Volume 3: Rolling Stone Lists

I was back at my parents' house a few days ago, and as they often do, they asked me to clean out part of my old room (my dad has designs on putting in some sort of movie theater in there). So this time, I'm cleaning out my closet (what the fuck am I going to do with all of those baseball cards? Seriously.), and I stumble upon a stack of magazines. Many are worthless, but there's a few copies of The Rolling Stone that catch my eye. Namely, the ones with those altogether absurd and worthless but fun lists. You know the ones--500 greatest songs of all time, 100 greatest artists of all time, the 47 greatest bass solos, and so forth.

These lists are fun for a couple of reasons. First, it's always interesting to see where songs or albums or whatever may fall, and register disagreement. Second, I think it's a good way, especially in your younger years, to find old rock n roll that you may have glossed over at some point. Now, however, I have the added bonus of being a few years in the future from those magazines. Case in point: the September 18, 2003 issues proclaiming "THE 100 GREATEST GUITARISTS OF ALL TIME."

Let's be clear--there are some problems from the start for this list. What do you mean by "greatest" being the chief one. Of course, the authors of this list don't pause to explain their methodology, so neither will I. Rather, I want to focus on four things:

1. Which guitarists (if any) are listed surprisingly high?


2. Which guitarists (if any) are listed surprisingly low?


3. If the list were revised today, who might be lower?


4. If the list were revised today, who might be higher

First, is anyone surprisingly high? The top ten is chock full of people you'd expect (Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, etc.), but just outside the top ten I found Kurt Cobain at number twelve. I always thought of him as a great craftsman of songs and hooks (little beats "Smells Like Teen Spirit"), but not necessarily the most accomplished guitarsmith. RS explains:

His cannonballs of fuzz and feedback bonfires on 1991's Nevermind announced the death of 1980s stadium guitar rock. Cobain also reconciled his multiple obsessions - The Beatles, hardcore punk, the fatalist folk blues of Led Belly - into a truly alternative rock that bloomed in the eccentric, gripping hooks and chord changes of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Come as You Are."

Fair enough. While I'd also like to quibble with the selection of John Frusciante at 18, I'll move on. Who is too low? How about Mr. Peter Townshend coming in at....50! 50? 50! The Who gets no respect. I mean...just for the opening chords alone.

I'm guessing if they did this list again, Tom Morello might not come in at #26 anymore. Audioslave was awful (and no, I'm not linking to their music).

Finally, RS has Jack White at #17. This man is a veritable guitar god, and yes I realize the term is a bit overused or cliche. But he is. Since 2003, the White Stripes released Get Behind Me Satan and Icky Thump, further advancing White's cause. I'm not counting any of that Raconteurs bullshit, if anything it would hurt him. He still moves up the list in my mind, I just hope he finds a decent way to express himself now that the White Stripes are no more. If you're a fan and you haven't seen Under Great White Northern Lights or It Might Get Loud yet, you're doing yourself a disservice.

The full list is here. I think I grabbed about four of these magazines so I might talk about a few others in the next couple weeks.

Photo by hobogirl923