Clapton is so overrated it’s unbelievable.
I don’t know if he’s the MOST overrated, but I’ll go with Joe Perry simply because Aerosmith is one of those bands whose appeal I just don’t understand.
I’d disagree on the songs enduring part; I think, if his songs endure, it’s because of the legend and not the songwriting, which he didn’t have much skill at, IMO. He was a great guitarist, though.
My pick would be Jerry Garcia. Sloppy in a bad way, and nothing I’ve ever heard sounds the least bit groundbreaking or original.
Hmm… there is a lot of sloppy Garcia out there, but there is also a lot of mind-blowing Garcia. It fits in with all the yin/yang good/bad sweet/sour that makes the Grateful Dead what they are. I’d agree it’s not groundbreaking, but it’s definitely unique and really flows with his songs.
I just want to weigh in and point out that dudes these days don’t spend a lot of time talking about how great the guitarists in currently popular bands are. Or do they?
Garcia had a lot of ups and down in both his personal and professional life; there were periods where he was unfocused, sloppy and an all around mess.
There were also times where his playing represented a high water mark for improvisational musicians of any instrument or genre.
Nah, Hendrix was the best. I can’t think of anyone who revolutionized rock guitar while sounding as completely natural and soulful as he did.
Personally, I could just never get into Clapton. Maybe Cream-era Clapton I could sort of feel, but otherwise, there’s just something about his playing, his phrasing, that doesn’t quite click for me. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is. He’d be my number one vote for most overrated rock guitarist, although I can’t deny that he’s got chops.
Also, it doesn’t matter how “hard” something is to play or not. All that matters is how it sounds in the end. There’s a lot of “sloppy” guitar playing that sounds great to me (Hendrix has his fair share of slop, but he hits the strings with such confidence, authority, and musicality that I don’t care. He sells the notes to me, even if they’re “wrong.”) Conversely, there’s a lot of technically impeccible playing that sounds downright boring to me. (See: Yngwie Malmsteen.)
I think a classic example of what y’all are talking about is Alex Lifeson’s guitar solo in Limelight. It sounds pretty darned simple. But the Rush-fan guitarists I’ve talked to (I’m a member of an e-mail group dedicated to transcribing Rush’s music note-for-note, and the members of the group include members of at least one Rush tribute band) agree that it’s actually one of the most difficult solos to pull off correctly. It’s not flashy or fast, but man does it capture the emotion of the song.
I’ll take this up and add Joey Ramone and Kurt Cobain. I’d say Tom Morello is the most interesting of these four guitarists, but his stuff sounds mostly the same: like he’s slowly ruining a really nice guitar. Joey Ramone and Kurt Cobain did great things for their respective genres but weren’t all time great guitar players. Jack White reminds me of Jennifer Aniston in that I feel like I’m being told to like them because I’m supposed to.
Mandatory disclaimer: I’m not a guitar player. I’m not even a guitar hero player.
:smack: Wrong one. Johnny Ramone.
Re. the RS list, I’m pleased that Robert Quine made it (#80), as did Bert Jansch. Some of these “best guitarist” lists leave them off entirely.
I know that what follows looks like an outrageous hijack, but my intent is less to derail anything than it is to produce a few interesting links, while sticking it to RS (do they even put real musicians on the cover anymore? I dropped them years ago in disgust over their lowbrow pop culture pandering, esp. to basic-cable tarts, Hollywood starlets, and minimally-talented manufactured pop stars).
Here’s an admittedly outdated (1996) Mojo list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists” [not rock-specific] that is quite different from the RS one from 2003, and not just because of the seven-year gap. The Mojo list includes more artists from the country, R&B, funk, reggae, and even West African high-life [King Sunny Ade, natch] styles… and also mentions *the guitar that each artist is most associated with. * Lots of Gibson Les Pauls and Fender Telecasters and Strats, there…
(Just for future trivia purposes, I’m bookmarking that page.)
