Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitarists Issue

Kirk Hammett is evidently quite the shizzle.

Man did Eddie Van Halen lose his cool. I'm kinda shocked Sonic Youth got higher than him. STEPHEN STILLS got higher than Eddie Van Halen. Did the terrorists win or something? I'm gonna play "Eruption" outside of RS headquarters screaming "ASSHOLES" with my middle fingers outstretched. I'd like to think someone is already doing this. As "Fargo Rock City" notes, Eddie usually no. 2 on these things.

Ok, I'll admit his shredding on the new Mac album is really annoying but GODDAMN WHERE IS LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM? That mofo doesn't use a pick! And he's got way cooler hair than Mark Knopfler.

this list does not include Vini Reilly = it is worthless

This photo leads to the obvious question...who are the 100 greatest KEYTAR players of all time????
http://www.janhammer.com/Img025.jpg

Can somebody, anybody, explain to me why Eddie Van Halen is #70 when Jack White is #17, Jerry Garcia is #13, Kurt Cobain is #12, and Kirk Hammett is #11?

How many kids have sat in their bedroom playing guitar and said, "One day I want to play like Jerry Garcia."

NONE!!! It's never fucking happened in the history of the world!!!

When was the last time you saw Jerry Garcia on the cover of Guitar World, Guitar, or any other guitar magazine? And he's number 13 of ALL TIME? When you see guitar players talk about their influences, how many say Jerry Fucking Garcia? Not any that I've ever known!! Nobody picks up a guitar to play like Jerry Garcia!! They play guitar to be like Eddie, or play Black Sabbath or Kiss riffs, or shit like that. Nobody's sitting around learning Grateful Dead songs! I think somebody was doing more drugs that Jerry ever did if they think that's the case.

And who got the blowjob that made Jack White of the White Stripes #17. Yeah, he plays guitar, but #17 of ALL TIME?? Fuck, isn't it a little early in his career to already be #17? If Rolling Stone wanted to be funny, why not just include Kristy "Krash" Majors from Pretty Boy Floyd? That would make just as much sense.

Kirk Hammett is #11, yet Slash is nowhere on the list to be found? And James Hetfield comes up with most of Metallica's riffs anyway. And Kirk is #11 and Tony Iommi is #86. Makes sense.......if you're a fucking idiot.

Now about Kurt Cobain, sure, he wrote some good songs, yak yak yak, and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is one of the biggest songs of ever, blah blah blah, but half the time he wasn't even in tune, he's not exactly a virtuoso, and he certainly shouldn't be above Eddie Van Halen or even Tony Iommi. When people think about great guitar players, Kurt doesn't pop into mind. Maybe as a songwriter, but not as a guitar player.

How did Joan Jett get ranked above Agnus Young? She's on the list at #87 and Agnus is 96. He barely made the list. I'm beginning to wonder if Rolling Stone even listens to music? Who knew Joan was better than Steve Vai, Neil Schon, Tom Schultz, Ted Nugent, Peter Frampton or even Slash and Zakk Wylde, all of whom aren't even on the list. And I'd say Lita Ford can play better guitar than Joan anyway!

Blender's Top 100 Worst Bands was also pretty gay, just because they don't pay attention to things they already wrote, and they also didn't include Bang Gang or Wild Boyz anywhere on that list, so how accurate can it be? For example, Insane Clown Posse was the #1 Worst Band, and they said their worst record was "The Wraith." However, when "The Wraith" came out, Blender gave it 3 stars out of 5, which is "good for it's genre." So if ICP is the worst band, and "The Wraith" is their worst CD, then why did it get 3 out of 5 stars? If that's a 3, what's the rest of their catalog? I'm not defending ICP, I'm just saying if you're gonna do something like that, pay attention to what the fuck you are doing. You can't say something is horrible if you gave it good marks in the past. It just goes to show that all these lists are done with an agenda in mind. They're bullshit.

Perhaps Rolling Stone doesn't like Eddie Van Halen, or he blew them off at one time, whatever, so BANG, he's #70. Critics love Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Ramones, and the White Stripes, so they're automatically in the Top 20. You're SUPPOSED to like and respect them because of their musical integrity, so that's why they're there. Jerry Garcia is dead, literally, and had a cult of drugged-up hippies following him around, so because he's dead, he needs to be remembered as a great guitarist, right, so he's #13. And it's hip to like Sonic Youth, so we'll put them way above Joe Perry and Les Paul, who basically started the whole thing.

