Is Rock Guitar Dead?

[jonnymangia]

Had an interesting conversation with my bro today that i wanted to bring online...we were talking about the lineage of blues/rock guitar greats, going from Robert Johnson - Muddy - Clapton/Jimi/Beck - Eddie VH - and came to the conclusion that the line stops there. His take was that there hasn't been a guitarist since EVH that has really pushed the genre, wrote great songs and made droves of people want to pick up a guitar (like I did back in 1983 thanks to Edward). I think the closest guy was Slash, who basically destroyed hair metal, reintroduced the Les Paul to hard rock, and wrote some of the best rock lead guitar ever. But since then what? Vai and Satriani are technically amazing, but they have a limited audience. Another guy who had a shot at taking rock guitar to a new level was Dave Navarro from Jane's Addiction, but he got sidetracked
making out with his lead singer and then hanging with Carmen Electra. Do you think there will be another EVH, or has rock been taken to the point that everything will be derivative from now on? Let's hear it...

 

[danglybanger]

Re: Is Rock Guitar Dead?

many would say kurt destroyed hair metal. Whatever.

Anyways, he did inspire many to pick up a guitar. No doubt he's no vai or whatever, but I think the focus just changed from writing guitar music for the sake of playing guitar, to writing for songs.

(I know many people say shredders can be melodic and write good songs too. I've heard many of those songs. I disagree)

I think guitar playing techniquewise hit a logical peak with shredding. Where else you gonna go?

I actually have an idea. I'm going to make songs only by using the tuners and never fretting

slade

 

[Nite_Maresz_25]

Re: Is Rock Guitar Dead?

Very, very interesting topic. I would say that Slash is still doing his thing with Velvet Revolver pretty much.

 

[danglybanger]

Re: Is Rock Guitar Dead?

I don't see slash as revolutionary. he was just a good player.

I like velvet revolver more than most people do, but considering it's basically two of my favorite bands put together it should be better

slade

 

[Great_Kazoo]

Re: Is Rock Guitar Dead?

Hmm...I agree with your "Robert Johnson - Muddy - Clapton/Jimi/Beck - Eddie
VH" sequence, but would include the guys from the shred era at the end of it.
While they might not have had as much blues-influence in their playing, they
ushered in a whole other (and equally important, IMHO) period of rock playing
and definitely inspired people to want to start playing---guys like Yngwie, Vai
and Satch.

I don't know if everything will be derivative from this point, but for me, rock
guitar these days is kind of boring--either it's been done before or there's no
guitar solos happening!

 

[Nite_Maresz_25]

Re: Is Rock Guitar Dead?

I don't see slash as revolutionary. he was just a good player.

Oh, I wouldn't say slash is as revolutionary as clapton or EVH, but in my mind he is somewhat revolutionary.
I can see a few people want to pick up guitar(or be better at it) with the way the metal scene has grow in the past few years(example, when i started listening to lamb of god, i thought 'damn these dudes can play, and started learning the riffs and have greatly improved my playing).

another example, not really rock guitar, but still an example : Dimebag and Zakk

 

[jonnymangia]

Re: Is Rock Guitar Dead?

I don't see slash as revolutionary. he was just a good player.



slade

I agree that Slash is not revolutionary. But he did some remarkable things:
1) Inspired legions of people to not only start playing guitar, but he singlehandedly brought the Les Paul back from the dead.

2) Wrote some of the best rock lead guitar lines in the last 20 years that not only resonated with rockers and guitarists, but crossed over to the masses and contributed to tens of millions of GNR records being sold.

Personally, I think Dave Navarro had the best chance of being the next rock god guitarist. But now he's too busy shagging Carmen Electra to bother writing amazing guitar.

 

[flank]

Re: Is Rock Guitar Dead?

yes, it's dead, but i don't particularly care if it comes back either

 

[bungalowbill]

Re: Is Rock Guitar Dead?

