Last great guitar hero

mike_l

How about the guys from Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax and Testament, or the foundation bands for Thrash metal.

Gave heavy rock/metal a big kick in the arse in the early 1980's.

ICBM

suspiciousminds said:

I disagree about slash.
His distinctive image helped him stand out more although i agree he's a talented player.
As said he hasnt really bought anything extra to the table.For me, i hated GNR and pretty much most other big haired american bands of that era - sexist, "samey" and cliched - All of them trying to be more flamboyant than the last.
Strip the image away, i doubt if he'd be as famous.

Totally agree.

I can't stand GNR either. Although I'm not the one to judge really, the best guitarist I know says Slash is the most over-rated player he can think of. It's all image - he's a cartoon caricature of a rock guitarist. Take away the hat, the hair and the shades and what would you have? An averagely good guitarist who has written one riff that most people would recognise. There are a lot of players like that.

And the best debut album of all time?! It's not even the best rock guitar debut album, by any standard. (Off the top of my head, that would be either Are You Experienced, Black Sabbath or Van Halen, probably.)

(Edited for early morning lack of coffee brain fart, forgetting Are You Experienced!)

bertie

Richard Steed

richardhomer

ICBM;146105" said:

I can't stand GNR either. Although I'm not the one to judge really, the best guitarist I know says Slash is the most over-rated player he can think of. It's all image - he's a cartoon caricature of a rock guitarist. Take away the hat, the hair and the shades and what would you have? An averagely good guitarist who has written one riff that most people would recognise. There are a lot of players like that.

And the best debut album of all time?! It's not even the best rock guitar debut album, by any standard. (Off the top of my head, that would be either Black Sabbath or Van Halen, probably.)

Fully agree. Not a band or player that I have any time for. That said I 'get' why he's a guitar hero to many. He looks 'rock and roll' (albeit in a somewhat contrived way), his stuff is technically straight-forward (so it's easy to copy) and plenty on none-guitar players bought/buy his records.

Based on that summary, perhaps Noel Gallagher is the last real guitar hero?

beed84

suspiciousminds said:His distinctive image helped him stand out more although i agree he's a talented player.
Strip the image away, i doubt if he'd be as famous.
Couldn't that be said about any guitarist?
ICBM said:And the best debut album of all time?! It's not even the best rock guitar debut album, by any standard. (Off the top of my head, that would be either Black Sabbath or Van Halen, probably.)
It certainly is one of the best selling rock debuts of all time.  However, defining what the best rock debut album is purely down to preference.

Regardless of what people think of Slash, whether they think he's overrated or not, it appears that he's the most talked about on this thread.  Counts for something, surely.

ICBM

beed84 said:

However, defining what the best rock debut album is purely down to preference.

Nah. It's Are You Experienced.

The debut album by unquestionably the most important and influential rock guitarist ever (true even though I know some people don't actually like his music), and it's a great album too.

Not all guitar heroes have much of an image either - eg Jeff Beck. With Slash it's almost *all* image. I agree he is a guitar hero, to some - but the last or greatest? Not even close. Just the most cartoon-like.

badlydrawnbanjo

For me personally it's Noel Gallagher. That was when I decided I wanted to be able to play a guitar, not just mess about (still not sure on that one) but at the moment my guitar here vote is going for Nile Rodgers. 

Blueingreen

My main problem with Slash isn't that I don't think he's a good player but that I don't really know whether he is or not. Because although I've seen bits and pieces of him on telly, and YouTube, and even bought a GnR album at one point, nothing has tempted me to pay enough attention to him to form an opinion as to whether he's any more than the highly competent but fairly generic rock guitarist he appears at first listen. This is not me being snotty. We all have our preferences, you can't listen to everything, and Slash just happens to be playing a type of music that I don't think would be likely to be my thing. But that's my point. I play guitar, including even a bit of rock guitar. But I have no real opinion on this guy. I have more awareness of him as a slightly odd seleb than a guitarist. As for Tom Morello, I've never knowingly heard him play and wouldn't recognise him if he was sitting next to me on the bus. Guitar hero has to mean more than admired by other guitarists or people with a specialised interest. To me it's pretty much inconceivable that a keen guitarist would have no opinion on the playing of Clapton, Page or Hendrix. Like them or not these are cultural figures with too much presence to ignore. GnR obviously shifted a huge amount of records, but I still think they are easy to ignore if you're not a fan of that type of rock music. Slash isn't in the public consciousness the way the 'real' guitar heroes were, and even to the extent he is it's because he's a cartoonish figure in a famously rich and dissolute rock band, not because the ordinary public think he's an extraordinary guitarist. Sorry this is all bunched up, typing on an iPad and can't get the editing right.

xSkarloey

[Adopts nasal, donnish voice, and adjusts half-moon spectacles]

Weeelllll yes, but like it or not (and again going by the traditional definition of 'guitar hero', which as alluded to above, in modern parlance might be more on the level with contemporary much-bandied terms like 'guitar legend' or 'guitar icon') Noel is/was a guitar hero. As is/was Cobain. As/is the Slasher. As was/ is Jimmy Page. As was/is The Edge. I wonder if I'd dare add Marc Bolan to the list.  He acted the cool dude and the guitar was massively part of his image. What's that incredible album cover with him in silhouette playing  in front of a full stack? Such a powerful image, and surely connotes 'guitar hero' to the general public, regardless of what you think of his playing.  

