My 10 cents

December 2, 2010
Featured, Informative, Media
6 Comments

That’s it, I’ve had enough.

The guitar as an instrument, and it’s usage in the Rock and Metal genres, has come a long way over the past half century. And every decade since the 50′s has had it’s fair share of larger-than-life icons for the world to worship. The word is not ‘appreciate’, its worship, idolize. The half-smashed half-naked half-wits at Woodstock ’69 didn’t just enjoy Jimi Hendrix, they went abso-*insert swear word of choice*-lutely fanatic! Same goes for Santana and Kirk Hammet. But it doesn’t stop there, this overwhelming fanaticism passed on from one generation to the next, to the next. One person said ‘Jimi is God’, the next repeats, and the next, until everyone feels obliged to say he’s the greatest even though they have NO idea about what’s happened in the world of Rock since 1960! If you do a quick search on the greatest guitarists you’ll get a list of folks who were famous mostly between 1960-1990. What happened after that? Did no guitarist do anything great in the past 20 years? Or did these guitarists just lose credibility to the so-called legends?

I’m personally sick of it. Sick of these age-old names coming up in the context of Modern Guitar. Sick of seeing these dead and gone guitarists steal thunder from their obviously superior contemporaries. I will not stand another Jimi, or Slash or Santana or Kirk or Dave or Page comment. They maybe the most influential guitarists in history, but that’s only because the guitarists of today are only still in the process of creating their legacy.
I understand most of you won’t agree, I don’t wish for you to agree, but I do expect you to recognize; rock music, and in turn the guitar, has evolved.

I’ve compiled this video from clips I found across the internet of the most notorious axe-wielders who forged their careers AFTER 1990! Ladies and gentlemen, these are a few of the faces that to me, really define Modern Guitar.

Cheers,
Magik Serpent
www.slainandbeyond.com

PS: Don’t give me any of that ‘there’s no soul/feel nonsense, it’s relative, I can defend Prog-Metal till my ears fall off.

PS2: If you’re wondering how I Photoshop’d that image of the Guitar Boat, I didn’t, it’s real. Read about it here!

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  • Paulas D’Souza

    Serpent in slain?? Albeit magical ..

  • Manek

    Haha yes, the Magik Serpent secretly plays and writes for Slain ;)

  • Giantinc132

    i disagree. although i do think guitarists after the 90s have definitely proven themselves, likes of hendrix and santana still stay true and the best so far. why? cause mr serpent man, they paved the way, they mastered the art, they are the forefathers and if you’d probably ask these amazing guitarists you’ve featured in your video here who they were inspired by, umm i think the answer would be the greats that you so proudly detest. inspiration is key my friend.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Manek-DSilva/890485719 Manek D’Silva

      Exactly, so these guitarists who I’ve mentioned have looked upto the guitarists from one generation before them, i.e. Hendrix, Santana etc. They took inspiration from them, and grew with it, added their own experience and style. So by looking upto these newer prodigies which are one generation before you, you are actually gaining the collective knowledge of years of evolution of guitar, from their minds, the minds of their forefathers and so on till the minds of classical geniuses centuries ago.
      My point was tending towards inclusivity, rather than exclusivity. Listen to whatever you will, but recognize the efforts and learn from the newer generation of musicians- that’s the only way forward I believe.

      • giantinc132

        well looking up to these people is key though! think about it, when you learn the piano or something, they teach you to play the greats like Beethoven and Bach, not much of the recent artists. i think it’s the same that implies here. manek, u make a good point, and i get where you’re coming from, but i doubt you so strongly have to detest it. people have the freedom to make their choices of who to look up to and who they think in their eyes are the better guitarists, and fortunately or unfortunately in your case, they’ve chosen page, santana, and the likes. i guess your option is to deal with it and trust me, this soon will change, you just have to give it some years. peace ba, peace.

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/Manek-DSilva/890485719 Manek D’Silva

          Haha peace only ba :P & I never said don’t listen to them, what I meant by inclusivity was to ‘include’ the modern musicians in your listening spectrum, which people tend to leave out. Not only those I’ve mentioned, there are tonnes! &Use them as well, as reference points for learning since they too have techniques, technology and styles that were not discovered a few decades before them.
          So rather than just reach a closed conclusion that Hendrix (or whoever) was just the best and nothing can get better (it’s the attitude of the listener I detest, not the artist), instead learn from everything that was done, since then, and is being done in the present day as well, with the intention of taking music forward in it’s evolution. That’s all there is to it. :D