MSU Red Cedar Message Board

Wot, no Prog? I always liked Steve Howe and Greg Lake...electric and acoustic.

nm

Can't believe nobody has mentioned Johnny Marr of The Smiths. An absolute genius.

Well that is an excellent point. Chet Atkins knew his stuff. He probably lost some status in the pantheon for promoting the gentle country strings sound, but he was damn talented.

That was Eric Clapton. George was still a great guitarist in his own right, though.

careful, i got downvoted for mentioning guitar players not already collecting social security (or whatever they call it in the UK)

Yeah you must be pretty young. I left out Chet Atkins, one of the best guitarists of all time.

Here is a list you might consider, young man:

http://www.latimesmagazine.com/2010/06/50-greatest-guitarists-ever.html

Note that those are listed alphabetically. They're not saying Duane Allman is the greatest guitarist ever. Some of the commenters missed that.

There are some omissions. (How could there not be?) But it's a decent list. Lots of variety. Not surprising that Robert Fripp is the only one out of the dozen I watched without video. He hates being photographed.

Spin sucks. I wouldn't be surprised if this list was just Thom Yorke 100 times in a row knowing them.

Did Spin really put Skrillex in a list of the top 100 guitar players? Amazingly, the addition of Skrillex isn't the most egregious mistake. Seriously, how can you not include Hendrix? Regardless of whether or not you think Hendrix is "overrated," if you were to poll 100 guitarists and ask them to name the top 100 guitarists of all time, the only person I am confident would appear in all 100 lists is Hendrix.

The bias against younger guitarists is consistent with the bias against newer music. Rolling Stone just put out its latest all-time top 500 albums lists. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is once again number one. Hell, this is not ever in the top-three Beatles albums (Revolver, Rubber Soul, Abbey Road). But more tellingly, as Jim Fusilli points out:

"Of its 500 albums, 292 were released in the '60s or '70s, a highly improbable 59%. Only 8% of the listed albums were released in this century; only two were issued this decade—and one of those, "Smile" by the Beach Boys, was recorded 46 years ago. "

Now I'm a baby boomer myself. Hell, I was a senior in high school--the sweet spot for music love and nostalgia--but this list is criminal. I hope that I outlive every one of the baby boomers and I won't miss most of them a bit. We are the most self-absorbed, self-important, generation in American history. If you could buy the baby-boomers' actual contribution to American society and sell it for what we think it's worth, you would be richer than Bill Gates (OK there have been a few baby boomers that actually contributed something).

I love this definition from the Urban Dictionary: Baby Boomer - The generation that destroyed the West. This fucking baby boomer fought no wars, underfunded the welfare state, failed to have any kids, bought the White Album and was a generally self-righteous hippy cunt while Rome burned. Now he wants MY taxes to pay his pension and medical costs for 40 years of mounting senility? Fuck that.

And Kiko is one of the top-20 albums of all times (and a sonic masterpiece). Fusilli and I are not the only ones who agree; it's rated 4.9/5.0 on Amazon.

WTF are you talking about? Rolling Stone has lost plenty of credibility with its lists and rankings anyway.

Did anyone mention Steve Vai? I hope so.

deep.