POLL: SPIN's Greatest Guitarists of All Time

Alan Vorse15 days ago
While some of the choices are questionable, and I would put Nels Cline at number 1, I think this list is great! Come on! The usual lists are always 1.Hendrix 2.Clapton 3.Van Halen...etc. Lets get some fresh blood in there! Any list that has Vernon Reid, Fripp and Belew, John McLaughlin, Zappa, Sonny Sharrock, Blood Ulmer, Robin Guthrie is awesome!
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Scott Burnett15 days ago
There's a reason Hendrix, Clapton & Van Halen are usually first... if you're not sure why, enjoy reading SPIN.
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stoner dude14 days ago
Enjoy your classic rock radio stations.

I am glad to see a list break free from the calcified shackles that most lists suffer from...Eric Clapton is the most overrated musician to ever do a line of coke.
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andrew jackson11 days ago
Agreed. Clapton is so overrated its not even funny. He played a little fuzzier than some of his contemporaries, and played some cool guitar solos in Cream, a band whose roaring engine was Jack Bruce. He then became an adult contemporary artist and master of the clean tone elevator music guitar solo. His music is the audio equivalent of a polo shirt tucked into jean shorts accompanying black socks and sandals. Nothing about Eric Clapton has rocked in about 40 years.

guitar whites

Randy Peterson15 days ago
Is this some sort of joke or what ?
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Randy Peterson15 days ago
Is this some sort of joke ? WTF ?

voted for Nile Rodgers.

Would honestly put Curt Kirkwood ahead of all of the other SST band dudes. Rick Bishop should've made the list as well. Out of this bunch it's either Fripp or Bailey or Fahey.

love the '&' entries, bet Lou is annoyed.

Zoot Horn Rollo & Antennae Jimmy Siemens would have got my vote

damn, yeah, finally i can hear about how great greg ginn is. at long last
^this

love the '&' entries, bet Lou is annoyed.
and ^this

Say what you want about elevator music, Spin commentator, but Derek & the Dominos is a perpetual Untuck Your Polo Shirt Free card.

Did Richard Thompson make the long list?

Jesus, that's a criminal omission. So we have Tom Verlaine but no Richard Thompson?!??!?

I know right!

Also, if it's Verlaine & Lloyd it should definitely be Quine & Julien. Where's Johnny Thunders, by the way?

Voted Syd Barrett

Tom Verlaine & Richard Lloyd (Television)
Johnny Ramone
Eddie Hazel (Funkadelic)
This little sequence is amusing to me for some reason.

Actually my favourite guy who would have been a very cool inclusion on the list is Michio Kurihara.

i'm kind of curious what the process to arrive at this was ... like whether there was a ballot or whether it was an afternoon's spitballing

i enjoy the list, tho. tho it does kind of remind me of wire's 'in praise of the riff' thing from a few years back - which was all 'hey wouldn't it be awesome to have edgard varere on the same list of BORIS, wouldn't that be great and redefine our categories, that would be so awesome of us' - is how i feel about the presence of the odd improv dude or guitar composer here

voting fripp based on both technicality + inventiveness

i'm a bit surprised by the lack of postpunkers. no keith levene, john mcgeoch, rowland s howard, daniel ash, geordie, roger miller etc?

WHERE'S VINI REILLY??????????

Went to a Prince after show last night. That swayed my vote. He tore the place down.

I'd be more annoyed if I were, like, Bilinda Butcher or Ed O'Brien and just left out of the "&" altogether. ;)

I mean that says something, doesn't it? In a band with 3 guitarists you pick the one who spends the least time playing guitar.

Surprised Keith Rowe and Kevin Drumm aren't on the list.

Annoyed Pete Townshend and Bo Diddley aren't.

voted McLaughlin. hadn't noticed that King & Hanneman are paired. lol their styles are actually really different if you're like listening to the way they play, you know, the guitar

I get what they're trying to do here, but I don't get not including people like Doug Martsch or Joey Santiago while they include footnotes like King Buzzy and Dimebag Darrell.

umm Dimebag is not a footnote at all

Buzzo, ok he introduced sludge to a bunch of indie rock dudes who were never going to hear about it otherwise, it's important that the sludge dude also be the indie dude

Buzzo's style was kind of low hanging fruit that was bound to be copped at some point in the late 80's/early 90's. Santiago influence seems much larger (as does Martsch in the following decade).

and while Dimebag may not be a footnote, I don't hear much individuality in his style. maybe I'm wrong...

ha yeah, santiago and martsch are major oversights in this list. both pretty major dudes in terms of the last 25 years of the guitar i'd say.

Surprised Keith Rowe and Kevin Drumm aren't on the list.

Are you really surprised by this?

well the last 25 years of indie guitar, but yeah since that's what the list is

xpost

Derek Bailey.

