While My Guitar Gently Beeps 140
theodp writes "As the world prepares to meet the Beatles all over again on 9-9-9, the NY Times Magazine takes a look at the making of The Beatles: Rock Band, and asks a Fab Four tribute band to take the game for a test drive. (Not surprisingly, they fare well.) 'As huge as Guitar Hero and Rock Band have been over the past few years,' says Harmonix Music Systems co-founder Alex Rigopulos, 'I still think we're on the shy side of the chasm because the Beatles have a reach and power that transcends any other band.' The Beatles: Rock Band follows the group's career from Liverpool to the concert on the roof of Apple Corps in London in 1969 (trailer). The first half of the game recreates famous live performances; the second half weaves psychedelic dreamscapes around animations of the Beatles recording in Studio Two. 45 songs deemed the most fun to play, rather than the band's most iconic numbers, come with the game."
Paranoid about control (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article:
> Apple's preoccupation with security meant that the high-quality audio "stems" he created never left Abbey Road.
> If the separated parts leaked out, every amateur D.J. would start lacing mixes with unauthorized Beatles samples.
> Instead, Martin created low-fidelity copies imprinted with static for the Harmonix team to take back to the States -- in their carry-on luggage.
And why would that be such a terribly bad thing? It's exactly this kind of gone-out-of-control control-thinking that makes me respect the idea of copyright less and less. I believe that trying to 'make a quick buck' from the work of others is unethical. But creatively extending someone else's work is art.
On a unrelated note: Has someone already managed to rip the individual tracks off the Guitar Hero / Rock Band games? I assume they're not just simply there as .wav files on the CD :-)
Big news... (Score:5, Insightful)
The most newsworthy part of this article from a Slashdot perspective isn't that Rock Band Beatles is coming out. We already knew that.
It's that the New York TImes, the old grey lady, published a *nine page* video game review.
Re:Paranoid about control (Score:5, Insightful)
The ironic part is that this thinking is exactly what copyright was supposed to combat. Before the days of copyright, playwriters had bodyguards for the scripts they passed out to their actors because they feared if they took it home it could be copied. Opera composers went out of their way to make sure their new libretti were not heard before the big premiere (there's stories of opera singers practicing on boats on the sea so nobody could hear them).
And now we're there again. Content creators going to lenths and putting people through hardships as if copyright didn't exist. Forcing performers and audience alike to jump through hoops and swallow poor quality in an attempt to protect their precious works.
Why again did we have copyright in the first place?
Re:Beatles and their drug use (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't need to see that they were permanently on drugs, you can pretty much hear it in lots of their songs.
Re:Beatles and their drug use (Score:5, Insightful)
"See I think drugs have done some good things for us. If you don't think drugs have done good things for us then do me a favor. Go home tonight and take all of your records,tapes and all your CD's and burn them. Because, you know all those musicians who made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years? Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreal fucking high on drugs, man."
- Bill Hicks
Re:I find beatles music increidbly boring (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, today that's easy listening. At least some of their songs, if not most, are mainstream vanilla pop. But that was new back then. They created a style that wasn't heard before, that was new and rebellious, their music, their style, their everything. You have to understand that in those days, even this rather tame beat was rebellious and quite suitable to drive your parents nuts. More than Marilyn Manson could today.
This reminds me of how I was talking with a friend about Black Sabbath. My dad came in the room and said, "Man, Black Sabbath, back in my day those guys were OUT THERE. My teachers said their music would rot your brain". And it made me laugh because I could totally see their music being totally strange back when they first started, but now their music is the norm because everyone is influenced by them.
Re:What is even the point.... (Score:2, Insightful)
By cracky, you may be on to something there. You find something "fun" or "not fun". Perhaps if game companies produced a wide range of games, so that they would have a broader base of games that people find "fun", they would sell more games overall.
Why, it will be revolutionary! Imagine, not all games would be Rock Band! You might have games based upon the American version of football, or simulations of science-fiction warfare against alien races, or dare I hope... games wherein a stocky Italian water and sewage maintenance worker solves a variety of problems for his viewed from afar love, a lovelorn scion of royalty.
