It just has to be said. Up to this point lips have been bitten and tongues have been held, because the best position from which to attack something is rarely from one of almost complete ignorance. Yet I hereby proclaim Rock Band and Guitar Hero and any bile of this ilk an illness on society and a carcinogen to the music I love…despite never having played either of them. But then again I’ve never tried climbing into my own penis either, because without even having a go you know it’s a really stupid and bad idea. 

Not that there’s a problem with introducing the music of bands like The Beatles to a generation more accustomed to whatever transient pop clagnut Simon Cowell manages to ease from betwixt the coarse hairs around his arsehole on a Saturday night. On the contrary, The Beatles in their earlier days were to all intents and purposes a pop band and it would be a finer world indeed if cherubic fans of any musical genre were imbued with some kind of knowledge and appreciation of the complex web of origin from whence it came. The main problem with these games is how they cheapen the music thereon by packaging it in a format aimed towards the lowest common denominator: sack-boobed idiots who pluck and press little coloured nipples on horrendous plastic ‘instruments’ in a deplorable effort to convince themselves they are somehow contributing to the music they hear when in fact they contribute to absolutely nothing at all. Ever, in their pointless little lives.  

That people gather in groups to form ‘bands’ to stare transfixed at flashing Hypnotoad conveyor belts of lines and colours whilst gurning with stout concentration and making pathetic tippetty-tap clicky noises is bad enough, but couple this with the fact that these people can look each other in the eye afterwards, having indulged in what can only be described as an air guitar and drum/karaoke communal wank, beggars sensible belief. In saner times playing air-anything was roughly as socially catastrophic as signing the sex-offender’s register, and karaoke was only acceptable if you were (a) drunk, (b) a businessman, and (c) Japanese. Yet these games sell in their droves, meaning bedrooms all over the country have morphed into dingy little Rock Band crack dens where shameless fiends gather in groups to indulge their sickening little penchant free from society’s mournful gaze.  

The worst effect of these games however is that which it has on the music itself; most notably, it’s image. Rock music is cool goddammit, or at least it used to be, and cool it should have forever remained. Those with an appreciation of rock music see themselves as cool too, despite of what they may say. Fashion catastrophes of the highest order are committed by indie scenesters in their late teens and early twenties, cheekily forgiven because, however heinous, the offences are committed with charming naivety by someone who truly believes that they look the hound’s rounds.

This has always been so, and the nature of the garment-crime goes hand in hand with the preferred musical genre of the protagonist. Our kids will now be raised in a world where rock music, instead of being associated with people looking fly, is synonymous with geeks in ‘I drink to make YOU interesting’ T-shirts on X-Boxes, frapping away silently on paedophilic Fisher Price dildos when they should be either doing what normal people used to do alone in their rooms, i.e. shooting aliens and/or Nazis in the fizzog in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, wanking, listening to music or – egads! -  learning to play real instruments. Now the ‘cool’ brigades will desert rock music like rats from a sinking ship, uniting in hairsprayed groups under genres not so easily shat on by imbeciles who have taken rock music and twisted and raped its proud heritage so that from now until forever the word ‘rock’ will take on a new and vulgar definition, like when the first mental image formed with mention of ‘The Beatles’ ceased to be a little black insect rolling a ball of poo across an arid savanna and became four thieving scousers, only in complete reverse. Now ‘rock’ will throw up images of people playing with flimsy plastic toys wasting their lives, and these people will be Mighty Rock’s fanbase. Oh, for shame.      

If you play any of these games you should know that your parents are thoroughly ashamed of you. What would Kurt Cobain have said if he knew that fifteen years after his death his shiny avatar was plastered all over this pubescent, money-spinning guff? Learn to play a real instrument you fools and have some pride for the love of God, you’ll save the reputation of our beloved genre and you may get to have sex again (or, most likely, for the first time) before you die. 

But, hey, like I said, I’ve never played any of these games. And there’s a really good reason for that.  

Posted In Features, Oct 02 2009. Words - Luke