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The impact that Guitar Hero 3 had on my music taste is actually nuts and im sure im not the only one

"They did what AAA game studios almost always do, and just kept running this thing into the ground." Never have truer words been spoken.

I remember my guitar students at the time were coming in asking to learn songs like "Carry On Wayward Son" and "Slow Ride" so I'll always be grateful to Guitar Hero for introducing them to great guitar tunes. It also got me a lot of new students but many realized REAL guitar was way harder and quit shortly after starting. ;/

Honestly, a lot of the issues with Guitar Hero can all trace back to the way Activision treated the franchise, similar to how they treated CoD and Tony Hawk.

So sad this game fall off. It’s like a “era” of kids learning about rock and metal and about playing and creating bands. Today, looks like there’s almost nothing without a huge impact on rock mainstream

There’s a 0% chance I’d be subscribed to a channel about punk rock if it wasn’t for playing Guitar Hero III in middle school with my friends

Strange how the more realistic the games became the less people wanted to play them. As a guitar teacher I thought my job was history when Rocksmith and Rock Band started using real guitars as controllers but I was way off on that prediction.

I gotta thank Guitar Hero and the Tony Hawk games for introducing me to so many great artists growing up.

This is really nostalgic for me, I discovered so many awesome bands as a kid through GH3 alone: Metallica, Weezer, Rage Against The Machine, Senses Fail, Mountain, The Killers & even Iron Maiden. Such a great gateway franchise into Rock & Metal

If it weren't for GH2, I wouldn't have discovered All That Remains. "Six" and later the whole record "The Fall of Ideals" were vital in growing my taste in music. TFOI is still my favorite metal album of all time. The fact that ATR is performing the entirety of TFOI on tour right now brings this all full circle for me, and I'm going to have a great time at the Seattle show. If it weren't for GH2 I wouldn't be going to this show 10+ year later, and I think that's crazy.

I remember when guitar hero came out and it was the most ADDICTING AND FUN thing ever

GH was *literally* the reason how i got into metal - before then i was almost solely into hip hop. me turning 14 years old and playing the games obsessively got me into the genre because it made me fully understand the energy and appeal of it. i know GH isn't only metal songs but i magnetized the most to the heavier songs in the series (notably bands like In Flames, Killswitch Engage, Slipknot, All That Remains, Mastodon) the channel i leave this comment with is filled with covers of brutal bands i liked through the years... so strange to think all that is seeded cuz of guitar hero

Just saw all that remains on the 15 years of fall of ideals anniversary tour. Phil said "yall remember guitar hero?" then they tore into six, very cool that they still recognized that.

When I was in 7th grade my friend was staying with us over spring break and my dad bought us Guitar Hero III so we would have something to do. Within six months I was playing the real guitar I found in our attic and writing songs. Within a year we started our own band. Awesome memories.

I actually used the Guitar Hero "Practice Mode" to learn songs on the real guitar; I played them at Youth Camp that Summer and I was the coolest kid there, haha! This game was definitely hugely influential to me as a musician and for my taste in music.

I have always been a hip-hop head due to the music Ive grew up with and was surrounded by but I’m grateful for Guitar Hero 3 and just video game soundtracks in general for opening me up to other genre’s and styles. Now the music taste is eclectic af

Clone Hero has taken over where Guitar Hero/Rock Band left off and they have made the game relevent still and is on PC now they update it regularly and can download well over 100k songs

It’s a shame this series burnt out so quickly. 5-6 years isn’t a very long time at all especially these days. Getting GH2 for Christmas literally formed who I am today, for better or worse haha. I found my love for metal, rock, punk and of course the guitar. Even little things, like if I never picked up guitar hero and ultimately the guitar, I probably wouldn’t be watching this channel!

Possibly your best video yet! Not many music channels have covered this series, if any. (Plenty of gaming channels have, but those don't emphasize the importance to music, like this one does. You are correct about the exposure it created. It certainly moved in a more metallic direction.

GH3 in particular introduced me to so many bands I fell in love with and really turned the tide from me listening to my parents' music to harder rock. As a drummer, World Tour even opened my eyes and skills to new drumming styles.

Can we all just take a moment to appreciate how well done the music covers were on the first 2 games. I have nostalgia just hearing those versions vs the real version.

Guitar Hero got me into metalcore. As soon as i heard "Six" i had to check out the rest of the album, which led to "This Calling" which is about the best introduction to the genre you can possibly have.

