Last year, for the first time ever, computer and video game sales might have outstripped music and DVD sales combined, helped in large part by games like Guitar Hero: World Tour, Rock Band 2, Wii Music, Rock Revolution, Boogie Star, Pop Star Guitar and Ultimate Band. This has made some in the horny-handed “proper” musician community squeal like stuck pigs. Real rockers who can actually play guitar, like Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger, have complained that games like Guitar Hero are rubbish because they’re not real. And because hitting buttons on a Guitar Hero guitar is a lot easier than learning to play a real guitar. Which is, apparently, really hard. As American rocker you’ve never heard of (and boyfriend of Jennifer Aniston) John Mayer explains: “Guitar Hero was devised to bring the guitar-playing experience to the masses without them having to put anything into it … it makes it easy for untalented people to pretend they are good.” In other words “real” guitarists like Mayer want to keep rock stardom like a sort of medieval guild, where entrance is only granted to those willing to suffer the tedium, frustration and savagely blistered fingers of an arduous apprenticeship – years that could surely be better spent miming songs, dressing up in your mum’s clothes and practising some really cool moves in the mirror.
more from The Guardian here.