Hendrix really is a criminal omission imo

Hendrix and Sonic Youth together basically form the center of my personal guitar universe, so having one at #1 and the other completely excluded def doesn't sit right with me

my problem with this list is that they're trying to have it both ways by insisting that they celebrate these less famous dudes, but then still include trad guitar hero dudes like Zappa, Neil Young, McLaughlin, Iommi, The Edge, etc.

voted dealwithit.gif

you 'got the people talking,' that's what you wanted

whiney did you have like a 'voting process' or was it more of a 'hey guys who would you find it amusing to put on this list' process

Would honestly put Curt Kirkwood ahead of all of the other SST band dudes.

― Goodbye 20th Centipede (NickB), Saturday, 19 May 2012 11:21 (4 hours ago) Permalink

Absolutely.

some dude, your whole attitude about this has been really shitty and tiresome

my attitude about this has been exactly the same as 30 other ppl on this board, take it personal if you want but be advised your favorite word "BUTTHURT!!!!!!!!" will be dispensed

those 30 other people post about it once and you post about it non-stop

Like if you're trying to deej me, i guess it worked? ("YAY HE <b>RESPONDED</b> ROFLOLOLOL")

that's just patently untrue, lots of people have posted about this list as much or more than me

why don't you make me a list of them

Are you really surprised by this?

Legitimately surprised that Rowe isn't on the list; find it somewhat curious that Drumm isn't.

whiney under your own 'say something nice too if you're gonna critique' rule i complimented the hell out of the guitarist infographic in the issue, sorry if that wasn't your baby and this 'lol skrillex' stunt was. but it's not like croup and aero and strongo and m@tt and elvis telecom were all giving you high fives for this and then i broke up the celebration.

croup was giving the list lots of props between his criticisms actually!

omg shut UP.

Whiney if this list had been made by another magazine I bet you would have hated it and be on here complaining!

But you voted eddie hazel so all is well!

(Yes, I know I should have just quietly un-bookmarked the thread instead of complaining but I can't do that from my iPhone and you know, taste of your own medicine etc.)

yeah, or at least def his best sideman-to-a-vocalist work

Cline's instrumental compositional/improvisational work is so much more significant to me than his rock guitar playing (and I do really like his lead guitar playing with Wilco and Lee Ranaldo).

(especially when considering as a great guitarist)

I voted Ginn.

Have always been intrigued by his lack of prowess and totally rubbish tone. He was great.
He seemed to just jam along in any key, in a way that made me think he didn't even know what key he was in and certainly his scales were unique.

Ever since I heard My War back when it was released, that twat influenced my guitar playing. What he was doing sounded so random, angry and sludgy,.It was always the easy way out and I only played on stage 7 times and my career was over.

He still deserves my vote.

Now, Greg, let somebody with a clue remaster them classic SST albums

on greg ginn:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4deAZAT21xc#t=53s

Have always been intrigued by his lack of prowess and totally rubbish tone. He was great.

I think I'm putting my finger on why I never liked Black Flag that much, one or two songs aside, and Ginn especially. Maybe even why I love some classic Amerindie and am left totally cold by some.

no, i just mean he was part of a scene/era in which chops were not a must

I've actually been thinking about this. I guess it depends what you consider to be his scene/era. I really like several bands on Ginn's own label - Sonic Youth, Husker Du, fIREHOSE, Meat Puppets - all of whom seemed to place some value on musicianship. I'd probably say that in some cases they were better musicians, at least as instrumentalists, than many mainstream rock bands of that time. I realize that most of these were 'indie rock' and not 'hardcore' bands (at least as far as the records I listen to go). But, while I get that chops were not a must, even some other hardcore bands seemed to have placed a greater emphasis on tightness, e.g. Minor Threat, whom I also dislike but for different reasons.

Thinking about why I don't like something often tends to be a first step in starting to appreciate it. I used to hate Pavement for similar reasons.

figured he must have been a big influence on kerry king

Can see this btw (and I love Reign in Blood obv).

WTF?! How could this list omit Kevin Okanyra?!

(j/k I made up that name)

loved the album he did with hans bennink and joe mcphee

imo he was kind of an overrated gimmick player, it's not like the 6th and 7th fingers on his left hand really contributed to his fretwork at all

wasn't he uncredited on some of those denny vertigo peel sessions?

imo he was kind of an overrated gimmick player, it's not like the 6th and 7th fingers on his left hand really contributed to his fretwork at all

― some dude, Wednesday, May 30, 2012 11:54 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

particularly on those records where he plays a stringless.

Incidentally, one of those was enough.

i disagree, i'd put him in the top five stringless baritone guitar players ever

His pit band work on the touring cast recording of CATS is kind of an overlooked gem though

little known fact: he invented that pick-holder that you stick onto your guitar. His nickname was "butterhand" for a reason.

okanyra shreds

Despite the moments of goofiness/trolling, this list (the full 100) is kind of amazing.

just scrolled through some of the comments again, re-confirming this list is basically the greatest thing to ever happen

carrie brownstien finishing over iommi lol