I meant to post this last week, but forgot. Do you have the time…to listen to me whine? If so, I’d super appreciate you checking out my review of Green Day: Rock Band for Machinima.com. I enjoyed the game, but wished MTV and Harmonix went with a Guitar Hero: Metallica approach and included artists that influenced the band (Sex Pistols, Ramones, The Clash, etc.). It would have broadened the game’s appeal and made it look less ridiculous following The Beatles: Rock Band.
great writing as usual rpad. I love the line about the haters out there smelling and being dressed by their mama's. I tell people they smell and say their mama. Nothing else added after that, i just say "Yo mama" People are senstitive! All i said was yo mama, and nothing else. oh well.
Good read Ray.
Gotta say, there's something fundamentally wrong with something as commercial as a video game based on a punk band. Seems to really go against the whole point of punk music.
@Nightshade386 A lot of peeps in Berkeley would say that Green Day hasn't been punk in over a decade. Ha!
@Ray: I agree. However, you mentioned in the article bringing the band's influences into the game and having it appeal more to the Punk audience. That was kinda what I was referencing. On the surface it seems contradictory to the whole point of punk.
@ Nightshade
Punk has changed alot since it's birth. Green Day kinda ushered in the pop-punk movement even though that started before them (see The Descendents).
Some punk bands just went against anything popular for the hell of it, while others just did what they did without caring where it went. Popular or not.
The one that always got me was "alternative". When "alternative" went "pop"… it was a total oxymoron.
@Nightshade386 Fair point, but I think a lot of punk fans have grown up to become casual gamers. The mix of old and new would have made for a package with broad appeal.
Nice quick read I even posted a comment there.
@Big Blak Thanks very much for the comment!
@Ray: The funny thing is that I don't disagree with you. I think playing some of those older punk tunes in a RB or GH game would be a lot of fun. But on some level I find it comical due to the very nature of punk music. Go figure.
@ Nightshade
The comical thing about the "punk nature" you speak of, is the fact that it was mainly fabricated for the purpose of selling corporate records.
Malcom McClaren was the manager and creator of the Sex Pistols. They really are the ones that spread that mentality when meanwhile, they were selling records on EMI and merchandising the hell out of themselves. Sid Vicious didn't even really play the bass. He was unplugged while a guy who didn't have the image Sid did played backstage.
Now, several bands have come and gone since supporting the mentality, but only one of them that I can think of really had a chance to shed it and didn't. That would be Minor Threat that became Fugazi. Fugazi is the world's largest independent band, and they don't even label themselves as punk. They label themselves as "post-hardcore". For a while, they labeled themselves as easy listening to screw with the record stores.
Look at Henry Rollins now, for example.
@ Nightshade;
Rule #1:
NOTHING is safe from commercialism in a capitalistic society.
The sooner you learn that fact, the better off you'll be. The two others are:
1. Anything and Everything can be commercialized.
2. Anything that is commercialized cannot be revered or sacred.
Think of these three principles as the capitalistic equivalent to Isaac Newton's laws of gravity.
-M
@ Iceman
I disagree with the "revered and sacred" bit. That's a personal thing. No matter what it is, it can be sacred to an individual.
If a certain song by anyone makes you think of a certain time or certain person that brings you fond memories, it can be sacred to you. No matter what anyone else thinks or does with it.