Who is the most overated guitarist of the last 15 years??

[Dr. Scottie C]

Who is the most overated guitarist of the last 15 years??

 

[kayd_mon]

Here's a topic that should stir something up!

[JRicoC]

So does this mean he has to have released his FIRST album in 1998 or later?

[Dr. Scottie C]

 

---

JRicoC wrote:

 

So does this mean he has to have released his FIRST album in 1998 or later?

---

 

You could look at it like that...

OR

If you were someone that, for example, thought that the Santana revival that occured around 2000 was lame.... then you could say.

1969 Santana >>>>>>>> over lame 1999 Santana

For example.

[d_dave_c]

Rate, overate, blah-blah. Music is subjective. Anyone who tried to make things black or white misses most of the spectrum.

[kayd_mon]

@Gitter

 

The rating system ends at Yngwie? So I take it that means he (and I guess Shawn Lane, too) is the ultimate guitar player, according to you? Interesting.

 

As for me, I think I like soundcreation's answer for this one.

[Dr. Scottie C]

@ the last few comments

1) I love Gary Moore.... can't hack listening to anything Vai related.

2) Gitter has a few good points in his post....Malmsteen and the late Shawn Lane could do things with the guitar that 99.99998% of the general playing public cannot.

As far as technique, and technique alone is concerned....Malmsteen & Lane may be right there at the end of the grading scale.... that could be true.

If we factor in feel.... that's a whole other discussion.

Yes, John Mayer is a douche, whose douche songs like "Ya bod day is a wunnerland" and forced ghey SRV wanna be voice has won the hearts of 13 yr olds world wide.

The bad news for John...his last 2 albums eat trucker ass.... so much that there is no wuss mellow "Say what you need to say" single to be found.... Big Mistake.

Mayer either needs to stick to his Dave Mathews rip off act....or wannabe blues act.....

Right now...he is neither.

He is like a JD Southern rip off at the moment (which pays real good) ..sarcasm.

 

[Gitter]

 

---

kayd_mon wrote:

 

@Gitter

 

 

 

The rating system ends at Yngwie? So I take it that means he (and I guess Shawn Lane, too) is the ultimate guitar player, according to you? Interesting.

 

---

 

 

"Rating music" is about the stupidest thing you can do, the question is inherently dumb.

If we were to propose a rating system, however, I think you have to go with technique and from there, determine who can do stuff with the instrument that others cannot do. Being the electric guitar forum, we'll go with electric guitarists.

Name me an electric guitar player on planet earth who plays something Yngwie or Shawn Lane apparently could not play. Don't shirk from the spirit of the question and cite a player in some obscure niche playing a guitar with his feet, or the like.

Straightforward, there are very very very very few people who can play at Yngwies level, technically or musically. I cannot think of anyone who could play something that, on its surface, would be something Yngwie couldn't play within 15 minutes.

I realize he gets a bad rap for being such an overt dbag (he's actually mellowed a lot in recent years and even acknowledges some of his mistakes early on, as far as how he conducted himself) but as far as electric guitar players go, yes. Correct. He's pretty much 'the end' along with a tiny handful of others and anyone who tries to make a counter-case with some youtube retard (like Rusty Cooley) is just going wind up making an ass of themselves by unwittingly demonstrating their own terrible insight.

You don't have to like his music but as a practicing instrumentalist, it's just **** stupid to try and make a case 'against' him being one of the top tiny hanful of practicioners. He's the cause of a great deal of ego-anguish among other guitar players, given the unarguable level he plays at.

[knotty]

@gitter

 

I can't seperate technical chops like you do. Its a musical instrument. If they can't play music people want to hear that rules them out in my book.

 

[Gitter]

 

---

knotty wrote:

 

@gitter

 

 

 

I can't seperate technical chops like you do. Its a musical instrument. If they can't play music people want to hear that rules them out in my book.

 

---

 

In spirit, I totally (TOTALLY) agree with your premise.

There is nothing more boring than seemingly pointless 32nd arpeggios up and down the neck. I also have essentially no interest in non-creative musicians.

However, as noted, if we're to distinguish guitarists from one another, then technique is basically the only way to do it since the musicality of it all is entirely subjective.