On a similar note, there’s the book Guitar World Presents the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time [2002, 128 pps.] NB: the list was prepared by the editors of Guitar World. In addition to the list itself, there’s these extras: the riveting stories behind the 100 greatest guitar solos, a lesson with Metallica’s Kirk Hammet[sic], a guide to the 12 greatest guitar tones, and 25 guitar masters weighing in on their favorite solos.
I wasn’t able to find a Q mag list for 100 Greatest Guitarists, but there was a list of Top 20 Guitar Solos and a feature article on 8 [current] Guitar Heroes.
Also:
Brazilian rock mag Roadie Crew polled 330 professional rock guitarists (many of them metal, apparently) in 2008 for a Top 20 list.
Guitar World’s Greatest 100 Metal Guitarists of All Time list (2004). Robert Fripp at #75? With “Nigel Tufnel” at #23? What were these guys smoking? Also Kirk Hammett was sharing #2 with James Hetfield… could this have been a *quid pro quo *for Hammett’s guitar lesson in their “100 Greatest Guitarists” book from 2002? :dubious:
Total Guitar’s 2002 Readers’ Poll of Top 100 Guitarists… being torn a new one by Ultimate Metal-dot-com readers. (The TG poll results are posted at the top.) If there’s anything worse than a critics’ poll, it’s a readers’ poll, apparently.
And just for fun, Guitar Player 's decidedly mixed review of the book The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists, by Joel McIver, a regular contributor to GP’s rival, Total Guitar. :dubious:
I think the answer will be one of the “dead legends” like Dimebag or Randy Rhodes (to pick the first two that come to mind). Not because they are not good, maybe even GREAT!!! (I’m not qualified to say) but because no one could ever live up to the hype.
People have a tendency to exaggerate the influence of their heroes who died too young. I love Tommy Bolin’s music and would like to think that if he had lived (and gotten off heroin) he would have joined the pantheon. But we’ll never know and me saying he was the best who ever lived would be absurd. But I’ve heard people say that kind of thing about any number of dead rock stars.
That’s not to say that every guitarist who died too young is automatically “overrated”, though. Hendrix, Duane Allman and Stevie Ray Vaughan (and probably many others) deserve recognition and respect whether you “like” their music or not. What does overrated even mean? It’s a purely subjective term. A list in Rolling Stone magazine is as relevant as a poll in Playboy (or a Grammy, for that matter).
Being able to recreate a solo is not a good way to measure, either. Many, many times through the years I’ve struggled to learn some seemingly simple drum line that I just couldn’t get right. Then I would see a video and realise the drummer I’m trying to emulate is left-handed (or has his drums layed out “weird” or some other factor) and it falls right into place. There are many different kinds of guitar techniques. If you don’t know how some guitarist played a particular lick it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s difficult. It just means you don’t know how he played it.
The sloppiest guitarist I’ve ever seen in person was Ritchie Blackmore one night in Cobo Hall. The worst concert sound I ever heard came from Malmsteen. Granted, the acoustics in the hall he was playing sucked, but Angus Young sounded great the same night in the same hall. Three of the best guitarists I’ve ever seen were John McLaughlin, Al DiMeola and Steve Morse. You could say they are jazz players, but it was pretty ROCK ‘N’ ROLL to me. How are any of these guitarists rated and by whom? None of them suck (well, Yngwie does but not because of his guitar playing 
), but are they overrated? Hellifiknow.
I guess I will lump a comment on this and **woodstockbirdybird’s **post together. Clearly a rating depends on how you calibrate your instrument. In my case, the criteria I use when evaluating a guitarist always starts the same: the songs come first. So when you say that Johnny (thanks for catching that, btw) and Cobain weren’t all-time great, I would say - I dunno; they influenced a lot more players and got their guitar playing into the genepool of songs that are going to survive more generations vs. Yngwie - who’s fittest as a guitarist in the Darwinian sense? ;)
To me, it is harder to move in a new direction - and create something enduring - than it is to prove you can drive over old ground.
And as for Hendrix, I have to disagree. Castles Made of Sand, Wind Cries Mary, Crosstown Traffic, Manic Depression, Voodoo Chile, Little Wing - these are good songs; songs that get play. He is not fully reduced to just Purple Haze, Foxy Lady and Watchtower.