No discussion of “Rocksmith”? I was so excited when this came out as I was already an intermediate-advanced guitar player when this came out. Unfortunately no matter what I did I could not fix the terrible delay between what I was playing and what happened on the screen so I was playing songs perfectly but losing the levels! Such a disappointment it could have been awesome!

my mom actually got GH3 for my dad's birthday because he grew up as a metalhead in the 80s but that didn't stop me from making the game my own. i got hooked real quick, and both my dad and the game created the perfect storm to spiral me into an even deeper metal rabbit hole. i remember my dad actually made me a playlist of all my favorite songs from GH3 so i could actually listen to them on my iPod Nano. just wish i could've had the metal cover of "Devil Went Down to Georgia" whenever i'd wanted.

OMG as an alternative controller game developer following this channel for a while now, I was SO excited to see this video pop-up in my feed! This made my day. Thanks so much for sharing the history of those games with such a wide audience

The set list for warriors of rock was by far my favorite and definitely had a lot of hidden gems in it!

Two of my favorite additions to the Guitar Hero playlist were in the second installment, with Trogdor and Thunderhorse. Also, DJ Hero is a damn joke. Even the few of us that could figure out how the controller worked, it was just painful to play. Not sure what my issue was, but I did know how to DJ on real turntables back then and im a professional DJ as of now.

Guitar Hero actually played a big role in my life. Back in 2009 when I was a teenager and everyone of my friends got this game, my mom was too poor to get me a console. Instead she offered my a real guitar. Since then I was playing I never was even thinking about giving up the instrument. Now I'm a musician and writing my own songs. Thanks for buying me a real guitar instead of a plastic crap, mom!

Oh man I remember coming home from school and putting on guitar hero 3 legends of rock 🤘 I absolutely loved that game and world tour and then warriors of rock 😊 great memories

In my adolescence, I played Guitar Hero and Rock Band, and owe a lot to the exposure to good music I got. It really helped me learn about historic artists, as well as new ones.

I think it's super wholesome how many reaction videos Herman Li does to through the fire and flames covers, or just how that band in general doesn't seem to take the hype for that song for granted for over 13 years

The GH franchise was my first big exposure to rock music back when I was a sheltered girl in elementary school, and I loved it. Too bad it's gone by the wayside, but it was a great way to start becoming a rock fan back when nobody else in my family was.

I was taking guitar lessons when Guitar Hero first hit the scene. I came home one day and told my mom that we spent the first 10 minutes of the lesson playing guitar hero to warm up. She was not happy, said she isn’t paying for me to go play video games. Looking back, she was probably right. I had a really awesome teacher though, and he would help us book shows as we got older and our band grew.

These toy instruments were so faulty come later games. A big guess to the decline was definitely them breaking and getting thrown away, and GameStop not taking trade in these because they were too big for the store and not selling (specifically the drums). Then when the new games (some not having the option to buy new instruments with) came out, people didn’t have their guitars and drums and couldn’t buy them used. Also retailers supposedly hated these games because of their size they would eat up shelves.

Fun fact: In the music video for Read My Mind by The Killers, Dave (guitar) and Mark (bass) are seen mimicking their parts on a Guitar Freaks machine and Ronnie (drums) is seen doing the same on a drum mania machine. Specifically at the 0:33 mark of the video. And then funny enough, The Killers went on to have When You Were Young, a single from the same album as Read My Mind, featured on GH3.

I had a boyfriend in college who played this game non stop. It got old QUICKLY! I spent HOURS watching him play that little plastic guitar (he couldn’t afford a second guitar), and it’s pretty instrumental in me making the decision to move on past him.

Glad that you pointed out that Activision did screw themselves when they bought it. I could tell the difference in Guitar Hero 3 as soon as I started the first song. It just didn't look or feel like the first two. Harmonix with Rock Band had much better gameplay and even though there's multiple games, they had the better consumer friendly business plan with their DLC store. Only postive of Guitar Hero World tour was somehow they were able to get Tool on it.

Warriors of Rock is one of the best games in the series, hands down. World Tour and GH5 had pretty bad setlists in comparison to 1, 2, and 3, but Warriors of Rock was a return to that genuine rock/metal fan vibe. Plus, they really leaned on each character's genre archetype with each one having their own setlist that is all about that genre.

great analysis of this era. i was certainly a child of it. played piano growing up then picked up a real guitar after playing hours of guitar hero 2. i definitely owe a large amount of my interest in rock & metal to this game.

Man, these were the days. The memories I have of my cousins and friends and I getting together, going through the songs, curating a Setlist and putting on a “concert” are the type of Memories Money just can’t buy.

I was that exact 10-12 year old kid that they wanted discovering all these bands growing up. Guitar Hero turned me into the music geek I am today and I’m so grateful for that been watching your videos for a while now and this was really cool to see. great video as always!

