Pitchfork resurrects old feature: 50 Worst Guitar Solos of the Millenium

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http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/top/solos/

I never saw this the first time around, but after reading just a little bit of it, I cannot for the life of me figure out why they decided to take it out of hiding. One of the most terrible things I've read in recent memory.

It actually has me craving to read a new Lindhardt review instead.

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Wednesday, 28 July 2004 19:24 (twenty-one years ago)

They're just trying to compete with Blender. I'll take Blender any day over Pitchfork. Their reviews are pretty good.

― boIdbury, Wednesday, 28 July 2004 20:11 (twenty-one years ago)

FUCK THIS GUY WHO WROTE THIS FUCK THIS GUY FUCK THIS GUY FUCK THIS GUY

GUCK THIS FUY!!!!!

(the whole articles bullshit OMG 70s and 80s rock sux so bad is fucking shit)....he disses Burnin' For You which is like one of the best MOR lite metal songs ever....

8. "Mandocello" by Cheap Trick
Soloist: Rick Nielsen
Album: Cheap Trick
Year: 1977

The Cheap Trick album no one wanted you to hear. And for good reason. You thought Dream Police was a pile o' shit? This sounds like the demo tape for some high school garage band blasted on cheap beer and whippets. Although Nielsen's playing had improved by the time the huge Live at Budokan thing came out, his solo on "Mandocello" is blind flailing at best. It exhibits a staggering lack of creativity, taste, and ability. These faults might not have been a problem if this clownish facial contortionist hadn't groomed himself for axe- deity status: gee, you'd expect greater things from a guy whose guitar has six or seven necks.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Wednesday, 28 July 2004 20:33 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, cheap trick's the bomb, dude.

― boIbury, Wednesday, 28 July 2004 20:37 (twenty-one years ago)

What a big bag of crap. Fuck Pitchfork.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 28 July 2004 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

then why do you guys still read it? I don't understand why paul (and others) post links to Pitchfork stories/reviews if everybody hates them so much. Just read something else and stop giving them unintentional publicity.

― boIbury, Wednesday, 28 July 2004 20:49 (twenty-one years ago)

aaah, you beat me to it, I was just gonna post a defence of the first Cheap Trick. this guy is a fule.

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Wednesday, 28 July 2004 20:50 (twenty-one years ago)

That "Burnin' For You" diss stuck out for me as well. Great song.

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 28 July 2004 20:52 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't understand why paul (and others) post links to Pitchfork stories/reviews if everybody hates them so much.

Because I enjoy hating.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 28 July 2004 20:54 (twenty-one years ago)

It's even more pretentious than the "Kills Your Idols" book discussed on that other thread.

Besides, any list of the worst guitar solos ever that doesn't have Stone Temple Pilots -- Vaseline in the top 3 is a list without any worth.

― Barry Bruner (Barry Bruner), Wednesday, 28 July 2004 20:55 (twenty-one years ago)

"It's even more pretentious" ...

I mean Pitchfork's list (not referring to any comments on this thread)

― Barry Bruner (Barry Bruner), Wednesday, 28 July 2004 20:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Out of hiding how? It's in the archives. It's always been available.

Say what you want, but learn to surf the web first.

― Chris Dahlen (Chris Dahlen), Wednesday, 28 July 2004 20:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Eh, who cares what the indie brats think?

― James Slone (Freon Trotsky), Wednesday, 28 July 2004 21:13 (twenty-one years ago)

is the solo from stp's "flies in the vaseline" in there?

― bill stevens (bscrubbins), Wednesday, 28 July 2004 21:14 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, i was gonna defend that cheap trick rip too, but i just didn't want to get into it. sometimes, it's no use working up a froth over one dude trying to posture his subjective biases as categorical or definitive. the first alb is the best one cheap trick ever had!

― drew, Wednesday, 28 July 2004 21:26 (twenty-one years ago)

um, make that ever did. ever had? ever did? oh, fuckit.

― drew, Wednesday, 28 July 2004 21:28 (twenty-one years ago)

"Out of hiding how? It's in the archives. It's always been available.
Say what you want, but learn to surf the web first. "

POST OF THE WEEK!!!

― boIbury, Wednesday, 28 July 2004 22:04 (twenty-one years ago)

but learn to surf the web first

me surf pretty one day

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Wednesday, 28 July 2004 22:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, I hadn't checked PFM's front page this week, so I just assumed when I saw it linked elsewhere that it was this week's re-introduced feature.

Sorry Chris.

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Wednesday, 28 July 2004 22:34 (twenty-one years ago)

No sweat Johnny, sorry to bare the claws.

― Chris Dahlen (Chris Dahlen), Wednesday, 28 July 2004 23:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Scorpions' "No One Like You?" Oh man . . . love or hate the genre, love or hate the 80s, that song is transcendent. It's like the Platonic Figure of its genre. Everything about it is perfect, from the riff, to the solo, to the set-in-prison video, to Klaus Meine's Teutonic pronunciation in the line, "I imagine the things we'll do." Eff Pitchfork.

― phil dennison, Wednesday, 28 July 2004 23:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Do people really take pitchfork this personally, or is this all an act?

