Guest Writer: Graham Kent

My friend Graham Kent is a funny man, and an expert Guitar Hero player. With that in mind I asked him what are the worst songs on guitar hero? Here's his response (by the way, his #1 is my #1... why would ANYONE think that song was a good idea?) Oh and I've linked actual video's of the guitar hero performance, cause, that's how I roll.


The 5 Worst Guitar Hero Songs Ever
By Graham Kent


What a great game guitar hero is. It truly is a revolutionary game in an industry that is, in itself, still newly revolutionizing the world. It’s a broadening game, like Dance Dance Revolution, meaning that it’s designed not just for young males, but for the whole family. With Guitar Hero, parents, too, can join in the fun and play along to some of their favourite songs from the days when they were young males. Your mom, however, would still rather just sit and watch.

There have been three main Guitar Hero games. No, I’m not including Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80’s, because I’m limited to just 5 songs on my list. Also, it’s a “filler” game; an appetizer to keep you hungry until the entrée comes out, like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City/Liberty City Stories wetted your palate before San Andreas was ready. From the 3 main games (aptly named Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero 2, and Guitar Hero 3, to avoid confusion) there were about 124 songs. I’m counting only those included in the career play mode, whether solo songs and encores, or duet-encores. I’m also not including downloads or “purchasable” songs. Of those 124 songs, a lot of them sucked, but five of them REALLY sucked. Since my opinion is not subjective, but rather scientifically proven fact, I will present to you now the 5 Worst Guitar Hero Songs Ever, and the reasons why.

#5: Joan Jett – I Love Rock and Roll (GH1)

The most tolerable of the 5 worst, I Love Rock and Roll is acceptable in the same way a slap in the face is if the other option is a swift kick in the nuts. I get that it’s a “classic”. That’s exactly what the team of Guitar Hero was thinking when they added it. They were thinking, “Hey guys, it’s the first game, and we should pack it with a bunch of awesome, classic songs that everybody knows and loves.” But here’s the thing: it’s fucking boring. Now don’t get me wrong – I don’t mind the song itself. It wouldn’t be my first choice at the jukebox, but I could sing along if it came on the radio and I wasn’t allowed to change the station. But as a song to play, it’s fucking boring. I play Guitar Hero on the expert level, and even on expert this song has me yawning and wanting to do something more productive with my hands… Regardless of how popular the song is or how many people love it, the most important thing is whether or not it’s fun to play, and I Love Rock and Roll is not.



#4: Nirvana – Heart-Shaped Box (GH2)
Heart-Shaped Box is on here for the same reason I Love Rock and Roll is: it’s fucking boring as hell to play, even on the expert level. Actually, a note to the team at Guitar Hero: When the song’s chorus is the same as the verses, it’s going to be fucking boring to play. Even though you’re strumming the chords and have distortion on it during the chorus, and picking them with a clean tone during the verses, you’re still playing the same three chords over and over and over. Just because they’re Nirvana doesn’t mean you have to put one of their songs on Guitar Hero. Or, if it does actually mean that, at least make it a song that offers a bit of variation in what you’re playing, like All Apologies. Actually, maybe they should include that song in the next Guitar Hero as a sort of tongue-in-cheek nod to their fuck-up by putting Heart-Shaped Box in a previous game.



#3: Suicidal Tendencies – Institutionalized (GH2)

This one is interesting. This song is sort of a combination of far too boring and far too retarded. The song, minus a few short little lead riffs, is ultimately two power chords back and forth. If that isn’t annoying enough, the song actually speeds up at different points. Your back-and-forth-ness becomes almost slightly redeemed by the tempo picking up towards the chorus. Notice, however, I said “almost slightly”, because the change in tempo doesn’t at all make up for your minutes spent yo-yoing the fret board. In fact, the increase in speed makes the song worse. It changes from a boring, whiny white punk band complaining about nothing, to a boring, whiny white punk band complaining about nothing and trying to get through the song faster, except by “faster” they mean “by just making a bunch of stupid noise”, and then return to dragging you through the tedium that is their monstrosity of a “song” when the tempo returns to normal. I can only assume the team put this song on here to try and introduce lesser-known bands to a young and impressionable audience in a “see how much more we know about music than you?” way. Yeah guys, thanks for telling me about one more band I’ll never want to listen to again in my life.



#2: Slayer – Raining Blood (GH3)
First of all, it’s Slayer. That alone should be enough to tell you why this song shouldn’t be on here. Again, it’s the team going, “Hey, maybe we should mix it up and put some metal songs on there.” Fine, but fucking Slayer? Raining Blood? Have you actually heard this song? It starts off in a creepy, obviously metal sort of way, and gives you the impression that this song might be okay. It then very quickly proves you wrong, and turns into a button-mashing cacophony. Oddly enough, the process of you slamming the buttons in an effort to get lucky and hit maybe half of the notes sounds about as good as the actual song. Seriously, it’s just noise. They might as well have recorded a day on a construction site and had me play along to that. They might as well have included Cradle of Filth. This isn’t a song you put on Guitar Hero, you dolts.



#1: Social Distortion – Story of my Life (GH3)

The worst song ever. Not only is it a terrible song, but it’s the Same. Four. Chords. Over. And. Over. For. Fucking. Ever. Again, when your chorus is the same as your verse, that’s a big clue that it’s going to be boring as hell to play. If the same four chords non-stop doesn’t quite scratch the gaming itch you have, fear not, because the song goes on for just under SIX MINUTES. So you can give yourself a nice, long, unproductive scratch. The last 30 seconds of the song are filled with the singer whining, “Story of my life” over and over, making me wish I could have played his anecdote instead. There’s absolutely nothing interesting or good about this song. Let’s recap: the song is so awful and so boringly repetitive it makes you PRAY that Slayer’s Raining Blood is next, the singer says, “story of my life” about 5000 times, and all this goes on for SIX MINUTES. I certainly felt distorted after I played this song, since that was six minutes I could have spent doing something far more social, like taking a shit. Don’t do this again.


Shawn here again, thanks to Graham for his contribution, I'll be back tomorrow with my night in Roncesvalles.