Up late talking games & writing? You're...

...So the other day when I asked my six-year-old son what game he wanted to play for our designated videogame time, he launched into an impromptu air guitar session and started listing all of his favorite songs from Guitar Hero, which he has a copy of at his other house.

"Slow Ride" - by Foghat, from 1975

"Hit Me With Your Best Shot" - by Pat Benatar, from 1980


...And these are just a few.

I got a copy of Guitar Hero when it first came out and I thought it was fun, but i didn't go ga-ga over it, and honestly, it beat the hell out of my hands and wrists. After a week or two of fruitlessly rubbing the pain away from my extremities (which have already taken way more than their fair share of abuse over the years) I was fine with packing it up and moving on.

...Of course, it promptly became bigger than The Beatles, who were already bigger than Jesus, but that phenomenon just sort of slid by me while I was busy playing other things.

Now that my son's old enough to actually play the game, it's amazing to me that he runs around the house and hums all these old tunes. Not only does he like these tracks, he thinks they actually rock (and so do I, really) and he's even asked to listen to the original CDs.

It just blows me away that a current form of technological entertaiment can give new life and perhaps even inspire new generations of fans for music that's decades old, and under any other circumstance would be looked at as a parent's embarrassingly lame record collection.

What?

...What's a record?


Well, a long, long time ago...