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Rock Band vs. Real BandSleater-Kinney's guitarist tests out the new video game Rock Band.

By Carrie Brownstein
Posted Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2007, at 3:07 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

Here, then, are the differences I have surmised between a Rock Band and a real band:

Setting up your gear

Rock Band: Easy. Pick up your feather-light instruments and plug them into your Xbox with a USB cable that you should know how to use even if you've never seen a computer.

Real band: Easier. Especially if a roadie does it for you. Or insanely more difficult if you are your own roadie and you have a fused vertebrae or slipped disc from schlepping your gear across the country.

The playing experience

Rock Band: Tetris meets Simon meets karaoke. You need to have hand-eye coordination and be moderately literate (if you are the singer). There are no monitor mixes to fuss with, and your sound is consistent. Actually, your sound never changes, which kind of gets old. However, if your band messes up, you are mercifully and magically removed from the gig and you get to start over.

Real band: It's hard to beat the visceral high of playing live and creating something spontaneous. But if your band is having an off night, you still have to stand there in front of a crowd and finish the set.

The band dynamic

Rock Band: Volatile. Skill levels can vary, and though each player can select his or her own level, it's frustrating to get stopped in the middle of a song due to someone else's screwup. You do get three chances to bring a player back from the dead, which, sadly, doesn't happen in real life.

Real band: Volatile but with far more payoff. And band fights about set list order and how the guitar is always too loud are more justifiable than fighting over someone accidentally hitting the "pause" button in the middle of a song.

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Carrie Brownstein was a guitarist and songwriter in the band Sleater-Kinney. Her writing has appeared in the Believer and Pitchfork, and she writes a music blog called Monitor Mix.
Illustration by Robert Neubecker. Image of Rock Band avatar © 2007 Harmonix Music Systems Inc.
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Remarks from the Fray Editor

Anse just wants Sleater-Kinney back, thundercracker puts the argument that someone else should have written the review: "Really? Slate couldn't find one intern that has both been in a band and played video games beyond Mario Bros?" And Cranky1000 is to be congratulated for a real Rock'n'roll ending to his post, below; we didn't want to spoil it, so we bravely left it unedited.

Remarks from the Fray

If Rock Band is even a bit successful in getting the average listener to appreciate the dyanmics of putting together musicians of differing levels of skill to create something moderately Rocking to Face-melting, then it has done a great service to the music which the creates of the game wish to put on a pedestal. To put it another way, a way that takes all the fun out of it (joy!) Rock Band is an interactive learning tool for the development of muscial connoseuirship. I have looked over this post and see that I have a legion of spelling and gramatical errors. Hooray!

--Cranky1000

(To reply, click here)

My husband and I got Rock Band day 1 and positively love it because it combines my love of Karaoke Revolution with his love of Guitar Hero. I am actually a singer but Rock Band (or Karaoke Revolution for that matter) definitely don't improve my skills but rather I have to bastardize them much like an actual guitar player must pervert his skills to succeed at this. My point? It's not just teenage boys spending 5 hours a day at a video game. My husband would rather play this game a few hours several day nights a week after a hard day of work for fun than spend those few hours trying to learn actual guitar which would be more work than hobby for him. And if there wasn't this simulation game, he wouldn't want to play the real guitar, he would just play another game to relax.

At Thanksgiving his whole family played with us and it was a blast. I never knew his mother's fondness for the song Cherry Bomb or that his brother could shout Beastie Boys with best (or worst) of them. The video game demographic has long since left the 15 year old boy as the majority. People play the game for fun, as you and your friends [did] at that party. Those who want to learn how to play an instrument will, but for others there is Rock Band for a quick rock star fix.

--Puckish

(To reply, click here)

(11/28)

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