CMT Blog: Guitar Hero

If you’re a country music fan and love singing karaoke, then SingStar Country on PS2 might be for you. The game has 30 songs from artists like Alan Jackson, Johnny Cash, Martina McBride and Taylor Swift. You can play the game with two microphones, making it a fun choice for a party. I played it today along with some other CMT bloggers (getting the absolute lowest score, mind you) and can say that it is definitely an engaging, and at times hilarious, group activity. We sang Gretchen Wilson’s “Redneck Woman,” Kenny Chesney’s “Big Star,” Jackson’s “Chattahoochee,” even “Pancho and Lefty” by Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. Jewel and Jessica Simpson are in there, too. Afterward, some of us commented that it may be a better game for groups than Rock Band or Guitar Hero since the actual music video plays during the game rather than animation. Plus, those not playing don’t have to listen to constant clicking of plastic guitar buttons, just suffer through questionable singing. You can sing solo or duet, battle an opponent or play in a pass-the-mic, hot potato mode. Learning is quite easy. Personally, I still prefer the guitar games, but that’s only because I’m a horrendous “singer.” This thing is a good time.

People who aren’t into country music are pretty quick to classify it as “music for soccer moms.” As if that’s a bad thing. Like soccer moms have no taste, thereby making the music they have chosen to play in their minivans less cool than whatever alt-emo-pop music other folks are listening to. And those folks are partially right. Middle-aged suburban moms do make up a big portion of country radio listeners and are responsible for a lot of what’s left of retail CD sales. But those folks are wrong about moms not having enough smarts to recognize good music. Read more…