Um pequeno artigo sobre o Guitar Hero publicado na edição online da Mojo Magazine:
"The new generation of music games are sounding a widdly-widdly death knell for rock’n’roll, argues MOJO’s Mick Farren.
SATURATION YULETIDE ADVERTISING has finally convinced me that virtual music games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, in which participants attempt to “play” classic metal solos by following flashing light sequences on guitar-shaped plastic peripherals, pose an even greater threat to the future of rock’n’roll than Simon Cowell.
For confirmation that these games are an unpleasant victory for short-attention commercial exploitation, we need look no further than a South Park episode titled Guitar Queer-o, in which Stan and Kyle become Guitar Hero heroes, and, when Stan’s dad attempts to teach the fourth graders to actually play a real guitar, Cartman scathingly responds that “real guitars are for old people”.
What’s being exploited here is as old as rock’n’roll itself. Few of us have not, at some time in our lives, or perhaps as recently as this morning, played clandestine air guitar or posed in front of a mirror pretending to be Elvis, Jimi, Joe Strummer, or even Joe Satriani. But the global electronic game corporations who have co-opted this youthful narcissism into a competitive game of manual dexterity, with plastic reproductions of Gibsons and Fenders, are having a negative impact on music’s future. OK, so we tolerated Tom Cruise dancing around in his underwear to Bob Seger in Risky Business, but enough is, culturally speaking, enough.
Guitar Hero and Rock Band broaden the perceived gulf between performer and audience by pandering to the most juvenile extremes of rock’n’roll idol worship. Worse than that, they betray the great populist promise of rock’n’roll – which has held good from the days of The Shadows – that any garage band with a set of cheap instruments and perfunctory chops can achieve icon status if it gets the breaks and is sufficiently relentless.
Equally unpleasant is the unseemly rush by many of our current guitar “heroes” to lease their music for inclusion. Among the shameless are Aerosmith, Metallica, Motorhead, AC/DC and the Sex Pistols, while The Beatles and the Jimi Hendrix estate are reportedly ready to deal. Whether or not this is more heinous than flogging one’s songs for TV commercials is open to debate, but the basic absurdity is underscored by the song Thunderhorse by DethKlok – the fictional death metal band from the US TV cartoon show Metalocalypse – being incorporated in Guitar Hero II.
At a time when musical education in schools has become a cause célèbre, the promotion of video games that offer nothing more than a closed loop of virtual experience, devoid of creativity, does nothing to help. A spokesman for the game makers has claimed that they teach “sensitivity to rhythm, as well as develop the dexterity and independent hand usage necessary to play the instrument”, but this seems disingenuous when the games do nothing to impart the real fundamentals of music.
And just to add injury to insult, an outfit called Mad Catz in San Diego, California will retrofit a perfectly good Fender Telecaster, replacing strings, pickups and fretboard with the input controls for Rock Band.
Is nothing sacred?"
Claro que este texto do blogger Mick Farren parece-me bastante exagerado. Vejamos, nunca foi objectivo de ninguém substituir as verdadeiras guitarras por comandos com formas guitarrescas para destronar o Rock do seu lugar cultural. O objetivo de jogos como Guitar Hero e Rock Band continua a ser entreter, pura e simplesmente.
Mas algo me pode estar a escapar. Vejamos, será que a música se resume a tocar coisas dos outros, a seguir os passos ícones Pop com que nos identificamos e possuir certos símbolos de grandiosidade, como uma guitarra Fender ou Gybson? Eu ainda sou daqueles (ou se calhar já sou desses) que considera realmente prazeiroso na música o processo criativo, de fazer algo novo, o privilégio de descobrir algo que soe diferente, de ver expectativas correspondidas... Há um mundo para além da Pop, e é um mundo bonito, com grandes campos cheios de flores bem cheirosas e borboletas esvoaçantes. Qual será a reluntância em encará-lo?
Sem falar, claro, que o Guitar Hero leva boa música a pessoas que nem tinham interesse em procurá-la (assim de repente lembro-me que Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Interpol e Tool aparecem na última edição do jogo).
Tenhamos calma; não é como se cada Guitar Hero ou Rock Band consumidos contribuam para que se comprem menos instrumentos musicais.
"The new generation of music games are sounding a widdly-widdly death knell for rock’n’roll, argues MOJO’s Mick Farren.
SATURATION YULETIDE ADVERTISING has finally convinced me that virtual music games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, in which participants attempt to “play” classic metal solos by following flashing light sequences on guitar-shaped plastic peripherals, pose an even greater threat to the future of rock’n’roll than Simon Cowell.
