POLL: SPIN's Greatest Guitarists of All Time

Fair enough.

In Bloom solo reminds me of Limelight

I like that guitar thing at the end of "Let's Go Crazy"

I was about to call out ILM for picking Hazel over Hendrix, but then I realized it was Spin itself who challopsed here.

Exactly. They gave us challops, we made challopini

lol otm. Picked Hazel of course.

Prince? I like his playing, although it's mostly just blues runs and nothing to write home about

otm

i voted for tom verlaine & richard lloyd

i like neil young fine but come the fuck on

if you factor in what a great acoustic player he is i don't think it's a stretch

Its a massive stretch

you're a massive stretch!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyuE6SCRIxg

who the fuck voted for Greg Ginn

i think his later lead playing is p innovative

(i didn't vote in the poll)

greg ginn is fucking awesome wtf!

i didn't vote in this poll either, but i could've voted for many of these dudes. a lot of this music is my favorite music.

greg ginn as decent guitarist is one of the great historical snow jobs, that guy sucks

I love opinions, I could watch people have them all day.

Just FP'd myself for that.

i probably would have voted for robert quine

I love opinions, I could watch people have them all day.

― Trey Imaginary Songz (WmC), Friday, May 25, 2012 1:00 PM (32 minutes ago)

greg ginn as decent guitarist is one of the great historical snow jobs, that guy sucks

― cosi fan whitford (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, 25 May 2012 12:59 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what the fuck is this shit! he wrote black flag songs!

flopson, aerosmith is from boston so you know he's all "slapshot this...ten yard fight that..."

sst stuff is for hippies and cambridge pussies

as a teenager i had some older punker dude lecture me on what a fraud greg ginn was too! does it have to do w/ a deep-seated anti-Hermosa Beach bias? i just remember the guy was from Reseda and had issues about "beach bands". it was a long time ago, can't remember exactly what his argument was. but he kept telling me "ginn sucks, man!"

there are a lot of popular arguments against ginn but i'd never heard any that had much to do with whether he was sufficiently skilled at his instrument relative to his contemporaries

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTe5CIiiQTI

6 BLACK FLAG
“Thirsty and Miserable”
Damaged (1981)
GUITARIST: Greg Ginn

Well, at least Black Flag got the last half of the song title right. Punk rockers should never attempt shredding, even if they’re trying to be ironic. Greg Ginn performs his solo like a sloppy drunk having sex, and, mercifully, he gets his act over quickly before his flaccid notes have the chance to penetrate deep enough to do damage. Even worse, Ginn tries to mimic Jimi Hendrix with his overextended bent-note screams but ends up sounding like someone trying to bend Jimmy Kimmel. The guitarist claims Black Flag practiced about six hours every night. Apparently, that didn’t involve playing any musical instruments (though it certainly involved a ton of wanking).

man black flag are so cool

my real vote is a write-in for roger troutman

punk rock sucks

max can we collab on a '100 greatest dadrock guitarists of all time' list

#1 - #10 tony levin

was elvis costello on the spin list?

Ha, it was just me and aero for McLaughlin.

as a teenager i had some older punker dude lecture me on what a fraud greg ginn was too! does it have to do w/ a deep-seated anti-Hermosa Beach bias?

no, it has to do with him being a truly terrible guitarist. HB's ok by me

The guitarist claims Black Flag practiced about six hours every night.

Yeah a friend has stories about hearing Ginn practice for hours every day and the dude never getting any better.

Ginn is really a ham handed fucker.

The poll results in this were even worse than the original list-which I shocking since that list sucked so bad

there are a lot of popular arguments against ginn but i'd never heard any that had much to do with whether he was sufficiently skilled at his instrument relative to his contemporaries

Really? Greg Ginn's technical skill is taken as a given?

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

Oh, well, yeah.

i think his later lead playing is p innovative

Examples?

All the later albums tortured atonal strangling the guitar to death solos, figured he must have been a big influence on kerry king

What are some good tracks to check out? I don't know the album tracks.

(I did listen to the track that Spin singled out and wasn't really blown away. I can believe that it might not be the best example, however, considering their choices in other cases.)

(The sound on the video wasn't that great, admittedly. I'll look for a better-sounding version on Grooveshark.)

Nels Cline 0

rip ksh

love ginn's guitar playing, though he's obviously not the most fleet-fingered guy out there. the appeal is mostly in the riffs, tone, violence and roughness of his sound. he's a "great guitar player" in the same sense that henry rollins is a "great singer". they're both extremely limited, but in a way that suits the band's attack, makes them sound all the more brutal, anti and fucked-up. at least that's how i related to ginn & black flag when i was young. i liked the cro-mag quality. whether or not it was intentional, it sounded cool to me.

yeah word. also a lot of his stuff is kind of bluesy in a way most hardcore ended up not being (see: nervous breakdown)

Nels Cline was my #2 choice (but not primarily for Wilco).

anyway, i voted for john fahey based on quantity and overall quality of output.

just as easily could have gone for eddie hazel or robert fripp. hazel's responsible for my favorite single piece of guitar music ("maggot brain"), and fripp's played on a bunch of recordings i like almost as much (king crimson stuff, no pussyfooting and here come the warm jets (esp "baby's on fire"), heroes, "i zimbra", etc.)