June 4, 2009

Greatest rock band, EVER

The Beatles--sitting in an English garden waiting for the sun

I must say, Yoko, Paul, Olivia, and Ringo made a brilliant move in lending the Beatles (their name, music and image) to the latest in the Rock Band series of videogames. It will no doubt gain them countless number of young fans they might otherwise not have attracted. I just hope some of those kids learn to actually play their music on real musical instruments! For older fans, such as myself, it will reinforce in their minds the idea that there will never, ever again be a group as wonderful as the Beatles.

And what group is more perfect for one of these games than the Fabs? I've never played any of the Rock Band or Guitar Hero games, but I assume the player has to master certain levels to get further into the game. So, the way in which the Beatles rose to higher and higher levels of success (Hamburg to the Cavern, to conquering the U.K., then Europe, America, etc.) must have made it really easy to design the game. Also, what other rock band in the history of popular music had the musical development of the Beatles?? This too will make for a really interesting game -- i.e., you can't play "Ticket to Ride" until you've mastered "Twist and Shout," etc. The Beatles: Rock Band comes out on 9/9/09...

One can watch actual gameplay here, or even better, the trailer. It is a thing of beauty, even if there wasn't a game to promote. Although they got the chronology of the music wrong in some places, it still has the same kind of coolness the mashups done for last year's Love had in some places. It's a neat, mini-history of the group, minus all the petty squabbling and growing-up-and-apart issues (let's leave all that for an awesome film someday):

Wouldn't it be neat to see a "reboot" or just a redo of the Beatles cartoon which aired from 1965-69 in this style? The correct answer is "yes."

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