― dleone (dleone), Wednesday, 28 July 2004 23:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm so incredibly sick of Boston insults.

How can you praise Phil Spector and not Boston? It doesnt make a bit of god damned sense.

― David Allen (David Allen), Thursday, 29 July 2004 00:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Does that answer your question, Dom? ;)

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 29 July 2004 00:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Go fuck yourself, Paul.

― johnnie fever, Thursday, 29 July 2004 01:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Never gets old, does it?

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Thursday, 29 July 2004 01:23 (twenty-one years ago)

One of their choices, Yes' "Machine Messiah," doesn't really have in it a proper "guitar solo"; at least, not in the traditional 'break from the rest of the pack and go wild' sense...

― Joe (Joe), Thursday, 29 July 2004 01:37 (twenty-one years ago)

The dude's wrong about Metallica's "Anesthesia"...it wasn't studio noodling accidentally caught on tape, it was a solo piece by Burton that was part of the band's live set during the previous year.

― abegrand, Thursday, 29 July 2004 02:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Plus, he called it "Anastasia"

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Thursday, 29 July 2004 02:28 (twenty-one years ago)

I haven't gone back to reread the list but a lot of things stood out as odd to me about it. It seemed like a really bizarre feature for Pitchfork to run. Is this guy on staff? You'd have to have a pretty in-depth knowledge of 70s and 80s AOR to be able to critique that many guitar solos from the songs. (I actually like a lot of Yes and Rush but I can barely remember the solos from "Machine Messiah" or "Marathon", neither of which AFAIK are even amongst those bands' best-known songs.) It just seemed odd that Pitchfork's audience would even be partcularly interested in a list like this. He never IIRC took a classic indie "solos are passe and evil" line - he was criticizing the solos for not being good enough, for giving the 'illusion of musicianship' as opposed to true rock artists like Neil Young or authentic blues artists, i.e. for not being rockist enough, which also didn't seem like a typical Pitchfork concern. As well, the writing was so macho and borderline homophobic - he called Yes "eunuchs" and dissed Def Leppard for being as feminine as Heart or something. And the weirdest thing was that he picked on the brilliant bowed guitar bit in "Dazed and Confused" when Page actually has played some crappy solos ("Heartbreaker" would have actually made sense, for example.)

All that said, I've sort of been burnt out on Boston. The last time I heard "More Than a Feeling" in a grocery store, it seemed . . . overly shrill.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Thursday, 29 July 2004 02:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Michael Sandlin hasn't written for Pitchfork since 2000 I think. He's a guitarist himself and from what I remember his tastes ran toward older rock and punk, so he was definitely familar with this world. Pitchfork was more of a free-for-all then (me and another guy even wrote an advice column for a little while) so conforming to what is now perceived as the brand wasn't an issue.

― Mark (MarkR), Thursday, 29 July 2004 03:13 (twenty-one years ago)

"Familiar with this world," OK, but, from the few sentences I actually read, this thing (as with Pitchfork's best of the decade lists) comes off more like "I am intensely familiar with every rock record." With this list, add "I am intensely familiar with music theory and guitar playing techniques."

Like I said, I only read a few sentences, though, so MAYBE I AM WRONG. One of the few sentences I read angered me. It was this one:

"Jeff Beck's always been just a tad overrated."

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 29 July 2004 04:21 (twenty-one years ago)

So Pitchfork fucked up and hired someone over 25. Shit happens.

― James Slone (Freon Trotsky), Thursday, 29 July 2004 05:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Does Pitchfork pay for reviews?

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Thursday, 29 July 2004 16:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Ray Suzuki retired off Pitchfork money.

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Thursday, 29 July 2004 17:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I enjoy reading lists like Pitchfork's best of 70s or 80s or this list. I think probably people who intensely disagree with them still get some enjoyment out of reading them and hating them. But the problem is having too wide a scope. For example, Tim E. mentions music theory and guitar techniques. Someone from a DIY punk perspective might not hold those qualities to be important at all. And Sundar mentions rockism - to some, the guitar solo epitomizes revelling in being rockist and loving it, while others might want to avoid it at all costs. With such a wide scope for these lists, it's way too subjective: how do you even come up with criteria for what are the best albums or worst guitar solos, that everyone can agree on?

All that being said, it's still fun to come up with lists. So is it all a little self-indulgent, for the writers' enjoyment? Maybe. But people seem to like to read lists too.

― wetmink (wetmink), Thursday, 29 July 2004 17:40 (twenty-one years ago)

It's only a matter of time before they run THE TWO GREATEST SLINT RECORDS OF ALL-TIME.

Better yet, people will be arguing about the rank of their favorite for weeks.

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Thursday, 29 July 2004 17:45 (twenty-one years ago)

And complain about the ep not being included.

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Thursday, 29 July 2004 17:47 (twenty-one years ago)

"Wholly inferior to the original 7" boot of these transitory sessions, Touch & Go's eponymous 1994 EP was a transparent cash-in on Slint's good name. The label reaped millions while McMahon descended into a short-lived career as a street-side watercolor painter."

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Thursday, 29 July 2004 17:59 (twenty-one years ago)

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