what the hell has happened to guitar players?

[jnorman]

geez - i just listened to some old (80s and 90s) tunes from some of the rock bands of that period such as def leppard, white lion, bad company, van halen, etc, and was just blown away by how wonderfully huge and powerful the guitars sounded, and also by incredibly talented those guys were. when i compare that to the crappy, thin, amateurish and generally unimaginitive guitar playing i hear on current pop tunes, i just wonder what the hell has happened? thoughts?

[Lee Flier]

1) Electric guitars sound bigger, better and deeper on analog tape than any digital recorder we yet have. They just do. 2) People are too lazy these days to mic amps, so everything is recorded on a POD or Amp Farm which is thin and wimpy sounding. Then a lot of them play live with a modelling amp... ditto. 3) When the grunge scene happened it created a backlash against the "hair metal wankers" of the 80's. Granted, many of those guys WERE self indulgent wankers, and I had to deal with way too many of those myself, but I hardly think the solution was to completely eliminate guitar solos and tonal variation. Apparently though, lots of people thought it WAS the solution. Any more questions? :D --Lee

[not coaster MODERATOR]

I don't consider Bad Co and Van Halen as similar styles but I see your point. Current guitar styles are understated on purpose as a backlash against 80's overkill. Kind of getting back to that "Kinks" sound even.

[Lee Flier]

Getting back to the Kinks sound would be a step forward. At least that sound had some life in it. --Lee

[lrbreez]

I think alot of it has to do with the fact that younger musicians don't have to opportunity to play live and to develop in the early stages of their career. Buddy

[Dylan]

[quote]Originally posted by jnorman: [b]when i compare that to the crappy, thin, amateurish and generally unimaginitive guitar playing i hear on current pop tunes, i just wonder what the hell has happened?[/b][/quote]In one word: Nirvana. Ever since that band came out, rock and roll has gone way down hill. The level of musicianship seen in current bands is WAY less than what it use to be. All of a sudden, it's cool to have no chops and to not be able to play a burning guitar solo. And the record industry wonders why no one buys CD's anymore :rolleyes: .

[Rog]

Thank god we don't have hair metal guitar solos anymore. That stuff makes me cringe so much. The Strokes have some nifty guitar solos which means, with the biz being in the state it's in, there will doubtless be more 'strokes-alike' bands coming through with very similar solos! Being able to play fast with or without the use of a drill just makes you look like a tosser. At least Cobain played like he meant it!

[Lee Flier]

Yeah I agree, thank God we don't have hair metal guitar solos anymore. Believe me, I actively protested that shit at the time. :D But I don't think the backlash has been much better. I really dug Nirvana actually, I don't blame THEM so much as their unimaginative followers. Just like I don't blame Eddie Van Halen for all of HIS, even though I'm not much of a VH fan. And some of the other Nirvana-era bands did have good guitar playing, like Soundgarden. --Lee

[strat0124]

Nirvana saved RocknRoll to me......that spandex era was difficult to endure. I love how they cut em down like wheat with a sickel blade........"ok, you're done!". It'll happen again, the current state of radio is absolutely terrible. I can't wait for the punks to rip it to shreds again.

[Deathtoallwhoopposeme]

A lot of the hair 80's bands were over the top with Glam, and that was for show..A Fair amount of the players were not that great as well..But there were some, that were excellent. As far as the Vibe, yea Grunge came and made everyone get Real and that was a good thing. Since then, in general, guitar prevalent rock music, there as been much less soloing and tossing off as it were. Now is this bad thing? you judge, but i will say this as a Former teacher, and active musician on several scenes. The younger generation that is rising from the infuence of such understated playing, on the whole is LESS skillfull in general on their instrument(Guitar) then they were when they were all trying to emulate the insane solo's of the late 70's/80's...I find this to be FACT. I would not have become the decent well rounded player that i've developed into if it were not for other players that i liked out there with CHOPS....I just think the stuff kids are listing to today like Blink192 etc etc, is lacking in the chops department so they end up playing like that...That said, i'm sure many of the younger players will want to grow and embrace all style from all eras of Rock and Roll. It will probably always be the same percentage of musicians who can really play as it has been.

