Like most people, I find myself in a reflective mood this final week of the year. As a lover of great music, it’s hard not to look back on the releases of 2010 and feel pretty damn satisfied. There was a raft of great new music from both old favorites and newcomers alike, and in almost any genre you can name. Gaslight Anthem, Glasser, Teenage Fanclub, Ghostface Killah, Against Me!, Janelle Monae, Band of Horses, The National, and Jamey Johnson are just a few of the artists who hit me hard this year. If it’s a sign of things to come for this second decade of the 21st century, then the future is bright. Without further ado, here are my highlights of what went down in 2010, from rap to country to punk to pop, in no particular order.
LOS ANGELES – Gene Simmons was already a rock god playing the demon of KISS. Now he’s a virtual rock god, providing the voice for the demigod in Activision’s new Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock game. It was released on September 28, 2010, but it would still make a great Christmas gift for you last minute shoppers! The man who turned KISS into a global brand that reaches far beyond music spent time in the recording studio to breathe life to the narrator of the new game’s Quest mode, which allows players to power up as they play through a story that blends metal music with demons and new ways to play on those electric guitar controllers. Simmons talks about working on the new game and how he’s seen videogames change the music landscape in this exclusive interview.
Music-based video games like the Guitar Hero and Rock Band series have become an outrageous success. These games allow players to go through the motions of idols ranging from Metallica to the Beatles. But the relationship between popular music and gaming goes back a few decades.
Here’s a quick look at some notable examples of the marriage of rock n’ roll and video games.
Few music enthusiasts have much reason to travel into the deepest reaches of the Inland Empire. Fontana isn’t exactly known as one of America’s great rock n’ roll cities, and on any normal day, the town’s Auto Club Speedway would most likely burst into jeers at the first note of any ballad not belonging to Ricky Bobby. During the weekend of September 25-26, however, Epicenter transformed the NASCAR racetrack’s simple but sprawling parking lot into the destination for music fans. With temperatures reaching triple digits, some 25,000 sweaty, sticky bodies swayed, boogied, and moshed in harmony to the sounds of one of the most bewilderingly eclectic festival lineups in recent memory. The Kiss Army’s face-painted, middle-aged infantry crossed paths with the hoodie-clad, heavily pierced fans of Detroit’s other favorite son – Eminem. For the Blink-182 faithful, many of which were of the pink-haired, skate-gear-rocking variety, Christmas (or at least Warped Tour) came early with the seminal pop-punk band’s only California date in 2010. What felt like one of the most elaborate tailgating parties ever staged also served as a schizophrenic history lesson on the last fifteen years of pop music.
Punk rockers have a long history of being socially conscious and politically active. Although a faction of the music genre’s musicians and fans are often stereotyped as chaos-loving nihilists, many punks around the world have proven to be anything but. Add the Dropkick Murphys to that list. The Boston-based band filmed a video for their song “Tomorrow’s Industry” aimed at supporting their hometown healthcare workers. Boston area nurses, paramedics, and others are campaigning to join 119SEIU, one of the biggest healthcare unions in the U.S.A.
In any discussion of heavy metal, there’s one name that always comes up: Iron Maiden. The London group has been atop one of the world’s most popular musical genres for nearly 30 years. They have sold over 80 million records worldwide, putting them in the company of fellow metal legends Black Sabbath, Van Halen, and Metallica. The British sextet hopes to add to that total with the release of their 15th studio album, The Final Frontier, this August.
This week saw the death of a true legend of rock n’ roll, one of the most influential voices in the history of heavy metal – Ronnie James Dio. As Ozzy Osbourne’s replacement in Black Sabbath, Dio added more to metal culture than just music, popularizing both the “devil horns” hand gesture, and swords and sorcery themes as metaphor.
Almost any time slot is up for grabs by an up and coming network TV show, but Thursday night's slots have often been the exception. For nearly 30 years, NBC has dominated the Thursday night primetime block, producing hit after hit and dominating the air from 8pm until 11pm. In fact, some of the best and most successful shows in television history have been a part of that block, including The Cosby Show, Cheers, ER, Seinfeld, and The Office.