And as for Jack White - look, I totally get the hate the he receives, or at least the cocked eyebrow. Between the rawness - of both his guitar and his voice; he’s not afraid to have some slop in both - and his “cooler than thou” artiste packaging, he can be…an acquired taste. But Jack White is a truly great guitarist in the Jimmy Page “I put creativity before precision” mold (White worships Page; no suprise). Hearing him play, as a guitarist, is inspiring - he is doing stuff I can do - basic, elemental blues licks - but doing interesting, cool-sounding stuff with them. Just listen to Seven Nation Army, off Elephant - that’s a very cool bit of noise - lots of swagger and attitude - you get the feel immediately, so he must be doing something right. A lot of his stuff is that way. But the slide break in the middle of I Want to Be the Boy Who Warms Your Mother’s Heart? That’s just pure, glassy slide goodness - not easy to do.
Jack White has come up with some great riffs, for one thing. I’ve heard people sing the guitar to Seven Nation Army. Drunks, mostly, I grant you. And White kind of plays like a drunk, too, but hey, that’s like getting down on Keith Moon for being sloppy. I appreciate Jack White’s audacity.
I can appreciate what Harborwolf said about everybody expecting him to like Jack White, as the critical praise for Elephant probably did go over the top, but the comparison with Jennifer Anniston is bizarre. Maybe if she’d won a couple Oscars and had a lot of talent, but had an abrasive style, the comparison would work. It’s probable that some people do overrate White, but I don’t consider him generally overrated. I think he’s justly famous.
Same with Cobain, I guess. I’ve heard guitarists say his songs are simple, but as has been pointed out, there’s a big difference between being able to play a song and coming up with that song. A lot of things are easy once you know how.
Cobain may be overrated as a lyricist, IMO, but I’ve come to dislike non sequitur laced word salad that’s meant to conjure up a mood or something. I like the old Chuck Berry style wordplay and stories.
As for overrated guitarists, I’m going to be unoriginal and say Clapton. He’s good but not, as the old grafitti tag claimed, God.
Jack White’s a very powerful player, I think. I’ve never liked his singing very much but I think he’s a very good guitar player. I see Morello as a modern-day Page in terms of coming up with great riffs, although he’s otherwise one-dimensional and a really weak soloist.
Well, maybe I’m just being contrarian, but I’ll agree. Not that he sucked (I am a big fan), but it’s hard to rank him at #2 when he wasn’t even the most important guitarist in his own band. Sure, if the only thing you know about the Allman Brothers is “Statesboro Blues”, you might think he was the center of the band. But it wasn’t Duane who wrote (and played most of the lead on) “Jessica”, “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed”, “Ramblin’ Man” and “Blue Sky”. Even when Duane was around, he only split the lead guitar work pretty much evenly.
All due respect to the dead, but to put it another way, if your band creates most of its greatest hits AFTER you leave the band, it’s hard to argue you’re the second best guitarist of all time.
[I think this is perhaps more of a ‘who’s underrated’ rant rather than a ‘who’s overrated’, but can’t always separate the two]
He did start the band in the first place. Aside from that, you’re somewhat off here - he did play half the leads on Liz Reed and Blue Sky. He didn’t write them. And while the band had greater commercial success after he died, that wasn’t their most interesting or innovative, or impassioned, stuff.
First of all, I respect the fact that you admit you’re not qualified to judge those particular guitar players. And I also totally agree that no one could live up to that kind of hype. But Dimebag without a doubt, and probably Randy Rhoads are anything but overrated. I haven’t heard nearly as much of Randy’s output as I have of Darrell’s, but both of those men were amazing guitar players.
Dimebag
Rhoads
Another vote for Yngwie Malmsteen. Playing the scales at lightning speed is interesting, but ultimately he’s just playing scales really fast. To quote a great Good Rats song, “Speed ain’t nothing without class.”
I never saw the original list. Was Django Reinhart listed?
No. The list was specifically for rock guitarists, though.