[Dylan]

[quote]Originally posted by Lee Flier: [b]And some of the other Nirvana-era bands did have good guitar playing, like Soundgarden. --Lee[/b][/quote]I agree. Bands like Alice and Chains and Stone Temple Pilots were some of the last bands in the early 90's who could actually play. I'm glad that Nirvana pretty much killed 80's glam look, but the music to follow was nowhere near as good, IMO. I'll take glam and hair any day in exchange for good music!

[coyote]

I dug Alice in Chains - and I always wondered what would have been had they had a truly incredible lead guitarist. [quote]Originally posted by Dillweed: [b] [quote]Originally posted by Lee Flier: [b]And some of the other Nirvana-era bands did have good guitar playing, like Soundgarden. --Lee[/b][/quote]I agree. Bands like Alice and Chains and Stone Temple Pilots were some of the last bands in the early 90's who could actually play. I'm glad that Nirvana pretty much killed 80's glam look, but the music to follow was nowhere near as good, IMO. I'll take glam and hair any day in exchange for good music![/b][/quote]

[Magpel]

Good riddance to that 80s guitar sound! Give me the naive arpeggios of a Peter Buck any day! I thought that Edge, Andy Summers, Buck et al had buried the wankers in the early 80s, but then they resurfaced, I guess. I think Eddie VH is a sublime guitarist, but not at all because of his novel tapping or any that shit. The guy is a loose, swinging, swaggering *rhythm* guitar player, much more attuned to the rhythmic essence of rock and roll than *any* of his legion followers (Reb Beach??), whose mechanical virtousity bears exactly the same relationship to Eddie as Creed's earnest, witless pap does to Nirvana. Exactly. You got the notes, boys, but you're missing the tune. Still, we've had some wonderfully quirky guitarists here in the post-heroic solo guitar world. John Frusciante, Dave Navarro. And that's just some ultra famous examples. No accounting for taste...

[The Bear Jew]

There's a lot of cool guitar stuff out there today... great sounds, creative players, etc. You just have to look somewhere besides the radio for it. Sadly, we have to work a lot harder to find the "good" stuff these days. This means checking out indie music stores, hitting the smaller clubs and the college radio stations. I still find it worthwhile to dig through the piles of discs at those little stores in order to find a few gems, just as I'll listen through the rotten college DJs who play their friends' bands in order to hear one or two cool songs. You gotta want it.

[Sylver]

I really liked a lot of the original grunge era stuff. Soundgarden, STP, Alice in Chains are great examples. I really dug a lot of Kurt Cobains sounds even if most of his lyrics irked me. Other bands in that time did thier own thing, which I respect even though I didn't really like the bands. Pearl Jam, even with the guitar solos lacking in the rest of the grunge movment, just didn't do it for me. I think it's because I hate Eddie Vetter ... lol. Besides, how many times can that guitar player(don't know his name) rip off Robbie Kruger? I mean, there are like five solos that he does that "Five to One" riff.(Or maybe he was ripping off Ace Freley, who was ripping off Robbie, though he only did it for one song) Anyway, I digress. The grunge thing was definately a back to the roots thing that crushed the 80's hair thang(it's amazing that the hair movment is a spin off of music that I actually liked), thank the powers that be. The current state of guitar oriented music seems to be influenced more by industrial & early Metallica than grunge. Most industral I can live without, though I do have a soft spot for NIN. Early Metallica, I just never got. It seems that the structure of guitar oriented music these days is based on music that SUCKED to begin with. Clone crap and what do you get? Weaker crap. (I know I'm gonna get a bonfire down on my ass for the Metallica comment, but who cares? Someone had to say it. If I have to hear more than 30 seconds of them I am bored to tears.) There was a post a few months ago that said there is no blues in todays (popular)music, and I basically agree with that. I hope someone discovers the blues again soon. Oh well. Maybe I'm just getting old. Where's my Geritol? Jack

