Earlier this week, Activision revealed that Smashing Pumpkins, Rush and Carlos Santana will be joining the lineup of songs featured on their fall release of Guitar Hero 5. They also announced when Vampire Weekend, The White Stripes and Bob Dylan were added to the lineup earlier this month, invariably causing many of Dylan’s early acoustic fans to recommence spinning in their graves.

Having a song included on Guitar Hero is the mass rock industry’s modern day version of the golden ticket. It allows bands to communicate with audiences they wouldn’t reach otherwise, widen their fan base and, of course, sell songs.

And the impact that this video-game listing has on music sales is not to be laughed at. When Guitar Hero 3 was released, it featured the Stokes’ song “Reptilia” (great song) and download song sales soared. Similar fates were experienced by Weezer, Bloc Party and even Metallica: the band that finally seems to be embracing the digital realm, doing their darndest to put the Napster fiasco behind them.

There are, of course, the purists who insist that once a song is included in any mass-marketing endeavor, it ceases to be “cool” (I admit I am occasionally guilty of making such comments when spending time with my snooty music friends). There are also those who look to cash-in on the benefits of Guitar Hero while publicly discrediting it (see Jack White).

But no matter how you feel about Guitar Hero 5, it highlights something that as PR professionals we need to keep top-of-mind: there are always new forms of communication media popping up, especially considering the speed with which new technologies are developing daily, both in the media and product realm. It is our job to stay on top of these vehicles and do our best to beat the curve (in other words, get our “musicians” involved in Guitar Hero 1 rather than its subsequent versions).

Here’s hoping that Guitar Hero 5 will inspire kids to put down the fake guitar and pick up a real one so that we don’t run out of great guitar songs come Guitar Hero 7458.