why are guitar solos not cool anymore?

  • Thread starter Thread starter jimistone
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Still thinking about the broader cultural context. I like Richard Monroes comment, the earlier drug comment too.

The 80's were a time of excess and over-the-top everything, from politics to stock markets, culture etc. Or at least the culture was responding in a backlash manner to a fatalisitic view of a nuclear world and an ever growing distance between rich and poor, corrumpt politics etc. The music was in large part an ear candy for the masses that was strict entertainment without much emotional depth.

the 1990's ushered in an emotionally tortured venue of heroin reality and nihilistic anxieties over the state of the world/society. there wasn't any room for the exuberance of a kick ass solo amongst the doom and gloom. Now things are all messed up again and being squished back into some retro/new form and maybe solos will re-appear, but we've got to move through this apocalyptic sensibility that grew out of the moody 1990's. Bands like like Korn, and Mudyvane (and other masked rockers) are busy occupying the pop guitar scene. But they too will pass.
 
THis young talent will prove you wrong

This is my band Driftwood, I am the rythm guitarist but the lead guitarist has great licks and solos that you wont find in mainstream music. Get our songs in the discorgraphy section www.woodpage.cjb.net

P.S. this is our old singer, so we know hes not so good.
 
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chris cheney...

you want a guitar solo. listen to the living end. Chris cheney is the singer and lead guitarist. he is one of the most amazing players i have ever heard. he has a style that i've never heard like anything else before. just amazing.
 
any of you guys ever go to open mic nights? you can sometimes see more talent there than all of todays pop stars put together.
what is played on the radio or mtv is a very, very small percent of the music that's played in the world.there are great musicans out there that few ever hear.on the other hand i've seen groups of people with instruments on tv that suck simply because they have no technical ability,their lyrics are great the melody line is good, but they don't seem to have ever seen each other before.their timing dosen't match,it's like one guy knows the song and every one else has to watch that one guys hands to know what is going on.enough.
some songs don't need lead parts,and some wouldn't have any lasting impact without them.use em if ya got em, if ya don't at least play great accompaniment.dosen't matter what ya play.
 
JR#97 said:
The thing is, just because a tune is a blues or jazz tune doesn't mean the guitar solo is all that much better or more fitting than any other guitar solo regardless of genre!

What about blue-grass? Blue grass can be more shredding, cliche, and over done than all of the shredder metal tunes put together!

If you have chops and want to show off, do it! If the audience likes it, cool! If not, so what! Just leave my mullett out of it!
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No doubt.

Blues solos can be just as crappy as shred solos. I often hear guitarists rip on shred saying blues is better. However, quite often those guitarrists can't perform a decent blues solo. Yet the shred guitarist may think he's better, but all he's doing is playing a crappy solo fast.

There are good and crappy guitarists regardless of the genre.
 
your right loop, there are crappy guitarists in all genres.

i think the point the blues guys are trying to make is this....shredders try to say something with as many notes as possible, where as blues guitarists try to say as much as possible with one note.

if you want to see if a guitar player can REALLY play give them a 3 chord 12 bar blues progression and turn off their distortion.

they HAVE to go somewhere or sound run of the mill in that situation
 
If you want to find out if a guitar player can REALLY play, give him a nylon string and charts for a complex classical piece. No, wait, give him a semi-hollow body and charts for a complex jazz piece. No wait, don't give him any charts and make him tame a fully open Marshall stack over some metal rifs. No wait, make him chicken pick and play slide over a country progression.

Eh. Like I said, there are good and crappy guitarists REGARDLESS of the genre.



Solos died because guitarists were using too many "words" for the average Joe. There were too many regurgitations of sweeps, speed picking, whammy theatrics and tapping. They had too large of a vocabulary. The average listener's ears couldn't discern one solo from the next. The complex solos only appealed to guitarists who could decipher was was being said. Whereas the average listener would rather hear a catchy melody.

An analogy would be seeing Robin Williams or Eddie Murphey doing stand up vs. going to a symposium on technology such as genetic engineering or integrated circuit design. While the technology lectures are respectable, most people would rather see stand up.
 
