over rated and under rated guitarists

V

van_halen

Banned
over rated: kirk hammett, slash, joe satriani, jeff loomis, steve vai, all the nu metal guys, kerry king, dave mustaine, dimebag darrell, zakk wylde

under rated: blues saraceno, michael schenker, nuno bettencourt, jeff waters, reb beach, jeff hannemann, mark knopfler, gary moore, chris poland, chris broderick, john mclauglin, al di meola, dave sabo, dave grohl, steve clark, phil collen, vivian campbell, roger fisher, nancy wilson, glenn frey, george harrison, lindsey buckingham

neither over rated nor under rated: yngwie malmsteen, paul gilbert, evh, marty friedman, george lynch, chuck schuldiner, trey azagthoth, alexi laiho, mikael akerfeldt, james hetfield, jason becker, jeff beck, eric clapton, jimmy page, tony iommi, scotti hill, guthrie govan, kurt cobain, keith richards

feel free to discuss and add on to the list.
 
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Underated: Joanne Shaw Taylor(love her blues vibes) , Richie Kotzen(Rare talent of shredding and vocals)
 
hifi_killer said:
whats the point of putting them into these arbitrary categories?
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We're not strictly categorizing them. Just a matter of personal opinion. It'll be nice of people pose questions or objections (even better) about the listed people.

Edit: in a civilized manner.
 
ryancrl said:
Why is Steve Vai overrated plz!
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in my opinion, he is overrated because despite his mad skills and technique, the tunes he play carry no interesting/memorable hooks/melodies. i don't find his so called best songs eg for the love of god and tender surrender to be fantastic. and the last part of tender surrender is wtf?! wah wah wah, wah wah wah wah wah wahhh... wah wah wah.. wah wah wah wah wah, wah wah wah wah wahhhhhhhhh
 
underrated guitarists
- John Frusciante (RHCP)
- Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead
- Johnny Marr (well not really underrated...)
- Billy Corgan
- many black blues guitarists (E.g. Freddie King, Albert King, Buddy Guy, etc.)
- Tom Morello (RATM)
- The Edge
- Kim Thayil (Soundgarden)
- Ron Asheton (The Stooges)
- George Harrison
 
i'll go on to talk about why Slash, another favourite, is overrated. but before we get into that, we have to talk about GnR first.

GnR is overrated. they got so hugely popular because of their hard rocking living the rockstar lifestyle IMAGE and not their music. chain smoking, alcohol, womanising, drugs etc. their sound was very dissonant and "messy", not as tight as other hard rock bands of that era eg dokken, skid row, def leppard, van halen.

only thing going for them was axl's voice/singing. izzy was just a regular guy carrying the rhythm. slash, actually he is unique in many ways compared to other hard rock lead guitarists of that era. his image, his penchant for les pauls, his playing style. his guitar playing defines GnR's sound but, compared to his contemporaries, is he really that good? his phrasing is good, bluesy, but he is not a bluesman. compared to out and out hard rockers, are his leads as hard rocking? so he strikes me as neither here nor there and definitely not in the top category in the hard rock context.

without GnR, will Slash be known/popular/successful? think about it.
 
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