[Tedster]

To everything (turn turn turn) There is a season (turn turn turn) And a time to every purpose under heaven A time to slam chords A time to wank A time to wear spandex A time to wear jeans A time to cut hair A time to let hair grow A time to play "Louie Louie" A time to play "Eruption" A time to be Yngwie A time to be Joe Strummer A time for rock and roll to be the voice of the emotional masses...a time for rock and roll to be the voice of the hypertalented few... Rock and roll seemed to start out being 4 or 5 kids in a garage slamming out "Louie Louie" or "Gloria" back in the mid 60s. Then came guitar gods like Hendrix, Clapton, Page, Blackmore...and things started evolving and getting more complex. Before you know it, you had guys like John McLaughlin playing prog fusion that were way up on the astral plane. Then you had the invasion of the Ramones, Dolls, and then the Brit punk bands, saying "WAITAMINUTE!" whatever happened to just slamming out "GLORIA"...and the masses went crazy. Until guys like EVH came along and kicked it back up to usher in the hair band shred thing for the rest of the 80s. Then Nirvana came along and basically slammed out "Gloria" again (figuratively speaking, mind you)... So, it's a cycle. If you're out of phase, i.e. a shredder when the "grunge" thing becomes popular, or vice versa, you're hosed. Unless you're adaptable, that is. Seems like a relatively even division represented here... A) Wankers suck or... B) Non-wankers suck It's all made for some interesting music though, eh? :D :D :D Oh, and Sylver...your signature cracked me up...but especially since L.D.S. stands for "Latter Day Saints" or Mormons. Or did you mean it that way? :D

[The Bear Jew]

[quote] Oh well. Maybe I'm just getting old. Where's my Geritol? [/quote]hahahahaha... I TOLD you that you were old!!

[halljams]

[quote]Originally posted by Magpel: [b] I think Eddie VH is a sublime guitarist, but not at all because of his novel tapping or any that shit. The guy is a loose, swinging, swaggering *rhythm* guitar player, much more attuned to the rhythmic essence of rock and roll than *any* of his legion followers ..[/b][/quote]I agree. I always say Eddie wasted an entire decade of many guitarists lives, those who tried to follow his lead. He was the best, and after all that, he still sits on top as the only guy i enjoy listening to doing that stuff. if you think about the evolution of guitar from a guitar players standpoint, you start with (in rock anyway)Hendrix who messed every one up and that was cool, really cool for a guitarist to see, and Page... MONSTEROUS, and then into Blackmore etc, the guitarist became an icon to emulate(that never happened with bass) and the anti kept going up and up. And then this freak Allen Holdsworth comes along and sets the technical bar so hi, guitarists who wanted to be in the running had to lock themselves up for 5 years just to compete, it wasn't about music at all anymore at that point. Eddie made it work but i think most of the others were just in a race of somesort. Then the race just turned into a bunch of guys who all ended up at the finish line together with their pants around their knees with no one there waiting to congradulate them. Then they all got jobs at music stores where they could play on their breaks and impress young male browsers who didn't have enough money to buy anything. Nobody cared. The public really didn't care. Widilawidilawidilawidla(swing hair back,check posture,widilawidilawidla How could anyone care about that? I hated Nirvana though, and still do. Yuck. Foo Fighters, now thats good stuff. The new guitar playing can be disappionting i guess but the point is that at least the kids are being weened on the idea of the sound of a band, rather than spotlighting and individual. 4 simple heads can create a much more attractive and deeper sound than one complex head. If we ever are going to get back to having "rock groups", we need to go through a stage of accepting lower quailty from "bands" who are rediscovering the concept. Hopefully, their way will develop into a different kind of supergroup, but they need to prove to the public that the sum of the parts can be so much better, and i think that by reverting to the "strokes" etc, the kids will start to open up to "The Band" instead of "the star" and it will take off in a much better direction eventually. Maby i'm being overly optimistic but that's what i hope to see. :)

[cerumen]

there is no fire in guitar solos anymore.. at least not on the commercial level... i can't really remember the last solo i heard where i said....."FUCK!" EVH is an awesome player but has lost some fire. Clapton too... I think SRV's death affected the guitar world.. who knows????