"If you want to find out if a guitar player can REALLY play, give him a nylon string and charts for a complex classical piece"


my 1st cousin is a brilliant classical guitarist and he can sight read...he is into steve vai and can pretty much wail on some heavy metal too. But when you play a 12 bar blues progression behind him he just noodles....no tastiness or feeling to his leads. It sounds like he's just running patterns and scales cause basically...he's just running patterns and scales.

when you play to a 3 chord blues progression you have to go somewhere with your solo...shredding through scales, sweeps, and arppegios don't work. blues is string bending music straight from the soul.

i have nothing against shred, in fact i like alot of it. i just think blues guitar comes from a different side of the brain than shredding does ....it seems like you would have to use too much of the technical side of your brain to shred. i like to lock into a groove and flow...not think about it ...just come from the non-technical creative side of my brain.

i don't shred, so, i could be dead wrong.

i agree that the solos of the 80's had too much content for the average music listener. a heavy barrage of notes. to the point that they all sounded simular ( "just alike" to the average non-musician listener)

so....keep them simple, tasty and short
 
jimistone said:

when you play to a 3 chord blues progression you have to go somewhere with your solo...shredding through scales, sweeps, and arppegios don't work. blues is string bending music straight from the soul.
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NO NO NO...

This is bullshit Jimi ... and it refers to your earlier "blues can't be learned" statement. Any music is played straight from the heart or soul or whatever. If you say blues is music from the soul it implies there's music that's not from the soul... i don't know where this "blues is superior " notion got from but it's bullshit. Shred is maybe harder and requires more technique, but when played well, it's every bit as "soulful" as blues...

Just cuz your nephew doesn't know how to play blues doesn't mean no shredder does, most shredders return to jazz or blues sometime...

It is really ignorant .. cuz it all is mussic , right?


Guhlenn:cool:
 
A solo must be touchy or at least bringing the song up even when it is just a bunch of noise or a very technical speedy Malmsteen (which I really don't like).
 
i never said blues is superior to any other kind of music. In fact, most other genres of music are superior to blues technically. but, i WILL say that its bullshit to say that shred is every bit as soulful as blues. (when i think of soul music, shred and metal are the last thing that comes to mind)

yeah, there are shredders that can play blues very well (eddie van halen comes to mind). most shredders that i have known can't play blues very well.....they play the correct patterns in the correct key and what they are doing is technically impressive but in the context of the song it sucks....a bunch of endless noodeling.

this is just my opinion. take it with a grain of salt
 
i think a solo is a solo... and a good solo has soul, no matter what the stylle... I like nothing else matters solo... i think it has as much soul as a blues solo...

yu are confusing "what you like" with "what has soul".

To yiuy a shred solo ha sno soul cuz you don't like it... you don't feel it... that doesn't mean it doesn';t have it...

IMHO
Guhlenn
 
Interesting debate.

I'm going to go way out on a limb here and express some things I don't usually express for fear of being spade a neutered by my fellow homerec'ers.

I think BB King is way overated. He has just a small collection of licks and very rarely will even atempt chords. He is not exciting to watch or listen to.

Can not stand Robert Cray. Oh man, what a lame tone. Definitely the whitest blues player of all time.

I think Steve Vai's tone absolutely blows. He can undoubtedly wail, and songs like "For the Love of God" show that he can play with feeling as well, but his tone is so bad I can hardly listen. It sounds like he is just grabbing his guitar by the neck, a la Homer and Bart, and strangling the life out of it. Yuck.

Eric Johnson has a beautiful tone and can really wail (and has a nice tenor voice), but absolutely zero feeling. Yawn. DOA.

So blues can suck and shredding can suck. To me, a great guitarist is one whose playing encompasses these three hallmarks: tone, technique, and taste. Very, VERY difficult thing to master all three.

That is not to say that a guitarist who doesn't have all three can't play a good solo that fits a given song. For example George Lynch's tone sucks, but "In My Dreams" is on of my favorite solos of all time (the first half, anyway). It's perfect for the song.

It's all about context. Doing Macbeth with a Bronx accent just doesn't work. Know what I mean?

So here is my list. Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead.

