Is this the end of the Rock Guitar

[Wildcat]

Is this the end of the rock guitar? | 1843

Guitar music has been in retreat in recent years. Among the 100 best-selling albums in America in 2017, only 18 were made by artists whose music is guitar-led, and that includes Harry Styles, Ed Sheeran and all the country acts. Only three rock acts made new albums that featured in the top 100: Metallica, Linkin Park and Imagine Dragons. The decline was less drastic in the British charts, with 38 guitar-based albums in the year-end top 100. But many of those were either compilations or old albums that have been re-released. Hip-hop and R&B rule popular music, and the guitar seldom has a place in those genres.

As well as artistic differences between Gibson and musical fashion, the company also made a series of strategic moves that have irritated their customers. Firstly, Macari says, they started making terrible manufacturing decisions, like producing updates of classic models with auto-turning gizmos that look awful and disgust purists. Then they began to dictate to guitar shops how to handle their stock, which annoyed retailers who thought they knew their local markets better than the manufacturer did. Many dealers simply gave up on Gibson.

[jads57]

Trends come and go, and Smart Phones are the dominant force in todays trends for everything. Guitars since the Beatles have been the main choice of the public for many reasons, and still is today. But mainly "Cowboy Chords" still are the result of guitar music.
It also is a visual accessary for stage and videos.

For me personally keyboards and real song writers, arrangers,etc. have always produced far better music harmonically speaking. I wish it would come back, but I'm afraid the public doesn't really care!

[Jim Soloway]

The problem I have with all of these discussions is that they conflate three entire separate concepts into one: music, the music industry, and the mainstream broadcast industry. It's as though music can only exist in that context and that's not true. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there then yes, it still makes a noise.

[Lobomov]

I still think that the clarinet is going to make a big comeback

[Max405]

I've always thought about this.
I had been playing the guitar for around 6 years. That was about the 1st time I heard Randy Rhodes. That was also the 1st time I wanted to throw my guitar in the garbage. I didn't, because it made me practice more. Then, the better I got. Then, Al DiMeola 64th noted his way into my life. Now, I had to play fast and pick every note. And I did.
Then I heard Eddie Van Halen. Blown away, I tried my darndist to play like that. Couldn't do it..

Then one Christmas morning, my father got me the Joe Pass Virtuoso album, and a Joe Pass song book. That was my greatest inspiration. I tried playing that kind of music. But my brain, level of talent and patience was not ready for that. So I tucked it away for I don't know, like 30 years... Then I started boxing..

So what's the point Joe?? Just like everyone else here, we were all inspired by someone. If we keep playing music, and using the mediums available to us to help keep it alive, some little kiddie is gonna hear something we do and tuck it away for a while and then try and emulate it. It happened to us, why cant it happen to the younger generation?
Music from a guitar is still the coolest most versatile music any instrument can muster. Once the computers and the video games start to wear off as these kids get older, they will want something more, something meaningful. They will remember the sound of Wes playing octaves, George playing Breezin, Joe Pass Playing "Summertime", Johnny playing the double stops in "Tea for Two" and they will grow up and pick up a guitar.

It wont die. It cant die. Its too beautiful.

Joe D

[Papawooly]

I still think that the clarinet is going to make a big comeback

You are correct Sir!

Check out any BANDA group... at least 3 Clarinets for each band...

Top Mexican Music Bands (Banda Music)

[Boston Joe]

The problem I have with all of these discussions is that conflate three entire separate concepts into one: music, the music industry, and the mainstream broadcast industry. It's as though music can only exist in that context and that's not true. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there then yes, it still makes a noise.

I've been a lot happier since I stopped worrying about what the entertainment industry calls good music.

[christianm77]

Is this the end of the rock guitar? | 1843

Guitar music has been in retreat in recent years. Among the 100 best-selling albums in America in 2017, only 18 were made by artists whose music is guitar-led, and that includes Harry Styles, Ed Sheeran and all the country acts. Only three rock acts made new albums that featured in the top 100: Metallica, Linkin Park and Imagine Dragons. The decline was less drastic in the British charts, with 38 guitar-based albums in the year-end top 100. But many of those were either compilations or old albums that have been re-released. Hip-hop and R&B rule popular music, and the guitar seldom has a place in those genres.

As well as artistic differences between Gibson and musical fashion, the company also made a series of strategic moves that have irritated their customers. Firstly, Macari says, they started making terrible manufacturing decisions, like producing updates of classic models with auto-turning gizmos that look awful and disgust purists. Then they began to dictate to guitar shops how to handle their stock, which annoyed retailers who thought they knew their local markets better than the manufacturer did. Many dealers simply gave up on Gibson.

What is written here about musical fashion could have been written 20 years ago.

The cool guitarists when I was growing up were Kurt Cobain, Thurston Moore, Lee Renaldo, Graham Coxon, Johnny Marr, Johnny Greenwood and so on.