It's bullshit, I tell ya! If you're gonna have a list, at least be in the ballpark. Maybe you think Eddie Van Halen should be #5 and your friend thinks he should be #10, and that's fine. But at least have him towards the top! At least be somewhat human with your thought process and understand what the fuck you're rating! This just goes to show you how out of touch Rolling Stone, and most of the music media is. They have no clue.

On that note, Metal Sludge has decided to do our own stupid list, and we'll be the first to tell you that's it's stupid and subjective and you shouldn't give two shits about it, but we're doing it anyway. We're doing Metal Sludge's "50 Worst Rock CDs OF ALL TIME!!!" We need to throw in "OF ALL TIME" because that's how you're supposed to do it. But we're gonna try to make this as good as we can. We're not even gonna include Warrant, or L.A. Guns, or Slaughter, or bands we generally diss. We want to really come up with shitty CDs, and there are shittier bands thatn Warrant, L.A. Guns and Slaughter, so they won't be in our Top 50. It would be easy to put them there, but we're actually trying to be fair, believe it or not. We came up with 60 some CDs and now we're at the point, "how the hell do you rank these?" We haven't figured that out yet, but we will, and it'll be a lot more realistic than anything Rolling Stone or Blender can do.

I'm out like Steve Vai on the Top 100 Guitarists,

Just one thing... why do so many metalheads always think metal guitarists are better than everyone else and metal is the only true guitar style to play etc. Dont like Grateful Dead but cant complain about Garcias influence. Yeah hes no way no17 best ever but they should stick toc omplaining that SLASH ISNT IN THERE!

I'd assume the exclusion was because he hasn't done shit in ages, but there's some wackadoodle from Free on here, and unless just not on the zeitgeist anymore, I'm under the impression more people remember G'N'R than Free.

Gah, Marr!!!! This list is going to seem as bad as Mein Kampf by the time this thread peters out.

http://www.metal-sludge.com/RollingStoneFeedback.htm
some funny shit there

I don't think Tom Morello is a great guitarist, but, without even thinking, I could tell you he's been in both RATM and Audioslave.

my favorite weedle-wee'rs AND janglists...DENIED!

Tom Morello deserves his place. His guitar solos are very memorable and full of Brian May worthy effects. And like Queen he makes a point of mentioning that NO SYNTHESIZERS are on his albums.

Ira Kaplan
Sonny Sharrock

my favorite noise spurtelers...DENIED!

TONY IOMMI!

I'm with you on this whole list being a pile crap. It's astounding to see that Sonic Youth, Radiohead, and The MC5 all had guitarists that ranked back to back. Yeah. 50,000 guitarists out there, and 3 bands' guitarists all rank back to back. Maybe because they stand back to back
on stage. That explains it! How come Brad Whitford didn't follow Joe Perry? Where was Malcolm Young following Angus? Where's Ron Wood? Certainly you would think he would be right behind Keith Richards! I may not be the foremost expert on the subject, but there's many people on this list I've never heard of!

I'm out like the brain stem of whomever wrote this list.

Barry

the dude from Gang Of Four should be on this
Andy Gill will have his revenge!

steve and mick jones are also notable no-shows.

Back to back with Craig Scanlon & Marc Riley, of course.

This is perhaps the most rediculous list I've seen in some time, though I am enjoying the Metal Sludge posts...

This list sucks giraffes lollipops!!!!!!!!!

Where is he?

Kurt Cobain? I love Nirvana, and Cobain was a decent guitar player, but he doesn't belong on the list. He was a great songwriter, but he wasn't reinventing the wheel with his guitar playing.

Jack White? C'mon!

They did put greg Ginn so it's maybe not completely idiotic, but...

also, i no they were'nt huge, but ask many musicians and they'll mention new york dolls and johnny thunders as an influence. he was a great guitar player and influenced many and should get some recognition

joe perry should also be higher than 40 something

they may not have made it that big, gut the new york dolls were a huge influence on many musicians, with guitar player johnny thunders the most important of them. he should def. be on the list (top 20 IMO).

joe perry should have done bettter than 48.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-guitar-solos-1235519961

Prince def gets reappraised...

"Share the Red" way too low

yet his actual best guitar solo ("why you wanna treat me so bad?") is nowhere to be found

Seems fine, only big oversight I, er, saw is that the Cars solo to spotlight is not "Just What I Needed" but "My Best Friend's Girl," which is one of the best Tele solos of all time.

did Rick Beato write this list?

i've listened to that geese song a bunch of times and i don't think i ever even noticed there was a guitar solo?

