Something occurred to me after I typed up my Synaesthete impressions today: where is all the funk music in rhythm games? As I quoted, that title makes mention of "a machine world made of funk and rhythm." That sounds awesome, but the actual music in Synaesthete is electronic, more typical fare for the genre.

Why don't we have any Parliament-Funkadelic, The Meters, The Commodores, and so on? Rhythm games have been dominated by electronic music for well over a decade, and now Harmonix has given a huge boost to rock in the genre, but why isn't one of the most rhythmic forms of popular music represented? Is there not enough crossover between funk fans and gamers?

In a similar vein, why isn't there any Motown in Rock Band? That seems like a great fit, and an easily remedied one thanks to downloadable content. I hope that Harmonix follows through on its early promise to introduce new, non-strictly-rock genres to Rock Band, despite the game's title.

With the Guitar Hero-driven explosion in popularity and reach for the rhythm game genre, I hope it continues to diversify its musical breadth. Harmonix has spoken about Rock Band as a music delivery platform, one which they can use to introduce gamers to genres with which they may not have been intimately familiar before. If they can pull that off, and gamers actually get into it rather than resist it, the genre would be all the better.