I fell in love with GH 3 when I was 8 and then I wanted to get Rock Band 2 with the full set up with drums and a mic. My dad said he’d get it for me if I tried guitar lessons learned his favorite pink floyd riff on real guitar. 14 years later and here I am with a 7 string and too many plug ins 🤦‍♂️

Playing guitar hero II as kid was amazing! Getting my friends hooked and playing world tour after school with them are memories I will never forget.

Warriors of Rock is massively underrated, in my opinion it's the best guitar hero game. The reason it got mid reviews is because players were burned out. But in retrospect, the devs still put a lot of effort in and it's a fantastic game. You owe it to yourself to play it if you love guitar hero

17:36 I actually thought Warriors of Rock was one of the better games in the series. The setlist of songs was absolutely incredible and they were very creative with the way they had the career mode work imo. I think the reason it didn’t do so well is because at this point people were just fed up with the amount of games that kept coming out and they saw no interest in keeping up with the series anymore. Sucks to see that the game went down this path, I’ll always have this game to thank for helping me discover so much great music and for helping me want to pick up real guitar, and I’ll forever have so many great memories with guitar hero 3 and even some of the other games as well.

One thing about Neversoft is that Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero both have the most memorable soundtracks in any video game franchise

I wouldn't be into half the music I'm into now if it wasn't for Guitar Hero and Rock Band. I probably wouldn't be into metal if it wasn't for Guitar Hero. I have so many good memories playing Guitar Hero with my brother and trying to beat each others high score. Damn. Those are some times I want to relive. What a good game. Shout out to all the drum 100% FC videos that I watched.

I bought guitar hero world tour in 2011 and it pretty much shaped my taste in music throughout middle school and led to my development through highschool into other stuff I miss the game and its a shame it never lived up to what it could have truly been

This game was probably my FAVORITE as a kid! I especially loved playing the harder songs on Expert, as much as they did piss me off lol, it was fun and I'd be strumming that guitar for HOURS! I would even go as far as to say it saved rock music from totally falling off the radar. Seriously one of the best games of all time

Fun Story : I was a tester at Activision's QA, for Guitar Hero Live. It had a new guitar, and it was bomb as fuck, the tv channels concept was a bit weird but still fun. The real problem was the songs, I have no problem with pop music like Hillary Duff and such but if said Hillary Duff song doesn't have a sick guitar track with solos and all it shouldn't be in the game. And sadly it was almost half of the songs, which turned off the hardcore players. I may be wrong but I almost thought that guitar hero is so niche that the only reason it really took off is because of everybody who was so hyped about and would not stop talking about it. About how fun it was, and all of the great songs. GH Live was targeting the casual gamer kind of, but it backfired because the people who would have been their best pitch salesmen had no interest in the tracklist. P.S. By casual gamer I meant people who would not normally play Guitar Hero, not litteral casual gamers.

I played the crap outta Guitar Hero 1, 2, and the 80’s, but Rock Band will always be my main love. I’ll never forget shredding Dani California on expert at a Bust Buy demo display and having a group of people form behind me and started holding lighters up and cheering. It was pure magic. Now my kids are 7 and 9 and I’ve introduced them to Rock Band and we jam out together.

These were the good old days for me as a guitar teacher. This game boosted my business. My schedule was full to the gills. A lot of kids dropped out when they found out guitar was hard but a lot didn't, and those kids went on to be some serious players.

I was 18 when the first one came out and was already playing guitar after my 16th birthday. I tried playing Thunderkiss '65 on the demo version and then swore off it. However, Rocksmith is great since you get to use the real thing to actually learn how to play the songs.

As a professional guitar player, I'd say another huge thing that killed Guitar Hero was Rocksmith. With Guitar Hero you play a small plastic guitar with buttons, with Rocksmith you plug your actual guitar to the console. You're playing a video game but at the same time you learn how to play guitar, actually though. It even has technique exercises which are actually pretty good and well taught. And also the fact that Rocksmith only has 2 games in the franchise (the original from 2012 and the 2014 version) and they add content by releasing DLC songs that you can buy individually according to taste, you didn't have to buy an entirely new game to play a few new songs

My friend bought Guitar Hero 1, few months later he bought a SX Starter pack guitar kit, which in turn made me pick up the bass and later the guitar. We both still play. Forever grateful.

I don't know if you were aware, but Ryan Greene (the producer behind most of Fat Wreck's 90's catalogue) was one of the guys who recorded all of the covers for the early games. There's a podcast somewhere on KZfaq where he talks about how they made them, and how difficult some of the songs were to recreate. Great video Finn!

