experience will set you back about 180 bucks until early 2008. Is it worth the green?

The answer is yes, plain and simple. Rock Band offers an experience unlike anything Guitar Hero has to offer, namely, drums and a microphone. It may not seem like much, especially not for a hundred dollars in difference between Rock Band and Guitar Hero III. But playing Rock Band is a joy since the new peripherals add a new level of skill. Unlike the Guitar Hero controllers, which at time may feel like a controller, the drums feel like real drums, and there’s no way to fake using the microphone. In order to get the big points, you have to sing, which was the real fun for me. There may be a few songs in Guitar Hero that’d I’d get into and really rock out on, but with singing in Rock Band lets out the frontman in everybody. But the guitar isn’t forgotten. The new Fender Stratocaster model is larger than the Gibson models, and feels more like a real guitar around your shoulders. The buttons are the same color as the fretboard, which the guitarist in me appreciates, but it may lose some people not accustomed to Guitar Hero. Also, the guitar offers a 5-way toggle switch for adding effects to the solos, which can now be played on the upper fret buttons for easier shredding.

The big draw to these kind of games are the songs you can play. As the name implies, these are great songs for a band to play, ranging from “Don’t Fear the Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult to “Green Grass and High Tides” by the Outlaws to “Say it Ain’t So” by Weezer. Most of the songs are originals, with covers being the rare exception to the rule. If you’ve never heard the song before, you’re in a tight spot, but the game offers a practice mode, so you can squeak like a 13-year-old boy in the privacy of your own home. And with downloadable content available on Xbox Live or the Playstation Network, the song list can continuously grow. (MTV has even hinted at offering entire album downloads, such as Who’s Next by the Who.)

Technically, the game is pretty much the same as games that came before it, but with a few unique modifications. On the superficial side, the dots in Guitar Hero are replaced with bars. The real innovation comes with Overdrive (the Rock Band equivalent of Star Power). One of the things I hated with Guitar Hero was that activating Star Power caused the on-screen fretboard to jump, which increased your chances of hitting a bad note. With Rock Band, the transition into Overdrive is smooth and almost unnoticeable. And unlike Guitar Hero, you can continue to keep Overdrive up by hitting the charged notes during your Overdrive session. Vocals are just like Singstar or other vocal simulators, with Expert performances being very, very unforgiving (think Simon Cowell after a cold shower).

While I’ve been touting the advantages of multiplayer, I will confess that I haven’t jumped online much (read: at all.) But I have played with a group of people at the MTV store, making an idiot out of myself by singing, and that’s where Rock Band excels. The true joy of the game is rocking out with a bunch of your friends, pretending like you’re Aerosmith even though your talent is similar to Air Supply. Players get three strikes (i.e. two “fails” before you are out completely) and failed players can be brought back into the game with another going into Overdrive. So yes, it’s possible for a guitar player to carry an entire band (even though Van Halen proved that.)

Even though Rock Band is a hell of a lot of fun, there are a few drawbacks. First of all, if you have an HDTV, like yours truly, you may have to calibrate your system in order to eliminate any lag, and calibration is a bitch. I’ve had the game for over a month, and my drum system still is a bit off. As you’ve probably guessed, that really puts a wet towel on the rockage. Also, the drums make a little bit of noise. In fact, a lot of noise, so much so that you’ll have to turn the volume on the TV up just to compensate. Personally, it makes my neighbors hate me more than my habit of listening to porn at obnoxiously loud levels. (Don’t ask…) However, many internet forums have found out a solution for that. The other problem comes with the guitar. To be blunt, I hate the strumbar. It feels great when you hold on to it, but to actually use it is like trying to manually bend a hockey stick. It’s certainly useable, but it actually makes you long for the old Guitar Hero controllers.

Final Verdict: 4 “Hello Cleveland!”s out of 5

This comes with an addendum. If you want to get more into multiplayer, then Rock Band is certainly your game. If you think you’ll be spending more time in singleplayer more, then I’d seriously look into Guitar Hero III, unless you really want to sing or play the drums, and even then, I’d wait until the individual peripherals come out. But for my money, this is a step above the usual fare, and a great game worth every penny you may pump into it.