[Rog]

EVH was crap ... sorry, but I truly think he was. When I was 18 I bought the Nuno Bettencourt sig model and learned to play all that stuff. Then I grew up! It's about the music, the song and what you're trying to say with it ... for me. I gave up playing well and having 'chops' (always hated that word! and now I don't play as 'well' but I have one hell of a greater understanding of what constitutes good music .. according to my tastes, naturally! I can't play fast, I can't play complicated stuff, I solo rarely - if the song demands it - but the guitar compliments the melody, the harmony, the drums, the bass, the lyrics ... I suppose it's called taste but it's only my opinion. You'd probably dislike my music but it's a process I've gone through and I'm much happier now than when I could play eruption - I played it and people went 'wow' but never asked me to play it again!

[halljams]

[quote]Originally posted by Sylver: [b]There was a post a few months ago that said there is no blues in todays (popular)music, and I basically agree with that. I hope someone discovers the blues again soon. Jack[/b][/quote]That is a really good point. I went through a long Jazz faze where i was checking it all out, and after a while i started to get bored and looked hard at why. And i realized that all the jazz and rock music that really made me feel good had a strong element of blues in it. I started listening to lots of R&b and gospel and blues and completely abandoned most jazz and rock for a while, while i studied and played the blues. I came back with a different perspective and open mind, but for anything to stand up enough for me to take it seriously, it's still gotta have some blues in it.

[Botch.]

[quote]Originally posted by Tedster: [b] Rock and roll seemed to start out being 4 or 5 kids in a garage slamming out "Louie Louie" or "Gloria" back in the mid 60s. Then came guitar gods like Hendrix, Clapton, Page, Blackmore...and things started evolving and getting more complex. Before you know it, you had guys like John McLaughlin playing prog fusion that were way up on the astral plane. Then you had the invasion of the Ramones, Dolls, and then the Brit punk bands, saying "WAITAMINUTE!" whatever happened to just slamming out "GLORIA"...and the masses went crazy. Until guys like EVH came along and kicked it back up to usher in the hair band shred thing for the rest of the 80s. Then Nirvana came along and basically slammed out "Gloria" again (figuratively speaking, mind you)... :D [/b][/quote]Hmmm, hopefully that means I can quit buying CDs soon, I'll already have everything! :D :D

[Jedi]

I got to agree with Erik from Philly. There is still a lot of guitar oriented stuff out there. You just have to look a lot harder. Doug Martsch from "Built to Spill," is a current guitar god in my opinion. His tone is off the hook. I love his song arrangements as well. Guitar solo # 1, Verse/chorus, Guitar Solo # 2, Verse/chorus, Really good guitar Solo, and Outro. If you love the sound of the overdriven guitar you would love this guy. I think Rock and Roll is a big word. Some bands are singer oriented, some are song oriented, some are guitar oriented, some things are mixed i.e. guitar/singer or singer/guitar. It all depends on the artist and what she's trying to use to express herself the most. In short, there is a lead instrument on every recording, and usually everthing else takes a backseat or caters to that instrument, be it a voice, guitar, piano, whatever. I hope you guys understand me. Anyway, I loved the glam rock of Bon Jovi, and I loved the grunge of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, etc. I love Hendrix, Neil Young/Crazy horse, the Doors, Led Zep, I love it all. I love music, and I love the sound of a rock guitar. Whether it's doing a wicked solo, or bringing a lot of heaviness like Limp's Rollin'(I know we all love these guys, LoL, but seriously the song is heavy as shit). I think a lot of the new bands, and pop music in general, is coming from a fear-based state of mind. I think a lot kids aren't trying to be good guitarist because they're scared. It's a lot easier to be cool and not play well like you're too cool to care, then to stand out and really give a damn about what you're expressing with that thing. People aren't trying to sound good, they're trying to sound acceptable. To really care about your music leaves yourself wide open, and a lot of artists, IMO, aren't try to step out on that plank if you will. What do you guys think? Again, I hope I'm making sense, I'm really off today. Namaste Jedi

