History Trivia / GuitarHero

* UrbanLegendOfZelda: Rumors persisted for a while that Music/{{The Rolling Stones|Band}}' live DLC was recorded at their infamous Altamont, CA concert, with "Under My Thumb" being the song where Meredith Hunter was killed. It's actually from ''Get Yer Ya-yas Out'', their live DVD which was recorded at Madison Square Garden earlier in 1969.

* ExecutiveMeddling: Minor example: While ''Guitar Hero: Metallica'' was in production, [[Music/{{Metallica}} Lars Ulrich]] originally wanted Music/{{Slayer}}'s "Angel of Death" in the game, but Microsoft objected to the use of the song (and thus refuse to license the game for the Xbox 360) out of sensitivity for the victims of UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust, forcing Lars to change his choice to "War Ensemble" instead. Justified, as the song ''is'' about the experiments of Josef Mengele. It's not that the development team didn't like Slayer's song or anything, it's that they would have had to censor it so heavily they might as well have had an instrumental. Which is funny, considering that the song was in ''[[VideoGame/TonyHawksProSkater Tony Hawk's Project 8]]'' without much of a problem...

* ExecutiveMeddling: Minor example: While ''Guitar Hero: Metallica'' was in production, [[Music/{{Metallica}} Lars Ulrich]] originally wanted Music/{{Slayer}}'s "Angel of Death" in the game, but the development team, deeming the lyrics too offensive, forced Lars to change his choice to "War Ensemble" instead. Justified, as the song ''is'' about the experiments of Josef Mengele. It's not that the development team didn't like Slayer's song or anything, it's that they would have had to censor it so heavily they might as well have had an instrumental. Which is funny, considering that the song was in ''[[VideoGame/TonyHawksProSkater Tony Hawk's Project 8]]'' without much of a problem...

* FandomLifeCycle: Started at Stage 0-b for the original game; after the original became a SleeperHit, its sequel quickly catapulted the series to Stage 3, if not Stage 4, the series reached Stage 5 when ''Guitar Hero III'' was released, slipped to Stage 6-a with the series' oversaturation in 2009, and slipped further to Stage 6-b when Activision shelved the series.

* BTeamSequel: Neversoft took over the franchise starting with ''Guitar Hero III'', after Harmonix left to create ''VideoGame/RockBand''.

* DummiedOut: "Trippolette" and "Graveyard Shift" in the original game, which are both accessible through the use of a cheat device. "Trippolette" was planned to be part of the main game, but was cut due to someone in QA sneaking it in at the last second before anyone on the dev team was able to find out.

** In the Wii version of Guitar Hero 5, there were going to be 5 extra songs. These songs were "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynrd[[note]]It would later get official chart exclusively for that system[[/note]], a live version of Led Zeppelin's "Black Dog", "March of the Pigs" by Nine Inch Nails, "Bug Eyes" by dredg, and a ''World Tour'' medley consisting of "Beautiful Disaster" by 311, "Freak on a Leash" by Korn, "About a Girl (Unplugged)" by Nirvana, "What I've Done" by Linkin Park, "Are You Gonna Go My Way" by Lenny Kravitz, "Feel the Pain" by Dinosaur Jr., "Prisoner of Society" by The Living End, and "Dammit" by blink-182.

* UrbanLegendOfZelda: Rumors persisted for a while that Music/TheRollingStones' live DLC was recorded at their infamous Altamont, CA concert, with "Under My Thumb" being the song where Meredith Hunter was killed. It's actually from ''Get Yer Ya-yas Out'', their live DVD which was recorded at Madison Square Garden earlier in 1969.

* DisownedAdaptation: Charlie Daniels hated the version of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” that appeared in ''Legends of Rock'', mainly because the devil could ([[NintendoHard and often would]]) win. He said that losing to devil undermined the whole meaning of the song, and the only reason why it appeared in the game was because he lost the rights to the song. Had he still owned them, he would have never approved of its inclusion.

* NoPortForYou: * ''Guitar Hero III'', ''Aerosmith'' and ''World Tour'' were the only games in the series to see a release on PC and [=macOS=]; the rest were exclusive to consoles and/or mobile devices.

* CrossDressingVoices: It doesn't matter if your singer is male or female, it'll sing whatever song is selected regardless. {{Justified|Trope}} because they could just be lip syncing... {{Handwave}}d in ''World Tour'', where a microphone was added as an instrument. Averted in the guitar-based entries, where the singer's genre was matched with the song.

** The Bow Wow Wow cover of "I Want Candy" was going to be in ''Encore: Rock the 80s'', and even appeared in some preview builds of the game, but was removed for undisclosed reasons. Rumor has it that [[WebAnimation/HomestarRunner Because It's Midnite]] was originally going to be a bonus track like "Trogdor" was in ''2'', but was ultimately moved to the main setlist as a replacement.

