Children at her feet

In three short weeks, a milestone of culture will hit video games. No, not the tenth anniversary of the American Dreamcast launch (Thank you Sega for that wonderful console and the great advertising campaign behind it) but rather the release of The Beatles: Rock Band on all major platforms.

I have anxiously awaited this game since rumors began years ago. Even now as I write this entry I am listening to the work of Sir Paul, although the album was released under a pseudonym as The Fireman. My first Top 5ive was a list of favorite Beatles songs, and it took everything in me to not have the next be a Top 5ive albums. There's a reason why this band is still talked about and revered 40 years after the breakup. What other music group can claim to have their success, influence, and commercial dominance with experimental material. How many people love Strawberry Fields Forever, I Am The Walrus, Tomorrow Never Knows, and Sgt. Pepper? What people fail to realize is how absolutely strange these songs were then and are now. What song on the radio sounds like these Beatles classics? Even a popular group like Radiohead doesn't have extreme success on par with the Beatles with their experimental sounds. Beatlemania will never bite the dust.

But what makes this release so important is not just the opportunity to bridge the divide between aging baby boomers and the internet generation, nor just the opportunity to introduce the greatest music of the 20th century to virgin ears. The Beatles: Rock Band has the power to catapult gaming to the now minority who still hate gaming, not swayed by the Nintendo of the early 90s and the revival of the Wii. I'm talking Gabby Hayes big! Unless a true curmudgeon, how can anyone deny the power of the Beatles and the sheer joy of music games?

09/09/09. Believe.

[sorry if this post made your dog start howling]