Mediacology

This video is part one of a three part ad series. You can view them all here.

Call me an old codger, but this ad campaign for Rock Band completely misses the point of rock. But then again, maybe I’m living in a garage band fantasy world in which the desire to play rock (or in my case, punk) is driven by rebellion and self expression. In the punk days (damn, I sound really old now), we followed the Sniffin’ Glue dictum: “Here’s a chord, here’s another chord. Now go form a band.” These days you can do it on a laptop. But the ad reluctantly hits the right note: the band members are so ironic and distant, they couldn’t give a crap about the music anyway. What bores.

(For a good commentary on how the game’s producers failed to vibe with Sleater-Kinney guitarist Carrie Brownstein on her marketing tips, read AdFreak here.)
Playing in a band in high school saved my life. But playing in a virtual band in a videogame? I don’t get it. Especially about the fantasy part in which you fly around in a private jet, ride in limos and play stadiums. What a shitty, drug induced lifestyle (OK, when you are 20 it’s fun, I admit). I know that not all have access to garages, so OK, maybe there is a market for kids who can’t find a way to make some real frakken noise, the kind that you feel in your bones and makes your ears ring. Argh. Music is so safe now.

Rock Band is as silly as the reality TV show, Rock Star: Supervova (you can read my snarky expose here). I quoteth myself:

I suppose this is the ultimate lesson about cultural innovation. You can only try so hard to manufacture a sensibility (and certainly there is money to be made in doing so), but anyone with any real radar for “authenticity” knows that such things are not simply invented for a television audience. That’s too risky. Unfortunately we have lived too long with the genius and avant-garde myth ”that somehow there is a “new” idea that can be created by an innovative artist/dreamer who shifts the culture into a new direction and receives fame and fortune in exchange. But the Pollocks and Warhols have since passed this earthly realm, and the mad cultural innovator has been relegated to the tabloids where drug addicted super models and their boyfriends remain the last bastion of cool. If only we could capture such lightening in a bottle.