If I was Eddie Vedder, Would I Like It Any Better? (A Music Game Thread)
I was trying to write an article and ended up writing a blog entry. I don't post crap like this in my blog so I decided to post it here.
I have been diving back into Rock Band, lately. The recent released song packs have been irresistible; especially since the downloadable songs always seem to be more interesting on average than their original in game counterparts. But, eventually the newness of the recent songs wears off and I find myself playing the same few staples I've learned to love in the game. The stand out being Reptillia by The Strokes.
I love to play Reptillia on my little plastic Les Paul. I've probably played it a hundred times. In fact, I've played it so much that some of the song has committed itself into my memory, leaving the TV as a safety net rather than a required map of the song. So, as I was jumping around playing some parts from memory, it occurred to me that if some of the song can be remembered naturally, then it shouldn't be that hard to practice a little and get the rest of the tune firmly in my grey matter.
This new layer of challenge was exciting. I love learning complex, static systems. The colored notes to a song aren't that much different than learning a certain track in a racing game, or the finishing moves in Mortal Kombat. Hell, it's not even too far gone from learning the actual tabs to the actual song.
So, I began. Practice mode over and over again. Watching, Learning, turning my back to the TV and repeating. I still don't have all of it, but after just a few rounds of practice about 75% of that song was scrolling in my head instead of on the screen.
I felt like I had achieved something new, and was excited at the prospect of learning the rest of the song, then as many others as I could manage.
Then, a couple days later I was driving to the store, and I made a grim discovery.
When I drive places I tend to listen to my Zune, even if the trip is going to be a couple minutes. Well, that particular day I was listening to an album called Room On Fire. This album is by The Strokes. This album has Reptillia on it.
This album used to be a fun, upbeat, but mostly benign listening experience. Now, there is a point, randomized by bless'd technology, where this album triggers colorful scrolling images in my brain totally out of my control. Reptillia has become something akin to a CIA "kill word" for me, and I'm not really sure how thrilled I am about it.
When Pearl Jam released it's album Ten, part of it's amazing success was due to the music videos that accompanied it's release. Jeremy being the big one. But, whenever the band's next album, Vs., was released the band opted out of any music videos. Bassist Jeff Ament said "Ten years from now I don't want people to remember our songs as videos."
Ok, that's fair, but what about quickly falling colored blocks that explode to the beat of the song? Is that cool? Because that's the alternative you all chose, whether you like it or not.
The more I learn these songs and enjoy them in Rock Band, or Guitar Hero, the more I associate the music with the patterns in the game. This isn't another person's creative interpretation of a band's music like a man running down the street on fire, or a high school gym filled with rioting teenagers, or a series of Shirly Manson panty shots.
Hmm.
What?
Oh!
No, This is the systematic simplification of art. This is breaking music down to the complexity of the answer sheet to a high school exit exam. And, when you couple those simple patterns with music, you create the ultimate memorization tool. A mnemonic device to remember the device's own mnemonics.
I've already decided to take it easy on the Weezer songs, and Nirvana, and Queens of the Stone Age, which sucks because it's more fun to play the songs I really like. But, playing the songs I like attaches the stock image of the Rock Band bars to each note, so that when I'm trying to enjoy the album for just the album, that's all I can see in my head.
Maybe it's time to hang it up. I'm not sure.
My biggest body of convincing evidence is when I listen to Reptillia now and realize that that song is just gone. I still like it, but it's become a level to me. A mini-boss. Not something I can really pull inspiration from or experience in any kind of non-superficial way.
When I first heard about Guitar Hero there was something mildly unsettling about watching the songs transformed into something in the same family as DDR, but then I was seduced by the fun of it. I dismissed my previous feelings as "snobbish" from a music enthusiast who has been part of one and a half failed bands and has about as much musical talent as a tin can in a rain storm.
After really experiencing Guitar Hero and Rock Band, sometimes for hours on end, I think I've almost come full circle. I still love playing the game, and I still love listening to music, but the reconciliation is becoming an issue. One that might not even be possible to resolve.
Chiggie, you are crazy.
Tho I'm not sure if it's lovable crazy or Ill shoot you all someday f*ckers crazy.
The man wears a bucket of KFC on his head. I wouldn't expect anything less. - Pred
Can't it be both?
Oh.
I guess it can't
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This is awesome.
Pistols for two and coffee for one.
Gamertag
Sorry couldn't concentrate after this, needed to hit Google.
Seriously though, very interesting read. I haven't played Rock Band (still not released here) but I find that playing a song in Guitar Hero gives me a very different appreciation for a song.