Yngwie and in particular, Shawn Lane get bad raps because the assumption is that because they bring such a high order of technique to the table, their musicality must be proportionally bad to the inverse. Yngwie I can take or leave, a bit too 80's-buttrock-neoclassical-solo-centric for my tastes, however to belittle him as an instrumentalist is either just haterism or cluelessness, not to mention someone like Shawn Lane was an effing musical genius even if you took his guitar away and just sat him in front of a piano. His achievement of freakish technique was in service to a musical mind that had much further boundries than most peoples.

I have no interest in the 'soul patrol' who has a fetish for old black men playing bendy single notes; a weak case to be made for 'great guitar playing' since I could teach any given guitar playing 12 year old to do that in a week. Might be fun music but nothing instrumentally distinct.

Based on my own experiences, pro musicians are, at once and paradoxically enough, incredibly open-minded AND judgemental about other musicians. They appreciate music and other musicians on all levels, but they're also quick recognize musical bull{censored}, artistic clones and cultural over-emphasis when they see it.

[kayd_mon]

@Gitter

 

I didn't mean "interesting" in an argumentative way, I simply meant that it was interesting. I think I would have to agree that if you really had to rank guitarists, you might be forced to treat it like a sport. Yngwie would be about as "athletic" on a guitar as you can get, I suppose. I've always been more impressed with figerstyle guys like Tommy Emmanuel, but I suppose they're more acoustic players, and your argument focuses only on electric players. So anyway, your argument is interesting.

 

Ok, applying the same criteria, who would you say is the most overrated guitarist?

 

Personally, I don't dislike Yngwie, nor do I really listen to him. I don't think I've ever seriously knocked his skill, though. That would just be silly.

[Gitter]

 

---

kayd_mon wrote:

 

@Gitter

 

 

 

I didn't mean "interesting" in an argumentative way, I simply meant that it was interesting. I think I would have to agree that if you really had to rank guitarists, you might be forced to treat it like a sport. Yngwie would be about as "athletic" on a guitar as you can get, I suppose. I've always been more impressed with figerstyle guys like Tommy Emmanuel, but I suppose they're more acoustic players, and your argument focuses only on electric players. So anyway, your argument is interesting.

 

 

 

Ok, applying the same criteria, who would you say is the most overrated guitarist?

 

 

 

Personally, I don't dislike Yngwie, nor do I really listen to him. I don't think I've ever seriously knocked his skill, though. That would just be silly.

---

 

It's just so hard, since it depends on who you ask.

If you ask John Q Public who is the best guitarist, they have one answer.

If you ask John Q Guitarist, they have another answer.

If you ask John Q GoodGuitarist, they have a totally different answer than the previous two.

Overrated as a guitarist by the lay-public, probably Clapton.My #1 favorite album all time is Clapton Unplugged, but as an instrumentalist, he's probably overrated by people who know nothing about guitar. As an overall musician, he's probably underrated by hipster-types who tend to dismiss anyone who isn't marginal and obscure.

In Brazil, the same thing may be said about Jobim. Here, people wouldn't even know who he is without consulting Google first.

If I had to pick my all time favorite guitarist it would be Joe Pass (boring, ho-hum pick, I know), but the way Christopher Parkening approaches the instrument in the classical world had an enormous influence on the way I approach it, and I don't really play classical. He is distinctly more deft in a number of technical areas than anyone else, ever, period. Tommy Emmanuel can do weird stuff in the fingerstyle realm, Don Ross composes acoustic fingerstyle songs that are supernaturally good. Tommy could do technical stuff that Don probably couldn't, Don can write songs that, per my own tastes, are more enjoyable to listen to than most of Tommy's canon.

Since there's just so much subjectivity in 'music', the only way to 'rank guitarists' is by technique; by continually asking the question "what can this guy do; who can do that, and more..." until you arrive at a player where there isn't really another answer a rung up the ladder.

 

 

[kayd_mon]

I like The Raconteurs. The White Stripes? Eh, ok I guess.

[kayd_mon]

@larryguitar

 

That's interesting, too.

 

What then is the most recognizable guitar riff to the average person? Johnny B. Goode?

[kayd_mon]

@larryguitar

 

I thought of some of those, too. My first thought was actually Daytripper, because whenever my cover band starts that riff, the audience responds immediately with positive sounds.

[larryguitar]

I think there was some poll that declared Day Tripper the most recognizable riff in history, although I'll be darned if I can locate it now. I always thought that, the opening to Johnny B. Goode and the riff to Oh Pretty Woman were the top three, myself.