We as guitarists must face the fact that musical tastes are changing away from guitar music. Rap, Hip-Hop and Pop music are basically guitar free and guitar solos are a thing of the past as far as these genres are concerned.
There is still guitar heavy music its just not mainsteam anymore, it could turnaround but, IMHO it won't be anytime soon. The guitar based music was the most popular thing going since Rock & Roll started in the mid '50's....a 50 year or so run ain't bad. Just an observance.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Is Rock Guitar Dead?

As long as guitarists keep playing the same blues rock stuff- essentially the Clapton/EVH/SRV lineage- not adding to it (in this day and age it is rare) but regurgitating it at every open jam version of Mustang Sally and All Along the Watchtower, then it is more of a historic thing than a 'cutting edge' thing.

For rock guitarists to advance (we already went through the 'I don't have to learn to play' phase), we need to draw on other music. And practice. A lot. The blues rock thing may have reached its peak, but there is a whole world of music out there for guitarists to discover. Some guitarists already do this, but they don't get on the coverage of magazines, and they sure don't get radio play.

 

[WhoFan]

Re: Is Rock Guitar Dead?

I wouldn't say Rock Guitar is dead... not at all...... I just think it's been a while since an artist has come out with some kick ass tunes that have great guitar playing in it... There is still lots of great players today but it's the song writing that makes them popular.... So if a band can come along with an album full of great catchy tunes that happen to have great guitar playing then they will be the next to set the guitar world on fire.....

If we practice really hard someone on this site could be the next...

WhoFan

 

[Grandor]

Re: Is Rock Guitar Dead?

Give me 5 years. the rebirth of rock guitar will come...

 

[Trilogy]

Re: Is Rock Guitar Dead?

Is Rock guitar dead? It's definetly down, and hopefully not out. We've had Jimi, Eddie, Yngwie, and couple others, so if someone's going to come up with something totally new, they've got their work cut out for them.

 

[Hot _Grits]

Re: Is Rock Guitar Dead?

Rock guitar isn't dead. It just smells funny.

There are innovators out there, though. Tom Morello is an insanely imaginative player, as is Reeves Gabrels.

 

[aleclee]

Re: Is Rock Guitar Dead?

we were talking about the lineage of blues/rock guitar greats, going from Robert Johnson - Muddy - Clapton/Jimi/Beck - Eddie VH

I think that your question to some degree implies the answer.

Guitarists are, for the most part, so friggin' conservative when it comes to their craft that it was only a matter of time 'til the dinosaurs died. Why does rock guitar have to follow the blues tradition and lineage? How often have you seen someone here asking how to duplicate so-and-so's tone or technique? We have spent the past 25 or 30 years looking back at our predecessors to the point where virtually nobody is looking forward.

Throw in Clear Channel's iron fisted control of the airwaves and the record industry's tendency towards marketing packaged product and away from developing artists and the few guitarists who aren't aping their idols might never get signed, let alone airplay.

Though I love "traditional" blues-based players like Todd Park Mohr, I think folks like Tom Morello are essential if rock guitar is going to avoid becoming a museum piece.

 

[WhoFan]

Re: Is Rock Guitar Dead?

alexlee brings up a good point.... A good artist here in Canada is a classic rock artist by the name Kim Mitchell... He wrote about how hard it is to get any new music out because all the radio stations want to play is proven hits..

Add to that the record companies are almost all going with boy and girl type bands that are good looking models , hire some good staff song writers, hire some good session musicans, fix up the singers bad notes with those new pitch perfect correcting transposer machines that you could fart into and it will come out in tune... And then tour with vocal's on tapes and have some dance moves. The same formula works for some of these new heavy rock bands out there... A lot of them are Boy Bands but with distorted guitars.....

WhoFan

 

[Skarekrough]

Re: Is Rock Guitar Dead?