For confirmation that these games are an unpleasant victory for short-attention commercial exploitation, we need look no further than a South Park episode titled Guitar Queer-o, in which Stan and Kyle become Guitar Hero heroes, and, when Stan’s dad attempts to teach the fourth graders to actually play a real guitar, Cartman scathingly responds that “real guitars are for old people”.
What’s being exploited here is as old as rock’n’roll itself. Few of us have not, at some time in our lives, or perhaps as recently as this morning, played clandestine air guitar or posed in front of a mirror pretending to be Elvis, Jimi, Joe Strummer, or even Joe Satriani. But the global electronic game corporations who have co-opted this youthful narcissism into a competitive game of manual dexterity, with plastic reproductions of Gibsons and Fenders, are having a negative impact on music’s future. OK, so we tolerated Tom Cruise dancing around in his underwear to Bob Seger in Risky Business, but enough is, culturally speaking, enough.
Guitar Hero and Rock Band broaden the perceived gulf between performer and audience by pandering to the most juvenile extremes of rock’n’roll idol worship. Worse than that, they betray the great populist promise of rock’n’roll – which has held good from the days of The Shadows – that any garage band with a set of cheap instruments and perfunctory chops can achieve icon status if it gets the breaks and is sufficiently relentless.
Equally unpleasant is the unseemly rush by many of our current guitar “heroes” to lease their music for inclusion. Among the shameless are Aerosmith, Metallica, Motorhead, AC/DC and the Sex Pistols, while The Beatles and the Jimi Hendrix estate are reportedly ready to deal. Whether or not this is more heinous than flogging one’s songs for TV commercials is open to debate, but the basic absurdity is underscored by the song Thunderhorse by DethKlok – the fictional death metal band from the US TV cartoon show Metalocalypse – being incorporated in Guitar Hero II.
At a time when musical education in schools has become a cause célèbre, the promotion of video games that offer nothing more than a closed loop of virtual experience, devoid of creativity, does nothing to help. A spokesman for the game makers has claimed that they teach “sensitivity to rhythm, as well as develop the dexterity and independent hand usage necessary to play the instrument”, but this seems disingenuous when the games do nothing to impart the real fundamentals of music.
And just to add injury to insult, an outfit called Mad Catz in San Diego, California will retrofit a perfectly good Fender Telecaster, replacing strings, pickups and fretboard with the input controls for Rock Band.
Is nothing sacred?"
Claro que este texto do blogger Mick Farren parece-me bastante exagerado. Vejamos, nunca foi objectivo de ninguém substituir as verdadeiras guitarras por comandos com formas guitarrescas para destronar o Rock do seu lugar cultural. O objetivo de jogos como Guitar Hero e Rock Band continua a ser entreter, pura e simplesmente.
Mas algo me pode estar a escapar. Vejamos, será que a música se resume a tocar coisas dos outros, a seguir os passos ícones Pop com que nos identificamos e possuir certos símbolos de grandiosidade, como uma guitarra Fender ou Gybson? Eu ainda sou daqueles (ou se calhar já sou desses) que considera realmente prazeiroso na música o processo criativo, de fazer algo novo, o privilégio de descobrir algo que soe diferente, de ver expectativas correspondidas... Há um mundo para além da Pop, e é um mundo bonito, com grandes campos cheios de flores bem cheirosas e borboletas esvoaçantes. Qual será a reluntância em encará-lo?
Sem falar, claro, que o Guitar Hero leva boa música a pessoas que nem tinham interesse em procurá-la (assim de repente lembro-me que Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Interpol e Tool aparecem na última edição do jogo).
Tenhamos calma; não é como se cada Guitar Hero ou Rock Band consumidos contribuam para que se comprem menos instrumentos musicais.
3 comentários:
Acho saudável quando se lê um artigo de opinião e se discute em vez de se o engolir logo à partida. Concordo contigo, vejo mais vantagens neste tipo de jogos do que desvantagens.
E eu que estou prestes a adquirir um Guitar Hero...
Enfim, esta gente às vezes toma posições algo incompreensíveis. Ele põe ao mesmo nível criação e reprodução... Às vezes convém lembrar que não só para a arte tem de haver espaço como também para o entretenimento
nunca se engole nada sem se mastigar primeiro ^^ a opinião desse tipo é demasiadamente radical. Se eu o conhecesse, perguntava-lhe quem é que lhe pagou para dizer essas coisas.
Acho que mais do reconhecer espaços para arte e entretenimento, é necessário reconhecer que ambos fazem parte da vida quotidiano do homem e que não devem ser vistos como esferas separadas - muito menos como opostas. Mas esta opinião já entra muito na pessoalidade.
De qualquer forma, é um jogo fantástico se pensares que podes, por exemplo, pôr o teu irmão mais novo a apreciar aquilo que os Metallica fizeram há uns anos e admirar o génio de um Tom Morello, por exemplo.
Enviar um comentário