jimmydanger wrote:I believe to be overrated you have to first be rated high. No one ever said Cobain was a great guitarist, but he was very effective at what he did and a great song writer. Grohl's songs are OK but nowhere near the depth of Nirvana songs. A lot of metal people don't like him because he pretty much ended the 80's hair metal crap.
I was thinking the same thing reading the first page.
I disagree with a few guitarists listed, especially slash.. I've learned EHV solos like Hot for teacher, eruption, etc.. which are technically difficult and require the ability to mimic the expressions correctly. I recently learned the end solo to "sweet child" and found the expressions, and one of the runs to be equally as difficult. The dude might not have many flavors, but he's got some really good raw talent and phrasings to say the least.
Neil young.. well yeah, I don't think he's so hot on leads, but I don't remember many people bringing him up in the same contexts as Jimmy Page, EVH, yngwie..
Keith Richards.. well that dude is something of an oddity. Never a great soloist, but his phrasing is excellent and he has mixed a huge variety of styles into his playing over the years. What makes him so great is his intricate melodies and rhythm playing- it's really spectacular when you take a listen to the parts of the song outside the solos.
with malcolm young, I don't think anyone ever accused him of being a great guitarist, but the reality is that he's one of the strongest rhythm guitarists in his genre. He's never been complex or versatile, but the dude can rock a rhythm better than most bass players IMO.
I think my vote for over-rated goes to a TIE:
Mark Tremonti (Creed)
It seems like everyone I've met in the last 5 years just raves about how this guy is a guitar god.. I just don't see it. He's sloppy, his phrasing sucks, and he doesn't really seem to be actually picking individual notes when shredding as much as just using 12x as much distortion as needed and flailing his fingers as fast as he can. It looks like what I did my first year playing when I was pretending to shred, but really had no idea what a scale was, or the skill to pull it off.
The Edge
I never understood why anyone fawned over the guy, all he really seemed to do was set his delay precisely to the timing of the songs and increase the feedback to carry several measures.. not exactly exceptional .. hell, david gilmour was doing that 5 years earlier.
Speaking of Gilmour.. in a opposite topic, I'd say he's one of the most under-rated guitarists out there.