Tenacious D

Hollywood A lister Jack Black recently scored an unexpected musical hit with his rendition of “Peaches” (2023), a song derived from The Super Mario Bros. Movie, a film that he voice acted in. Said movie, as you likely already know, is based on a very-popular videogame series.

So obviously Black is trying to capitalize on that success. However, this time he is doing so along alongside his Tenacious D bandmate Kyle Gass via the song “Video Games”.

They released “Video Games” on May 11th, 2023. This is the first single that Tenacious D has come out with since 2020’s “Time Warp”. And to note, a YouTuber named Chris O’Neill animated the music video for this short song.

AN INDIRECT HOMAGE TO VIDEO GAMES

As pointed out in the colorful videogame documentary From Bedroom to Billions (2014), there was a time some years ago when videogames transcended the realm of being considered solely as children’s fare and became a universally-accepted form of mainstream entertainment.

According to Tenacious D’s explanation of this song, that’s the ultimate point they’re trying to get at, but in an indirect way.

That is to say that instead of coming off as the videogame aficionado he actually is, the vocalist rather starts off by claiming that he has quit the habit. Well, that is except for occasionally engaging in some God of War and Fallout 4, i.e. two of the most-popular videogames of the 21^st century.

But in the second verse – by the time he finishes mentioning Red Dead Redemption II, another classic game of the modern era – the cat is kinda let out the bag. Here, we get to know that this vocalist who’s coming off as if he’s outgrown videogames more truthfully plays them regularly.

“I don’t play video games no more
I never play video games
Except for a little bit of God of War
I never play video games
Maybe once in a while a little bit of Fallout 4
But that’s okay, not right now
I got things to do”

Or put otherwise, earlier on he was frontin’ or describing himself based more on the ideology of being a mature, non-game playing adult rather than the reality of his situation. So now his argument changes to rather trying to depict videogames as more-serious fare, such as the aforenoted Red Dead Redemption II, a game set in the Wild West, as having genuine historical significance.

So conclusively, the vocalist is in denial in regards to his dependency on videogames. Or his mind had been conditioned in such a way to believe that such games were meant for kids – so much so that initially, as an adult he was compelled to deny his liking for them.

But by the time all is said and done he comes to accept an opposing view. Now he realizes that some of the biggest hit videogames of the day actually possess viable entertainment value for mature folk also.