Sunday, November 2, 2008

Why An All Led Zeppelin Game Would Be Better Than An All Beatles Game


Now, before you jump on my back and start punching me in the back of the head calling me a Beatles hater and all kinds of other terrible things that just aren’t true, hear me out first—I actually like the Beatles better than I like Led Zeppelin. I think the Beatles just had a more diverse vision of where music could be taken, and they definitely took it there. If you don’t believe me, just listen to all of the records between Please Please Me and Abbey Road to see what I mean.

But that doesn’t mean, however, that MTV, which recently made the announcement that a Beatles game was indeed being made, is going to show that magical mystery tour throughout their entire catalogue. As is often the case with these ultra popular music games, the songs that are going to be hand-picked for the game are most likely the most popular, endearing ones by the group. And with only 45 Beatles’ songs getting picked for the game, you can bet that some really awesome fan favorites (Like, “Dr. Roberts,” and “I Will” for me) might get short shrifted to make way for, “I want to hold your hand,” or “Come Together,” which are great songs, don’t get me wrong, but exactly what you’d expect from a game like this. I want the unexpected.

And that’s what I think I’d get with an all Led Zeppelin game, as their guitar heavy songs have a better chance of drifting among some of their lesser known hits in their catalogue. And this is because, quite frankly, Led Zep aren’t nearly as popular or beloved as the Beatles, and your mom won’t get upset if “All My Love” is on it, but “When the Levee Breaks,” isn’t. But she will get upset if she doesn’t get to croon, “Strawberry Fields,” even though that song is known less for its instrumentation and more for its surrealistic lyrics. And that’s another reason why an all Zep game would be even cooler than an all Beatles game—Zeppelin songs just rock harder. Really, besides “Helter Skelter” by the Beatles, can you name a single other song by them that is actually all that hard? I’m not saying a game has to be all hard rock all the time, but if the tracks are mostly just sing-songy and poppy, then that’s going to get tiresome real fast. But Zeppelin have enough all over the place music to make a really great game, and it would attract fans of the group and also those just interested in them in the process. So a Beatles game, awesome. But an all Zeppelin game, even awesome, er…er?

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