The Dord of Darien

Legends of Rock my ass

Guitar Hero III contains quite a lot of songs by quite a lot of bands, many of which are deserving of the title "Legends of Rock." But then it also has a lot of songs by a lot of bands that it’s nothing shy of perverse to call Legends of a goddamn thing. Since this pisses me off, let’s talk about them. I’m just discussing the ones in the single-player career mode, here; the bonus songs are so wildly variable and such odd stuff that I’m thinking nobody ever meant to call those Legends.

The Killers – They released a b-sides/outtakes collection after only two studio albums. Fuck them.

AFI – Come on. "Davey Havok" is probably the worst tough-guy stage name a musician’s ever adopted. It always makes me think of what we’d get if Davy Jones and that guy from the X-men adopted a really stupid kid. That notwithstanding, AFI’s never released a song worth hearing, and Miss Murder (the cut in GH3) only barely manages to scrape past normal-bad into hysterically-bad by virtue of the unbelievably lame breakdown two-thirds of the way through the song. Come on, AFI. Either get a lot better or a little bit worse and you’d be a lot less objectionable.

Priestess – Who?

Weezer – I – what? Weezer? Calling Weezer either legends or rock is a fucking stretch. Okay, great, you thought Pinkerton was badass when you were twelve. You probably also liked Eureeka’s Castle when you were twelve, and that’s not a legend of rock either. I’ll grant that the Sweater Song was probably the funniest "intended to be serious" song I’d heard up to that time, but that’s not screaming "rock" either. Oh, and they chose the dull, lugubrious "My Name is Jonas" instead for GH3, so we don’t even get that.

The Smashing Pumpkins – Come on. Billy Corgan may have been the only man in history with the balls to make a band consisting of him playing every single instrument and yet give it an explicitly plural name, but that doesn’t mean they were any good. I had in fact forgotten all about the Smashing Pumpkins until this game came out. I’m willing to bet I’m not the only one.

Tenacious D – Hey, when I’m a movie star, I’m going to start a terrible vanity band and release a bunch of stupid "ironic" songs too. Maybe a whole bunch of tin-eared nerds will call me a legend of rock!

Stevie Ray Vaughan – Far be it from me to talk shit about Stevie Ray. I’m just thinking, you know, maybe he’d better for Guitar Hero IV: Legends of Electric Blues. Since, you know, that’s what he played and all.

Slipknot – Well, they’re better than Trapt or Staind or Linkin Park, and they spelled their name right for God’s sake, but that doesn’t mean rap-metal is worth ten damn cents now or ever was before or ever will be in the future.

Disturbed – See above.

Queens of the Stone Age – This is the sort of band that says shit like "We want sex to bleed into the music. At our shows, we want to see half boys and half girls in a utopian world, dancing and drinking." So they’re pretentious idiots, they use words they don’t completely understand, and they don’t seem to understand that if they want sex in their music they need to goddamn put it there themselves. Personally, I think they should put some sex in their music. Or some violence. Or maybe some jokes, because, frankly, guys, you put me to sleep. But seriously, check out some of the amazingly lame things Joshua Homme has said. It’s incredible.

Muse – If you’re getting the impression that I have to struggle to tolerate level seven, you’re not wrong. And who the hell decided to put Muse in here? We’re trying to forget about Muse, Neversoft or Red Octane or whoever. At least they picked Knights of Cydonia. Not that it’s any good, mind; it’s just that I can distract myself from listening to the song by imagining the scenes from the hypothetical Tim Burton western it was evidently created for.

January 9th, 2008 Posted by Darien | Games | 9 comments