Jimi? Yes.
George Lynch? No.
SRV? Yes.
Joe Pass? Yes.
Steve Vai? No.
Eric Johnson? No.
EVH? Yes.
BB King? No.
Robert Cray? No No No.
Angus Young? Yes.
Eric Clapton? Hmmm....tough one. I'll say yes....sometimes.
Jeff Beck? No.
Satriani? Yes.
Neal Schonn? Yes
Mark Knopfler? Yes.
Ingwie Malmsteen? Yes.
Vinnie Moore? No.
Paul Gilbert? No.
Billy Gibbons? Yes.
Randy Rhoads? No.

I could go on and on.... but I'm certain I've made enough enemies already. :D

Aaron
http://www.voodoovibe.com
 
That's what happens when we overgeneralize. In my opinion, and for MY taste, I prefer bluesy players 'cause that stuff is what makes my arm hairies stand up. But as I said that would be my taste, and even so I can enjoy some shredders like EVH and some Vai or Satriani stuff, or some good jazz.

On the "speech" analogy, I don't think MOST shredders could be compared to people speaking very technical stuff, but just speaking too fast. When I hear a story I want the storyteller to make pauses, let the audience digest and "taste" every word. Maybe the scientific speech analogy could be better suited for jazz or progressive music/guitarists.

Just my 2c.

Peace
:cool: :D
 
I remember Robert Cray coming through our little town about once a year prior to his commercial success. No cover charge for 3 hours of good R & B!! He always got the little joint hoppin', but I thought his commercial recordings were a little watered down.

OK, so I spent the weekend listening to the nu-rock station. Most of what I heard was lame :( - except for the Green Day. The problem is a lack of melody - monotone vocal tracks and monotone rythum guitar tracks. BORING!!

IMO this music needs a tastefull dose of SHREDDING :eek: :rolleyes: :p Seriously, a lot of the tunes would kick gluteusmax if they kept the speed beat, kept the heavy distoriton, added a bass guitar (for some), put a melody to the lyrics, and breathed some life into the song with a guitar solo or some instrumental solo.

I found 2 more pennies so I thought I would chip in :D
 
I like the list idea so here's mine. But it also made me realize that this is all TOTALLY subjective of course, that a solo on a song can work sometimes and other times that same player can sound bad. Not only is it a review of guitar solos but also of the style of music. Anyway here's my list of soloists who've inspired me, in no particulary order:

Alex Lifeson
Joey Santiago (Pixies)
Jimmy Page
SRV
Johnny..somethingorother (Cracker)
Adrian Beliew++ (especially talking heads, bowie)

Prolly more, but that's the short list.
 
hey jimistone

located your "gambling blues" trks if you still want them, let me know...

Oh yeah my 2cents on "why are guitar solos not cool anymore".

#1. They are still cool to me...that's all that matters.

#2. They are still cool to me...that's all that counts.
 
hey dave...i thought you had done died....its been so long since i've heard from you.
im glad to hear that you have the "gamblin' blues" tracks. I thought they were gone man. i need to get together with you and transfer them to my hard drive...cause i don't have a ADAT.

hey man, how did y'alls gig at the palace go?...we are supposed to play there Oct 5th.

you ought to come check out our studio.....its really coming along...im tired of the carpentry shit though...im ready to record damnit. we have several new originals that we haven't cut tracks on yet.
 
jimistone said:
hey dave...i thought you had done died....its been so long since i've heard from you.
im glad to hear that you have the "gamblin' blues" tracks. I thought they were gone man. i need to get together with you and transfer them to my hard drive...cause i don't have a ADAT.

hey man, how did y'alls gig at the palace go?...we are supposed to play there Oct 5th.

you ought to come check out our studio.....its really coming along...im tired of the carpentry shit though...im ready to record damnit. we have several new originals that we haven't cut tracks on yet.
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Hey, check yer mail. Yeah I was just mixing on the track's, and they still sound killer. You need to up/load this in the clinic when you can get a mix.

Hey the gig at the palace was uh..to fuckin longggggggg!! I never thought i would say that, but our original drummer had blood pressure problems and was a know-show! So Connet Boutwell (sp?) and Billy Miller shared that spot, but it wasn't really them the PA sucked the hard one, you know how that goes. Yeah I'd like to come hear ya'll the 5th, I think I just might.
 
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