Had an interesting conversation with my bro today that i wanted to bring online...we were talking about the lineage of blues/rock guitar greats, going from Robert Johnson - Muddy - Clapton/Jimi/Beck - Eddie VH - and came to the conclusion that the line stops there. His take was that there hasn't been a guitarist since EVH that has really pushed the genre, wrote great songs and made droves of people want to pick up a guitar (like I did back in 1983 thanks to Edward).

I find that most folks who have any argument of this flavor have mainly stopped evolving musically of their own volition as well as ceased to seek out any new music that's being made.

Music doesn't just up and start sucking one day. You just get old and aren't in the demographic to hear the good stuff and get mired in what you know and digging back through stuff that influenced artists that were influential to you.

Arguably some of the best guitar-based music is being made right now. The Metal scene is thriving and kicking butt and SO MANY of them are just fantastic beyond words...and without the rock star attitude...it's exciting to be able to watch them and NOT have to worry or know they're going to burnout.

Blues? Please....there's more fantastic players per square foot than there ever has been. Cats like Tommy Castro, Popa Chubby, Monster Mike Welch, Warren Haynes, Duke Robillard and Jonny Lang are getting stage time right along side the legends and holding their own.

Were living in an era of the amazing players without the BS we had to put up with in the 80's. Pick up some Opeth or Lamb Of God and tell me those cats don't smoke the players we grew up with 9 ways to Sunday. No egos, no goofiness, no fat, no attitude. Just pure unadultered evolution musically.

 

[The Golden Boy]

Re: Is Rock Guitar Dead?

Slash and GnR were really important for bringing rock back from poodle haired oblivion. Appetite... was a guitar tone revelation to thousands of guitarists. I remember seeing a cartoon in Guitar World of a guy with a Jackson style guitar and two floor to ceiling racks with the caption of "finally got the Les Paul into a Marshall sound."

Nirvana's F to A# intro killed hair metal. I don't miss it at all. Once corporate America gets their hands into music, it's through. You see it with hair metal, dozens of interchangable bands. In the 90's it was dozens of interchangable mopey bands. Then, 1998, "the year of the rock" as proclaimed by Guitar One magazine. Yeah. Mark Tremonti leading the charge. That guy's tone is so sterile he should play in operating rooms.

As long as commercial radio is monopolized by a few large corporations real, good music isn't going to flourish.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Is Rock Guitar Dead?

Arguably some of the best guitar-based music is being made right now. The Metal scene is thriving and kicking butt and SO MANY of them are just fantastic beyond words...and without the rock star attitude...it's exciting to be able to watch them and NOT have to worry or know they're going to burnout.

Blues? Please....there's more fantastic players per square foot than there ever has been. Cats like Tommy Castro, Popa Chubby, Monster Mike Welch, Warren Haynes, Duke Robillard and Jonny Lang are getting stage time right along side the legends and holding their own.
No goofiness, no fat, no attitude. Just pure unadultered evolution musically.

But what are modern blues players doing that hasn't been done before? This isn't to say it isn't good, it is basically the same vocabulary, the same set of influences. Their CDs seem to have 1 slow song, 1 shuffle, maybe 1 swing with horns, same licks.
Metal guitar has a similar fate- you can only tune so low, play so fast, use the same tone, make the same scary, evil faces. 99% of metal songs are still based on power chords. All are based on distortion. No wonder most older folk can't tell the bands apart. This doesn't mean they don't have good songs, it just means it has been awhile since there was something brand new.
EVH shattered what a rock guitarist should be up to that point. John McLaughlin proved that you don't need an archtop and a dark clean sound to play jazz- a scalloped neck 335 through a bunch of Marshall stacks will do just fine (and no power chords!).

I guess the question here is, what are *we* doing in our favorite genre to challange people's perceptions and break the mold?

 

[danglybanger]

Re: Is Rock Guitar Dead?

it's not like any other genres are innovating either... look at rap and country and... list goes on

slade