Re:I find beatles music increidbly boring (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What is even the point.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps xkcd will explain better than me: http://xkcd.com/359/ [xkcd.com]
Also, your description of how to play is somewhat inaccurate.
Re:Paranoid about control (Score:2, Insightful)
Before the days of copyright, playwriters had bodyguards for the scripts they passed out to their actors because they feared if they took it home it could be copied....Content creators going to lenths and putting people through hardships as if copyright didn't exist. Forcing performers and audience alike to jump through hoops and swallow poor quality in an attempt to protect their precious works.
What's ironic? Your point seems to be that before the existence of copyrights, artists would sometimes protect their work with literal brute force. You then go on to imply that modern artists are somehow acting unreasonably by utilizing the copyright method for protecting their work (as if this is worse or equivalent to the body guards). Furthermore, you imply that people are having to endure "hardships" and are being asked to "jump through hoops" to access the art produced, which seems just ridiculous.
You want a Beatles song to listen to? Go buy it and listen....no hardship....no hoop to jump, and listen all you want. I think it's unfair to imply that any artist should be forced to allow his work to be used by anyone at any time in whatever way they deem necessary including ways that profit the person(s) doing the re-interpreting/re-imagining of the art. I understand people wanting something for free, and believe me, as an artist I do see the artistic value that comes out of re-interpreting music. However, to make the implication that ALL the work by ANY artist should just be allowed to be used however one pleases is very unreasonable. If it weren't, couldn't I just use the Mona Lisa for my Trademark? How about my favicon? Can I print it on T-Shirts and sell it? Can I change Holden Caufield's name to something else, and then sell my new interpretation of "The Catcher in the Rye"? No? Then why is it so different for music?
Re:Paranoid about control (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it's unfair to imply that any artist should be forced to allow his work to be used by anyone at any time in whatever way they deem necessary including ways that profit the person(s) doing the re-interpreting/re-imagining of the art.
If the music should be in the public domain, as the early works of the Beatles should be by now, then it's totally fair that the artist should be "forced" to "allow" his work to be used in any way imaginable.
If the artist wanted to control his work forever, he should have kept it in a little trunk in his attic.
Re:Paranoid about control (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't want your ideas to be extended, you probably should keep them to yourself.
You have no inherent right to it once it's out in the open. You have no right to forbid people to sing your song (very badly and out of tune and very loud) in their car or in the shower. You have no right to forbid other musicians to play your songs in their garage.
If someone else thinks your music is good enough to be re-interpreted, you should be *proud*. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Also, it will serve to *increase* the popularity of the original material.
The idea behind copyright is that you can make enough money from it to support yourself, your family and whatever your favorite pasttime is (e.g. save the rain forests or maybe cocaine and hookers). That's a good thing. But lately, it's been more and more twisted and corrupted by greedy people. It's about exercising a ridiculous amount of control over the material. That has to end.
Re:What is even the point.... (Score:1, Insightful)
I agree - music rhythm games are not "games" in the sense of game theory. BUT they are still valuable. What everybody seems to miss is what the actual value is.
Music rhythm games are training to be a musician and to appreciate music.
You will not find actual musicians (meaning somewhat trained, able to count a steady beat, knowledge of time signatures, reading sheet music helps too) who are BAD at these games. When they first start of course, reflexes need to be trained to line up the symbols, but suddenly for musicians it "clicks" and within a month they're nailing 9-foot songs on DDR. Within three days or less they're doing "hard" mode on Guitar Hero.
It also works the other way around. Given two potential newbie bass players for my band, one who is an awesome DDR player but has not touched an instrument since middle school band class, and the other who is "self-trained" at dicking around on a guitar and can cover a couple of songs but can't count a beat by himself, I will pick the DDR player, and he will have an easy time learning how to play bass.
We're actually sort of facing this problem at the moment - we have a new bass player who has been in and out of bands for 9 years... but he can't hold the timing for a long rhythm in his head. We've been talking about trying to get him to play DDR and maybe it'll help.