[Lee Flier]

The thing that gets me is the extremism. Why does a guitar player have to either be a total wanker or a total "minimalist"? I've seen both those phases come and go several times now in the amount of time I've been playing guitar, and at no time did it occur to me to go in either of those directions. I pretty much have the same approach I always did: get in a band where everybody plays well, everybody gets the spotlight but nobody gets too much of it, focus on serving the song, playing good rhythm and solos that are tasteful and fit the song. My influences were not Yngwie OR Joey Ramone (although I dig the Ramones), but people like Jimmy Page, Mike Campbell, Pete Townshend, Richard Thompson, John Lennon/George Harrison, John Fogerty, and of course my man Keef. All of whom seem to have done all right for themselves. :D So I don't really see the point of either extreme. I don't see why anybody has to make a statement about how fast they can play OR how much they suck - they're both boring and calculated as hell IMO. --Lee

[Tedster]

Well, yer absitively right, Miz Flier. It all boils down to the SONG. I heard a Christmas tune of Steve Vai's...the Charlie Brown "Christmastime is here"...it was truly awesome. Vai can play not only with speed, but with taste, as can a lot of fast guitarists. But, it's like hot taco salad. I love it, but I wouldn't want to eat it all the time. That said, that's not the way I play at all. I wish I could, but, I've got to be happy with what I do. I can play most of what I'd want to commit to tape, but if I thought that I needed a shreddy part on one of my tunes, I'd humbly ask someone like a Chip or a Khan if they'd supply a guest track.

[coyote]

I only dig the blues if it's part of a much larger repertoire. Two or three blues during a set is fine - an entire set of blues gets a bit tedious. [quote]Originally posted by halljams: [b] [quote]Originally posted by Sylver: [b]There was a post a few months ago that said there is no blues in todays (popular)music, and I basically agree with that. I hope someone discovers the blues again soon. Jack[/b][/quote]That is a really good point. I went through a long Jazz faze where i was checking it all out, and after a while i started to get bored and looked hard at why. And i realized that all the jazz and rock music that really made me feel good had a strong element of blues in it. I started listening to lots of R&b and gospel and blues and completely abandoned most jazz and rock for a while, while i studied and played the blues. I came back with a different perspective and open mind, but for anything to stand up enough for me to take it seriously, it's still gotta have some blues in it.[/b][/quote]

[Lee Flier]

I don't think jack or halljams means that everybody should literally just start playing blues or that blues should be on Top 40 radio. I rarely ever play straight blues myself, but it's a huge part of my background and I can't get the blues entirely out of my fingers no matter how hard I try. Even if I'm playing a pop song. :D And I'm happy about that, although audiences may not be able to to tell. It's not that you actually have to be getting up and playing a 12 bar, but the phrasings and tonality and edginess and economy of the blues is a good thing to bring to any musical table. --Lee

[thoughtintruder]

Check out Bill Frisell... Now that's original! And he also knows how to tell a good story well.

[The Bear Jew]

Jedi... Thanks. As I said, there's some great, semi-unknown acts out there who are still kicking out the jams and playing guitar with soul. Check out: Fu Manchu Low Clutch Lambchop Nebula Aplles In Stereo High On Fire Jucifer Queens Of The Stone Age Crooked Fingers 60 Watt Shaman The Assponys Oneida The Bellrays The Wellwater Conspiracy Sheavy You won't hear any of these bands on the radio often (if ever,) sandwiched between Nirvana and Godsmack, but they all use real guitars, play tasty solos and (most importantly) ROCK! You might have to look a little harder to find their CDs, but they're worth the effort.

[strat0124]

To me the whole guitar solo scene in the Vai/Eric Johnson tradition is not much diff than having a sax do it.....Kenny G with a guitar. Yeah they are technically incredible. Give me Doyle Bramhall III anyday........