There is no denying the popularity of the Guitar Hero video-game series. One copy of its latest entry, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, fetched $9,000 on eBay this holiday season, even after it had been tainted by pot smoke. With demand like that, a soundtrack was pretty much guaranteed to follow. But although it may be fun to knock back a few beers and try your hand at the “Cult of Personality” riff, the soundtrack plays out like a bland “moderate rock” mixtape.

The video game featured over seventy songs, more than enough to create a cohesive mix. But there seems to be no order to the ten tracks found here. Sonic Youth, Queens of the Stone Age, and the (Siamese Dream-era) Smashing Pumpkins make cameos, but they feel out of place at a party hosted by Slash, center-pieced by Velvet Revolver, and headlined by a re-recording of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”

It’s a shame that such a novel game would spawn the sort of forgettable compilation that has been the basis of cut-out bins for years.

Game: http://www.guitarhero.com
Label:  http://www.interscope.com