This is really just a pick-up from the overrated guitarists and songwriting threads in other forums, so feel free to ignore.
I am 39 years old and grew up listening to Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Robin Trower,Thin Lizzy,Wishbone Ash,Lynryd Skynryd etc. From that list you can tell that I played in hard rock bands in the late seventies/early eighties until I had to 'get real' and do proper work, grow up - you know the sort of thing. I lost interest in rock music once I stoped playing in bands and I am like a fossil, all my musical references stop in about 1985 and what happened between then and now in rock I have no idea.
The thing is that as you get older, you end up working with younger people and the kid I work with at the moment has introduced me to a whole different bunch of music that I thought would be total crap, but which I find myself listening to and liking, almost despite myself.
I admit it: I like Creed,Everclear,The Stone Temple Pilots,Soundgarden(in particular, I would love to see them live)Cast,Wheatus et al. I don't mean that I like everything by these bands, but then I never liked every song that my old heroes put out either. I still don't get Rage Against the Machine, LimpBizkit,Slipknot and others of their ilk because I like the guitar to sound like a guitar,not a building site.
It may have been different in the states, but in Britain during the seventies there was REAL crap all over the place - the charts were dominated by stuff like The Bay City Rollers,The Osmonds (you think BoyBands are new?)disco crud like Boney M and Barry White, and terrible wimpy pseudo soul from Tramps,Stylistics,O'Jays,Tavares etc. There was hardly a guitar to be heard anywhere, sure there was the Police and Squeeze and a few others, but I am here to tell you - there was NO golden age back then, and 'real' rock music existed in the same ghetto that it does now, with next to no national airplay and you found out what was good or bad by actually having to buy the damn things unheard, or through recommendations from friends.
Sorry this is taking so long, but I think a lot of you are being pretty harsh in your judgements - yes Mark Tremonti is not the best guitarist in the world, but he plays in a band that has had seven no:1 singles in less than three years, playing the kind of music that would have been regarded as 'underground' a decade ago. I've never seen him say that he regards himself as a guitar god, but only he and a certain Mr Santana play signature edition PRS guitars - maybe this is the source of the antagonism- we slave away for years, honing our playing and songwriting skills for no reward or recognition and than a bunch of punks with no 'technique' playing simple derivative tunes start cleaning up. How fair is that? Well maybe these guys just wanted it more than we did, and were lucky that the style of music they play suddenly became fashionable, but please don't put them all down as 'crap' until you tell me what you are comparing them to, because as I said above I have heard genuine crap and it ain't Creed.
I am 39 years old and grew up listening to Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Robin Trower,Thin Lizzy,Wishbone Ash,Lynryd Skynryd etc. From that list you can tell that I played in hard rock bands in the late seventies/early eighties until I had to 'get real' and do proper work, grow up - you know the sort of thing. I lost interest in rock music once I stoped playing in bands and I am like a fossil, all my musical references stop in about 1985 and what happened between then and now in rock I have no idea.
The thing is that as you get older, you end up working with younger people and the kid I work with at the moment has introduced me to a whole different bunch of music that I thought would be total crap, but which I find myself listening to and liking, almost despite myself.
I admit it: I like Creed,Everclear,The Stone Temple Pilots,Soundgarden(in particular, I would love to see them live)Cast,Wheatus et al. I don't mean that I like everything by these bands, but then I never liked every song that my old heroes put out either. I still don't get Rage Against the Machine, LimpBizkit,Slipknot and others of their ilk because I like the guitar to sound like a guitar,not a building site.
It may have been different in the states, but in Britain during the seventies there was REAL crap all over the place - the charts were dominated by stuff like The Bay City Rollers,The Osmonds (you think BoyBands are new?)disco crud like Boney M and Barry White, and terrible wimpy pseudo soul from Tramps,Stylistics,O'Jays,Tavares etc. There was hardly a guitar to be heard anywhere, sure there was the Police and Squeeze and a few others, but I am here to tell you - there was NO golden age back then, and 'real' rock music existed in the same ghetto that it does now, with next to no national airplay and you found out what was good or bad by actually having to buy the damn things unheard, or through recommendations from friends.
Sorry this is taking so long, but I think a lot of you are being pretty harsh in your judgements - yes Mark Tremonti is not the best guitarist in the world, but he plays in a band that has had seven no:1 singles in less than three years, playing the kind of music that would have been regarded as 'underground' a decade ago. I've never seen him say that he regards himself as a guitar god, but only he and a certain Mr Santana play signature edition PRS guitars - maybe this is the source of the antagonism- we slave away for years, honing our playing and songwriting skills for no reward or recognition and than a bunch of punks with no 'technique' playing simple derivative tunes start cleaning up. How fair is that? Well maybe these guys just wanted it more than we did, and were lucky that the style of music they play suddenly became fashionable, but please don't put them all down as 'crap' until you tell me what you are comparing them to, because as I said above I have heard genuine crap and it ain't Creed.
)