The Rock Band Zeitgeist: Does Anybody Still Care About Plastic Guitars?
The recent Rock Band 4 rumors have turned me into my Dad.
You’d think that being in non-virtual bands would be what would allow me to relate more to my father, since both of my parents played in bands together for many years. My Mom plays keyboards of all forms, from the organ to the piano to the synthesizer. My Dad, on the other hand, is a more “old school” guitarist who’s been known to grumble about kids these days not playing music on real instruments, such as when he saw several chiptune artists hammering away on Game Boys at a nerdcore show at which my own band performed. (We use “real” instruments, but I do play a keytar, so I’m walking a fine line.)
Personally, I think bands made up of two tiny keyboards and a laptop are just as “real” as other bands, and I know from experience that it takes just as much musical skill to compose a good chiptune song as it does to compose a song in any other format. But when it comes to the rumored release of another Rock Band game, I think my Dad might actually have a point. Does the next generation after mine actually give a shit about playing a plastic guitar? Is that something they grew up fantasizing about?
For the record, guitar sales are doing just fine. But if Harmonix wants to sell big with another Rock Band, they need to capture the hearts of current college students, not just my generation.
Rock Band is structured around a really specific fantasy: “let’s be in a band together.” That’s a fantasy that I remember having as a kid, and, eventually, I went ahead and did it. Pretty much everybody else I know has that fantasy, too—even the people who have no interest in learning to play an instrument. I think that dream of performing for a cheering crowd is probably something that unites most people. Even if many people don’t act on that dream, they’ll still enjoy a bit of virtual tourism into that world. But my version of the fantasy is inextricably associated with my perceptions of what a band looks like: Drummer, Bassist, Guitarist, Vocalist, and Maybe-There’s-A-Keyboardist-If-It’s-Rock Band 3.
I’m in a band with a very 1980s line-up in terms of the instruments we play, so I’m clearly a washed-up has-been by any high schooler’s standards. So, I probably shouldn’t be the person advising Harmonix about their Rock Band 4 choices, because I’d probably tell them to put in a banjo or a MIDI pad or something since I have no idea what kids today might enjoy. But even a has-been like me can tell that popular bands today don’t look anything like my favorite Rock Band line-ups. There’s no Iron Maiden, no Joan Jett, and nothing like The Who—and that’s fine! Musicians today have found other cool shit to make their music on. There are a lot more laptops and loops involved. Sometimes even Game Boys.
When I talked the Rock Band 4 rumors over with my drummer tonight, he piped up to say that he felt like those games had always been great teaching tools for drummers—but we both agreed that the games aren’t really about teaching people how to become musicians, much to Harmonix’s disappointment. As the Rock Band games delved closer and closer towards “real” instruments, my non-musician friends seemed to become less and less interested in them—and, I admit, so did I. I can already play the piano, and if I want to learn how to cover a song, there are easier ways to do it than Rock Band … like, uh, sheet music. Sorry, Harmonix.