Maybe their listing was a psy-op.

did Rick Beato write this list?

― Cattedrale metropolitana di Santa Maria de Episcopio, Tuesday, May 5, 2026 9:25 AM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

if he had then maybe andy summers' solo from "driven to tears" would be on it (as it should be!)

"Message in a Bottle" features almost constant soloing, not to mention all this cool complementary harmonic stuff.

i like prince but ngl the "purple rain" solo kind of sucks

i think this list is some sort of argument against guitar solos

Girlschool made the list, that is pretty cool.

little red corvette is a better prince guitar solo imo

the "purple rain" solo kind of sucks

I see you know how to Post a controversial music opinion

ittle red corvette is a better prince guitar solo imo

― brimstead, Wednesday, May 6, 2026

Dez Dickerson played the solo iircq

Where is Roy Buchanan’s “sweet dreams?” Tell me I missed it

I don't particularly want to read the list and the often dumb descriptions, but I used to contribute to these RS lists: I would help conceive Blender lists, as well as do descriptions, and obv Blender's were better than RS's. and so it was always evident that RS's short term priorities were heeded: like, Puddle of Mudd would make lists in 2003, or Kings of Leon in 2007… so for them who have clicked, what short term interests are reflected in this list, which otherwise seems unspeakably boring? What boxes do they check off that will seem very dumb later?

Geese

The other newer one was iirc a MJ Lenderman track.

Ran the list by my guitar teacher today. We began from a place of "all lists are silly" and not sure there was anything we would gong on this/couldn't defend. He can't stand John Mayer's songs, for example, but could totally justify the placement. The one thing missing he could think of was ... I forget which Beatles song it was, lol, not an obvious one. But we both agreed that working with what was here, "Watchtower" probably deserved to be on top, ahead of "Purple Rain." Our reasoning was that Prince was absolutely a great guitarist, but he was a great everything, and as far as solos go "Purple Rain" was not particularly special (relatively speaking). But "Watchtower," Hendrix is first and foremost known as a guitarist, and while that song is of course primo Dylan, one of the reasons his version bests Dylan's is the guitar playing, which is what elevates it to the next level. Like, Hendrix=guitar. Which is why he's on there more than anyone else, I think. Three songs? Maybe Clapton is on there as much, with Derek, Cream and the Beatles.

how long have you been studying/learning guitar? that's a cool thing I ought to do, I've never managed to exhibit the self-discipline to teach myself but maybe with a regular instructor I could get somewhere.

Prince beats Hendrix on this partly as an atonement for his being left off the last best guitarists list, but also as he's just more popular currently, in the wider scheme of things. Putting him on top makes rolling stone look a bit less fusty and dusty but also keeps with their honouring all time greats of the past etc. agree though that the purple rain solo is good but not all out spectacular. Idk if prince was really that amazing as a soloist? Always a good/great one but never jaw dropping. Though I feel that way about lots of these entries so not sure how to really compare them all.

yet his actual best guitar solo ("why you wanna treat me so bad?") is nowhere to be found

― the manda-**whore**-ian and **hoe**-gu (voodoo chili), Tuesday, May 5, 2026 9:22 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Reading this list made me realize that most of the time I don't really care about guitar solos. Lots of songs that I know and like but I'll be damned if I can remember anything about the guitar solos in 99% of cases. There are a few exceptions when the whole song is basically a guitar solo - "Maggot Brain", "Eruption", and "Machine Gun" come to mind.

yes he's a great guitarist but i just can't deal with prince any more at this point he just doesn't excite me at all.

personal favorite iron maiden solo is "loss for words (big 'orra)" on powerslave.

a thin lizzy solo should have been somewhere in this list.

i always feel like a real jerk for never wanting to listen to Prince

I would have liked to see "Dreamer Deceiver" instead of "Painkiller" for Judas Priest/Glenn Tipton.

Prince is an *incredible* rhythm guitarist, but obviously that doesn't work for this list

xposting, I've been taking lessons long enough that I should be better, lol. I too lack that discipline. But as a drummer starting another instrument as an adult, it's honestly changed the way I listen to music, even stuff I'm super familiar with.

A solo on that list my teacher singled out as particularly great was the Commodores "Easy," btw. Maybe not an obvious choice. A solo he singled out as more head scratching was "Scar Tissue."