For me the big standout is Ruby by the Kaiser Chiefs, I like the band, but not the song, yet since 5 starring it in GH3 when I hear it on the radio I hear far more in the song and appreciate it more. I try not to play any song so often though that it compromises my enjoyment of the song, particularly of one that I like.
kuddles wrote:
I'm lucky to not have this problem. I like rock and some metal, but I'm mostly a country fan. Most of the songs in GH and GH2 aren't in my iPod, and a large percentage of them I'd never even heard of before. (What is this song "Institutionalized" and why do I have such a strong urge to slap the singer?)
If they ever release Banjo Hero, I might be in trouble when it comes to seperating the game from the music (though it might still be fun, since I can actually play the banjo). But until then, I don't have to worry about my enjoyment of a song being corrupted by the fever bar.
I will admit, though, that "Bark at the Moon" went from being a song I sorta kinda liked from the GTA: Vice City soundtrack to a song that I now can't help but start moving my hand to push the "fret" buttons whenever I hear it. The meedlies on that song are fun, provided you don't mash the trembolos too hard.
L337 is not a word. BA7F is a word.
There are songs that I either missed or ignored in my youth (or Old Age) that gained newfound appreciation because of Guitar Hero or Rock Band. Songs like Heart Full of Black, Ace of Spades, Cowboys from Hell, Carry Me Home, Beast and the Harlot, Can't You Hear Me Knockin', The Number of the Beast, Maps, Reptilia, or Wave of Mutilation.
There's other songs that GH/RB has caused me to enjoy all over again or even more than I did in the past, like Won't Get Fooled Again, Crossroads, Jessica, Anything by Boston, Sweet Child o Mine (used to be my least favorite GnR hit).
Then there's stuff that I would've never heard, if not for GH/RB, like Even Rats. Actually, I've played Even Rats so much that I get the chart-in-the-head thing too. It just doesn't bug me because that's how I was introduced to the song.
I'm thinking it's just you, Chiggie.
Psychotic Foreign Teenage Chicks are so hot. - Legion
I find it ironic anytime a healthy vaccinated person bitches about science...on the internet. - MaverickDago
Oh, come now. It can't just be me. There has got to be people out there that take music seriously and still play video games.
I am not the only slacker in the world. I've seen others. At least, I think they were slackers. I didn't, like, go over and introduce myself or anything.
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Maybe I'm just lucky that type of learning never appealed to me. I love playing Story of My Life, and probably could play it by memory. The only times I screw up are when I'm too into rocking out and singing along to remember to hit the next note.
I'd say you and I remain very different people, Chiggie.
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I played RB for the first time at the RTP S&T. I've been contemplating finally breaking down and getting a console in order to play it, but you've made me question whether or not I want to take that step for RB/GH. I'll see the patterns too, I won't be able to help it and I'm not sure I want to do that.
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I would try to borrow it from someone, system and all if you can, or rent it.
Don't get me wrong, I still love playing Rock Band AND Guitar Hero. Hence the dilemma. If it wasn't a big deal to just walk away from it I would have just done that and never bothered with the post.
It's the question of compromising perceived integrity for another added level of enjoyment that possibly destroys the original levels.
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I also want to echo the sentiment that music games can be a great place to discover new music. A lot of the bonus tracks from GH3 were bands that I hadn't heard before, but I loved them, and loved playing them.
I still listen to Priestess on a regular basis just because "Lay Down" was in GH3. In that sense I figure your perception of the music is with the game in the first place, so no loss there.
I almost wish the entirety of these games were made up of music I'd never heard.
I practically own every song in Rock Band. That gets confusing.
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But all he wants is a Pepsi? Come on!
Man, I loved that song. It's one of the big events that introduced me to this whole other world of music that was hiding in the background.
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My wife won't let me have Guitar Hero or Rock Band.
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I don't think I understand how enjoying Rock Band compromises your integrity. What I was trying to say earlier was that playing songs you already know in the game only enhances your enjoyment and sometimes even your appreciation for the music. Or at least for me it does. There's little riffs in some songs that I used to just pass over. I hear them all the time now. It's analogous to listening to music while stoned, in some respects.
Psychotic Foreign Teenage Chicks are so hot. - Legion
I find it ironic anytime a healthy vaccinated person bitches about science...on the internet. - MaverickDago
I'm not saying it compromises your integrity as a person, I'm saying that it compromises the integrity of the song. And I do mean compromise, because I don't like Reptillia any less than I used to. I couldn't practice a song I hated over and over again.
I'm saying that I enjoy it in a completely different way now, and that I fear that I may never be able to look at it like I used to when it was just a song and I could attach all my own meaning to it.