* FanNickname: The unnamed bassist in ''III'' seen during single player mode. He wears a Zildjian shirt (which had no logo in his previous appearances in the two first games), jeans, and has a face completely covered by long, shaggy hair, a thick mustache and massive beard. And thus, "Hairpile" was born!

* WildfireFranchise: The series had six mainline entries and nine spinoffs (eleven if you count the two ''VideoGame/DJHero'' games) released between 2005 and 2010. While the series was a massive success at first, the overwhelming number of new entries caused players to get burned out, leading the the death of the series. Support for the final main ''Guitar Hero'' game, ''Warriors of Rock'', was dropped in 2011. There was an attempt at a reboot with ''VideoGame/GuitarHeroLive'' in 2015, which used a completely new controller and presentation, and which got sporadic support until its online service was shut down in 2018, failing to bring the series back to the height of its popularity.

* WildfireFranchise: The series had six mainline entries and nine spinoffs (eleven if you count the two ''VideoGame/DJHero'' games) released between 2005 and 2010. While the series was a massive success at first, the overwhelming number of new entries caused players to get burned out, leading the the death of the series. Support for the final main ''Guitar Hero'' game, Warriors of Rock, was dropped in 2011. There was an attempt at a reboot with ''VideoGame/GuitarHeroLive'' in 2015, which used a completely new controller and presentation, and which got sporadic support until its online service was shut down in 2018, failing to bring the series back to the height of its popularity.

* WolverinePublicity: The series could be a near Real Life example of a {{Deconstruction}}. After immense popularity throughout the mid-2000s, in 2009 Activision released '''seven''' titles under the "Hero" banner. The oversaturation, along with the recession occurring, led to sharply declining sales to the point where ''Warriors of Rock'' struggled to break 100,000 copies sold, and the series was promptly cancelled.

** As for the originals present in ''Rocks the 80s'', since both "I Wanna Rock" and "The Warrior" end in fade-outs, the in-game versions ''also end in fade-outs''. Considering that later games by Harmonix (read the ''VideoGame/RockBand'' series) and later games in the ''GH'' series that use masters bothered to raise the volume of the fade-out and create an ending (yes, those endings are made by the developers - compare "You Give Love a Bad Name" in ''Lego RB'' and ''[=GH5=]''), it's safe to assume they didn't care (besides, "I Wanna Rock" reappeared in ''Smash Hits'' with a proper ending). Then again, this was their last game before Activision hijacked their own series from them, and while not really bad, the final product ''did'' seem rushed for a summer release, so that's possibly the reason not much work was put in here.

** As for the originals present in ''Rocks the 80s'', since both "I Wanna Rock" and "The Warrior" end in fade-outs, the in-game versions ''also end in fade-outs''. Considering that later games by Harmonix (read the ''VideoGame/RockBand'' series) and later games in the ''GH'' series that use masters bothered to raise the volume of the fade-out and create an ending (yes, those endings are made by the developers - compare "You Give Love a Bad Name" in ''Lego RB'' and ''[=GH5=]''), it's safe to assume they didn't care. Then again, this was their last game before Activision hijacked their own series from them, and while not really bad, the final product ''did'' seem rushed for a summer release, so that's possibly the reason not much work was put in here.

* CashCowFranchise: The series broke the $1 billion milestone in 2007 and there was much rejoicing on Activision's part. However; an oversaturation of products released in 2009[[note]]GH 5, GH Metallica, GH Van Halen, GH Smash Hits, Band Hero, and DJ Hero were all released that year across ''over 25 [=SKUs=] (standalone software discs and hardware bundles)''[[/note]] hurt sales severely[[note]]Which also affected the sales of ''Warriors of Rock'' the following year, with the game failing to reach 1 million sold units across its three platforms[[/note]], ultimately causing the franchise to collapse. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Good going, Activision]].

** Recent data-mining on the Wii version of ''[=GH5=]'' discovered five songs that were probably meant to be version exclusives; among them, a fully-charted live version of "Black Dog" by Music/LedZeppelin, who have always been notoriously stingy about licensing their catalog.

** ''Warriors of Rock'' is accused of cribbing its aesthetics and themes from ''VideoGame/BrutalLegend''.

** In the Wii version of Guitar Hero 5, there were going to be 5 extra songs. These songs were "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynrd[[note]]It would later get official chart exclusively for that system[[/note]], a live version of Led Zeppelin's "Black Dog", "March of the Pigs" by Nine Inch Nails, "Bug Eyes" by dredg, and a medley consisting of "Beautiful Disaster" by 311, "Freak on a Leash" by Korn, "About a Girl (Unplugged)" by Nirvana, "What I've Done" by Linkin Park, "Are You Gonna Go My Way" by Lenny Kravits, "Feel the Pain" by Dinosaur Jr., "Prisoner of Society" by The Living End, and "Dammit" by blink-182.