Ill never forget the feeling of doing 100% on sweet child o' mine on expert for the first time haha. First three games were a good time. Enjoyed the video!

Guitar Hero was amazing! But the last time I ever played it was the year Rock Band came out. Side note: check out guitar hero speed runs. They recently had a cheating scandal. Yeah, weird right? You're the best, Finn 👊

The guitar hero craze was in full swing when I was in grade 8. It was actually so popular, our gym teacher incorporated guitar hero into our gym unit and we had a guitar hero competition to see who was the best player at each level.

I still remember the first time I played guitar hero. It was in Walmart when they still had the demos you could try out in the game section. Literally changed my life.

the Tony Hawk, and all the other extreme sports games had the same influence on music as guitar hero. Those games all had giant sound tracks filled with punk, metal, rap, classic rock. There are lots of bands I discovered from these games, like AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Motorhead, NOFX, Rage Against The Machine, In Flames, Run DMC, Public Enemy, etc

I started with Rock Band, but GH Metallica is the closest I'll ever be to being a rock star. That game was awesome! Made my eyes bug out though.

How awesome is this that this video comes out while I'm working on a video about a band I got into through Guitar Hero. I wrote a whole paper in college about the licensing aspect of Guitar Hero and spoke a good bit about the oversaturation that went on in its later years, as well as the impact it had on exposing people to lots of music- including bands local from Boston having bonus songs in the first 2 games. The series absolutely changed my life and I wouldn't be the music fan that I am without it.

Literally from the hood of Chicago. Guitar Hero changed my life and introduced me to rock music. It made me fall in love with the guitar and granted me A LOT of amazing music experiences (opened up for DaBaby and everything). Forever grateful

I was just having a discussion the other day about how the whole interactive video game rage just kind of came and went in such a short period of time. Not just Guitar Hero and Rock Band but the Wii was so popular that Sony and Microsoft developed their own hardware to compete. And then, just like that, it was gone. It's a shame because we had so much fun at house parties breaking out the rock band gear or the Wii remotes. It tapped into a whole different market of people who maybe weren't into video games but they had Guitar Hero or Rock Band to play when guests came over.

Frets on Fire, Performous, Phase Shift, Clone Hero, GH Deluxe, World Tour AIO and Definitive Edition... 'Officially' dead? Who cares!? Fact remains that the love for the game is exceptionally strong, and that's not going to wane anytime soon, if ever. I myself believe that it will take a mega-cataclysm to completely kill off Guitar Hero.

Excellent video Finn! It really can't be stated just how important this game was for people discovering new bands and getting even more into rock and metal. Keep up the good work man!!!

I was in radio during the height of the Guitar Hero / Rock band craze and it was pretty clear that our playlists were influenced by the games. It was a weird time but great to get people into new music.

the only reason why Guitar Hero & even Rock Band ended is because of Just Dance. It's that simple. Most of the public audiences nowadays love pop more than rock music (and that's not a bad thing, everybody's different) & instead of love playing metallic instruments, they love to dance. Everybody loves dancing, even though personally I'm not a great dancer, the only dances I love doing are bouncing around like a true punk & hilariously like the Numa Numa guy on the internet.

My heart is always in the early mid 2000s I think Finn loves them golden years as well it was the peak of civilization

I still have my 360 and play Guitar Hero and Rock Band frequently. I've been playing these games off and on since I was 4-5 (currently 16) and it got me into the music I love to this day, changing me forever. Such an amazing franchise with loads of fun.

I bought a PS2, 2 guitar controllers and all Guitar Hero games in 2016... And trust me, every time I've had guests over, we would have a blast with the game. These games need to come out every few years, they are still so good.

Was just thinking about this franchise days ago. I used to work for EBgames/GameStop when the game came out and remember how big it was during the 1st 3 releases. During the holidays these games sold like nuts. Hope it comes back one day. Great choice of a segment

Glad to see some ads in your video!! I know it’s been happening for a while but I just wanna say great job!!

Man, I remember when our towns Best Buy held a big ass guitar hero contest… that was so dope

If I'm honest with myself, I'm a guitarist and work in the music industry because of this game even though my parents didn't want me playing it lol

The end of Guitar Hero was at the same time that rock stopped being mainstream (2010-2011). The kid moved on to EDM.

As a kid who grew up on metal and rock, this game was probably the best thing that happened to my adolescence. Suddenly being able to talk about bands and heavier music with friends who would've never otherwise even entertained a conversation like that was beyond a blessing. Also DJ Hero was actually pretty great. Found a nearly brand new boxed copy in a thrift store not long after its release and made some fond memories with that game.