When I'm laying in the dark listening to music, each song is like it's own little story. The playlist a novel of images and feelings and emotion. I'm just afraid that the more the Rock Band playlist incorporates my own musical tastes, it's going to transform the rich imaginary tapestry into a series of chads.
Excuse me, chad. I heard the plural of chad was chad.
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Whoa. Hey, you take crazy talk that into one of those obnoxious wordsmythe threads and leave us alone out here in the real GWJ.
The democratization of the web ... has installed an illusion of a digital first amendment that protects speech no matter how poorly spelled or stupid. - Elysium
Wordsmythe is my hero. - rabbit
XBL: E Munnie
Welcome to that thing I care about. You all have been wondering, and now you know.
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Ah. I understand what you're saying now.
Psychotic Foreign Teenage Chicks are so hot. - Legion
I find it ironic anytime a healthy vaccinated person bitches about science...on the internet. - MaverickDago
Ha, I feel the same way about music games. Playing Cult of Personality 3 times a day really killed it.
I can understand the motivation behind this confession. I've never played a Guitar Hero or Rock Band game (beyond one small demo kiosk demo at a Best Buy) because of a similar thing; what if they had a song I loved/cherished in the track list? I have a very ritualistic view of music that I like; I have 'listening room' albums, albums that I only listen to all of the way through, with no distractions, under darkness, under candlelight, under certain conditions of mood and timing. Neutral Milk Hotel: In the Aeroplane over the Sea is one such album. If a song from the album comes on the radio I will immediately change it to a different station. My girlfriend doesn't really seem to understand this; 'Why don't you want to hear this song?! You love this album!' I love this album in the right time, in the right place, and only then will I set it free. So yes, I can empathize with the the trepidation Dr. Chiggenstein feels.
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But does it compromise your enjoyment, or does it expand it? You say you don't enjoy the song any less.
A similar thing happened to me when I learned to play guitar. Songs that had been so mysterious to me were suddenly like windows I could see through. In a way GH/RB is similar, yet even more accessible than the 2 hours a day and RSI risk that learning the actual instrument to a proficient level entails.
kuddles wrote:
See, I used to learn the tab charts to songs I liked when I had an acoustic guitar many moons ago, but it takes so damn long (especially with no lessons whatsoever) that it's not the same thing.
Compared to tab charts with 6 strings and 14 frets to worry about, RB/GH is about as complicated as "Baby's First ABC Book." So, it's naturally easier to remember. It's like in the Matrix when they force information right into your brain.
After thinking about it for a while and playing Rock Band a lot more, I've decided just to lighten up about it. I've got almost 3000 songs in my mp3 collection and that number grows daily. So even best case scenario how many of those songs are going to be in Rock Band? 2%? 1%?
So, if those songs get associated with colored blocks then so be it. It's not like they're putting Zeppelin or Bad Company in there. I think, musically, I'll be ok.
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Oh man how I wish they would.
Fedaykin98 wrote:
Could you imagine doing the Battle of Evermore at a party and people kind of looking at each other like, "what the f*ck?"
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If you've ever heard the BF2142 Goodjer rendition of Immigrant Song on Ventrilo, you truly have known heaven.
Fedaykin98 wrote:
Stopping my attempts to intentionally memorize a song has really helped with this little problem. I'm back to just playing casually and enjoying the songs I can play, and not caring about the ones I can't (the little meedily parts kick my ass).
I'm still playing Rock Band and still listening to music and just dealing with the colored bars that appear when I close my eyes.
I'm also trying out this new thing where I try not to be so bat-sh*t insane all the time.
f*ck it, right?
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It's like I don't even know you anymore.
Fedaykin98 wrote:
Hey, I said try. We both know my laziness, plus previously established insanity will win out in the end.
Aw, I made myself sad.
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I finally played Rock Band (never played GH either) for the first time the other night. What struck me was how it affected all the music I am listening to. I'm listening to my ipod, and even though they are not RB songs, I find myself thinking about how it would be to play them.
So now I am on the prowl for GHII, and I plan to work my way up to RB.
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Here's the thing about GH versus RB. Rock Band has much more of a sense that you are playing the notes that you hear. Guitar Hero (especially GH3) feels more like you are doing an action to the music, instead of doing and action that's making the music.
Guitar Hero is more of a game in that it doesn't have a lot of song where you sit there for 5-10 seconds at a time. All the songs are guitar heavy and some have even been modified a little to be more guitar heavy (the Freezepop songs for example).
Both are good experiences, but I think music lovers would tend to like RB more, where people who are more gamers than anything else would tend to like Guitar Hero more.
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