The other category of game changing guitarists that Kone started with seems to be defining itself as "heroes to other guitarists" or even more simply, massively influential and innovative guitarists. Still a wonderful thing to be, but not quite a 'guitar hero' as many understand/ have understood the term.  

Clearly there are those that fall into both categories. 

You've got to have the Slasher though. Even stripping away the hype, he has produced some very imaginative stuff at stages. Sweet Child?  [removes specs, cardigan, mortar board and leaps out of chair, sending a shelf of books flying] COME ON!!!!!!!!!

 

bertie

ICBM said:

unquestionably the most important and influential rock guitarist ever,  like him or not

very true, him or Bert Wheedon

Fusionista

Slash is not a technical guitarist but he's another great riffer.  I for one would have liked to have seen GNR in their heyday. There aren't many other bands I say that about (RATM/Audioslave certainly as previously indicated, EVH too). That's got to be the discriminator, hasn't it ?  Couldn't care less I've not seen Petrucci or Malmsteen.

xSkarloey

bertie said:

ICBM said:

unquestionably the most important and influential rock guitarist ever,  like him or not

very true, him or Bert Wheedon

"Play in a Day". Not the 'last' great guitar hero (the 'late' though he most unfortunately is). But he did write a massively influential tuition book, and he was all over the telly and in theatres back in his day. Got to have been a hero to some in those pre-Beatles years. 

EricTheWeary

bertie said:

Richard Steed

Richard Digance surely?

AuldReekie

I first heard Bill Nelson not long after he formed Be Bop Deluxe on the John Peels Radio One show in 1974, it was "Adventures in a Yorkshire Landscape" and he became my instant guitar hero, his phrasing, tone and sheer melody not to mention awesome technique. Littlw was I to know but 40 years later he is still my hero. He has followed his own path and has not had a major record deal for over 30 years, but in the process has taken me on an incredible musical journey covering several styles but always in his own style. I dont like everything he has done, but some of his material, including some off his lesser known material, is for me the best guitar work i have ever heard. Its not just his playing that makes him my hero, its that he has given the two fingers to the record industry and in the process remained original and true to himself

EdGrip

I don't know if it's a generational thing, or just a result of the route into noisy guitar music that I took...

...but I still have basically no idea about Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Carlos Santana, Gary Moore, the Erics, or any of the other guitarists that have morphed themselves into one seemingly homologous Old Man Blooz Guitarist in my mind. The assumption that all guitar players automatically know about them, are interested in them, or consider them "heroes" is the same mistake that Guitarist magazine made throughout the time I bought it, and and still seems to be making today. These are precisely the guitar-for-the-sake-of-guitar people who do seem mainly to be of interest to guitarists. What even the fuck is "blues", my 15 year old self pondered, and why is everyone apparently obsessed with making me read about it or play its "licks"? It's probably this endless banging-on about it that I perceived at the time that put me off it.

richardhomer

EdGrip;146805" said:

Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Carlos Santana, Gary Moore, the Erics, or any of the other guitarists that have morphed themselves into one seemingly homologous Old Man Blooz Guitarist in my mind.

Just to help you differentiate, Beck is nothing like a blues player - neither is Page really. Carlos Santana's playing owes as much to his Mexican lineage as it does to blues and Gary Moore was a rock player in terms of attack and phrasing. If by 'The Erics' you are referring to Clapton & Johnson, you clearly haven't heard them. Hard to imagine two more different players..... That said, there is no particular reason why you should be familiar with any of them if you don't want to be.

beed84

Sod it.  Joe Pass.

Tex Mexico

I've read a few posts in this thread which seem to be implying that Slash is not as good a guitarist as his reputation might lead you to think.

Knowing Slash, he'd probably agree with you.

And you'd both be wrong.

Slash has never been described as a virtuoso. It's his style and his sound that people value about him more than anything. Ironically, he's also a fantastically dexterous player. And he's a sex symbol. And a rock icon. And pretty much the dictionary definition of a guitar hero.

And anyone who disagrees with that can take their cardigan and slippers and go masturbate to Eric "yawn" Clapton somewhere else.

beed84

Tex Mexico said:

I've read a few posts in this thread which seem to be implying that Slash is not as good a guitarist as his reputation might lead you to think.

Knowing Slash, he'd probably agree with you.

And you'd both be wrong.

Slash has never been described as a virtuoso. It's his style and his sound that people value about him more than anything. Ironically, he's also a fantastically dexterous player. And he's a sex symbol. And a rock icon. And pretty much the dictionary definition of a guitar hero.

And anyone who disagrees with that can take their cardigan and slippers and go masturbate to Eric "yawn" Clapton somewhere else.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

koneguitarist

Tex Mexico said:

I've read a few posts in this thread which seem to be implying that Slash is not as good a guitarist as his reputation might lead you to think.

Knowing Slash, he'd probably agree with you.

And you'd both be wrong.

Slash has never been described as a virtuoso. It's his style and his sound that people value about him more than anything. Ironically, he's also a fantastically dexterous player. And he's a sex symbol. And a rock icon. And pretty much the dictionary definition of a guitar hero.

And anyone who disagrees with that can take their cardigan and slippers and go masturbate to Eric "yawn" Clapton somewhere else.

I think Slash is a good player, whether he is a fantastic player is another thing, Clapton is not a technically great player, but he has left a huge body of classic songs behind, such as Layla, I feel free, Tears in heaven and that old chestnut Wonderful tonight to name just a few. And lets be honest he hasn`t done bad with the ladies either.

What exactly has Slash done apart from sweet child of mine riff ? not a Guns and roses fan so don`t know.