I learned to play guitar as a 35 y.o. man because of Guitar Hero. And I have learned violin and piano for 6 years as a kid and put it down for 20 years. GH made me re-love playing music, forever grateful for that.

guitar hero made me a better guitar player. no joke

3:05 Correction: Guitarfreaks and Drummania are in America, you can either find them at Anime conventions across the country or in arcades called Round 1 in the United States Fun Fact: those 2 games were actually made by Bemani, same game developers that made Dance Dance Revolution

This was a super fun video! you really did your research! I didn’t realize that the phase out of popularity had coincided with the over-saturation. I appreciate guitar hero because it got my nephew into guitar music/ metal and then he asked for guitar lessons from me and we really bonded from that. You should do a metalocalypse video if you think that show had an impact on turning more people on to metal :)

I discovered a lot of bands through GH and my older brother (he played guitar growing up and still plays today). GH and my brother showed me a lot of bands and artists that I wouldn't have known about back then that I do know now (Nine Inch Nails, Foo Fighters, Metallica, Nirvana, Slayer, Children of Bodom, Green Day, Living Color, KISS, Van Halen, Def Leppard, Weird Al Yankovich, Guns N' Roses, Ramones and so much more).

Finn: "Bring from Japan doesn't change the music." Agreed. Also Finn: "If it's from Japan you only like it because it's from Japan. It's Japanese so therefore it's not great music." Idiotic. This might be the dumbest take: "This Hard rock band playing a more pop rock song isn't screaming metalcore. They are the worst." Finn outdoing himself

Man, really enjoying your channel. Been binging on it all day

What an awesome topic and such perfect timing for me. My kids showed interest in the games so I picked them up again, and I have been pondering many of the same things in this video. Thanks for the quality content!

I wasn’t the best at Guitar Hero I’ve seen, but being able to make it to the end of Through Fire and Flames on hard is still one of my proudest gaming achievements. Never did get to the end on expert though.

I remember a lot of my music snob friends snubbing people who learned about bands from GH and RB, but I always thought it was really cool. Like people who never would have given bands like Lamb of God or Coheed a chance becoming genuine metal heads after playing these games warmed my heart

Guitar hero 3 is easily the reason that i turned "scene" back then, it introduced me to Slipknot and AFI which just opened the door to those whole genres for me, still impacting what im listening to 15 years later. crazy influence

I used to love playing guitar hero and rock band. I would have all my friends over and jam out. It was fun while it lasted.

Guitar Hero is what got me into music, which I had negative interest in beforehand having been raised on Jimmy Buffett and Handel. I still remember the day I delved into Iron Maiden's catalog after hearing Number of the Beast in GHIII and loving every single song, knowing I had found something special. I quickly made the transition to guitar, and then drums, and now play in multiple bands, have played and attended countless shows and even done small tours, recorded lots of music, made many friends from all over the world, learned a second language, and so on, all traceable to Guitar Hero. A truly lifechanging game.

Glad you did a video on this . Haven't watched it yet but I'm genuinely excited to hear g our take on it. Really enjoyed your videos over the years dude.

I still have an XBox 360 and a sick realistic Fender controller that my husband found for me at a garage sale just to still play these games. Every time we go to a "vintage" game store we try to pick up copies of the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games that are missing from our collection....just a shame you can't purchase the DLC songs anymore. Its such a great party game and brings back so many memories!

I remember borrowing "Guitar Hero 2" from my friend and my parents noticed I was actually getting better on the "real" guitar because of it, so they bought me my own set of the game and controller!

I remember playing Guitar Freaks in an arcade in Las Vegas. Then being pumped to go back to Vegas the next year so I could play it again. And then Guitar hero came out. I was blown away.

The first Rock Band game had SUCH a strong influence on how my taste in music developed. I used to play it in my cousins' basement with them and my brother for HOURS after school every day in elementary school. I didn't really start listening to music on my own until high school, but the foundation left by that game and the music my brother would play for us at the time both definitely set me on the path I would take from my brief beginnings in normie music taste. Once I remembered the type of music we used to play in rock band, there was no shot I was ever turning back. When we played that game back in the day, I didn't know the first thing about any of the music we were playing, and nowadays music is all I think about

Another factor people forget is that around 2009-2010 flat screen TVs started to take over the market and early LCDs had terrible input lag which made rhythm games way harder to play because timing is so important.

I discovered All That Remains with their song Six on Guitar Hero. I was 14 and I'm 31 now and I'm getting ready to go see them for their 15th anniversary tour for The Fall of Ideals. I wish Guitar Hero didn't kill itself

Guitar hero was the first place I realized there was music other than the top 40s radio and what my parents listened to. It changed everything for me.