All imaginative musicians with a great way of painting with the instrument but not one of them chops guys. I actually think my approach to electric jazz etc owes a lot to those indie guys.

I missed the tail end of the shred thing. I checked out stuff like Vai and so on, and admired it on a technical level of course, but it was very hard to take seriously on a credibility level.

I was really really into guys like Adrian Belew, Robert Fripp and Reeve Gabrels who were clearly very technically able but very much playing texturally and colouristically and not one of the shred players per se. As well as the old guys of course, Clapton, Gilmour etc. The blues guys. I was big into Chicago blues. Hubert Sumlin!

Then I got into the jazz guys and that didn’t seem like the same thing at all as shred. Virtuosity sure, but never for the sake of it, and not much in the way of big hair, apart from Metheny, or tight trousers.

Anyway, I think time has been kinder to the shred players and fusion guys. Now there’s more water under the bridge I actually find it easier to listen to and the fashion thing isn’t so acute. I really like Satch, Holdsworth, EVH, Scott Henderson not just cos they can shred. I’ve kind of come back to it as music.

There are more niches now.... I’d almost say the idea of there being mainstream pop culture in the sense of when I was a kid is laughable. Players like Mark Lettieri of Snarky Puppy are pretty popular worldwide, and the guy is an unashamed fusion soloist.

Not to mention the prog metal etc - Animals as Leaders etc.

[christianm77]

Btw was taking with a jazz student about Johnny Marr. Turns out he used to play in a Smiths covers band and devoted some time to learning the parts Marr used live. Tricky stuff, a lot of it.

Bear in mind this kid smokes bebop lines. Just because playing is not flashy does not means it’s easy.

[Greentone]

I remember the first time I thought guitar was dying--the 80s, when synths hit the scene really HARD. I took up synthesizers in a big way, of course. (If you can't beat 'em...) Well, the listening public got sick to death of all of those synth patches. (Can anyone listen to the synth intro to "Jump" by VH without a snarky smile and a bit of bile welling up in the back of your throat?) I have racks that instantly conjure up all of the "classic" sounds, but I just cannot muster up the courage to make those sounds--too worried that people will throw things. (...party, fiesta, forever...ALL NIGHT LONG!--FWIW, a Casio CZ101 and Yamaha DX-7)

The guitar bounced back and the questionably bad hair went away.

Guitar could bounce back, again. Difference this time is that I'm old enough to sit out the fads and trends. I'll just play some jazz and blues till the fade out.

[christianm77]

I remember the first time I thought guitar was dying--the 80s, when synths hit the scene really HARD. I took up synthesizers in a big way, of course. (If you can't beat 'em...) Well, the listening public got sick to death of all of those synth patches. (Can anyone listen to the synth intro to "Jump" by VH without a snarky smile and a bit of bile welling up in the back of your throat?) I have racks that instantly conjure up all of the "classic" sounds, but I just cannot muster up the courage to make those sounds--too worried that people will throw things. (...party, fiesta, forever...ALL NIGHT LONG!--FWIW, a Casio CZ101 and Yamaha DX-7)

The guitar bounced back and the questionably bad hair went away.

Guitar could bounce back, again. Difference this time is that I'm old enough to sit out the fads and trends. I'll just play some jazz and blues till the fade out.

I love Jump. Synth patches sound great to me now. I use to hate them.

I can even stomach Weather Report which I hated for years cos I knew it was high level music but I just hated the way it sounded.

Not now.

[Greentone]

christianm77,

Tomayto, tomahto...eh?

[christianm77]

Music is music, and good music is good music.

Who cares what paints people use to paint their pictures? Do people hate Bach if it’s played on the cello or harpsichord not the guitar.... Oh come on....

I love a lot of so called EDM music.

One album I listened to a lot at college and influenced my playing and writing was Goldie’s Timeless, over 20 years old now. I could hear a lot of smokey jazz guitar on it courtesy of Adam Sakeld. It was part of the vibe at the time. Drum and bass has had a really productive two way dialogue with jazz for decades now, as has hip hop of course.

Goldie is a huge Pat Metheny fan btw. If you listen to the title tune on Timeless and compare it to Metheny’s compositions harmonically and it kind of make sense. All intuitive for him. And yet these types of connections get missed.

It’s like Metheny/Steve Reich getting sampled by the Orb. Now that’s an old reference :-)

Guitarists lose out on a lot of fun by being too rockist I think. Rock is great, but so is other stuff, and it’s about working out how to participate in it....

And sometimes they want some old school lead guitar! You hear that stuff on hip hop records all the time.

[wmachine]

There are, and have been for some time, countless threads about reports that the guitar is dying. Makes me laugh. It is much more a symptom of social media and the internet than it is any kind of reality. Shades of Chicken Little and the reports of my death being greatly exaggerated.
Okay, maybe sales have peaked and less per year will be sold. But that is a far cry from death. Take into account that guitars are not consumables. Yes the market is getting smaller and there are more guitars makers so from the manufacturers side, business doesn't look rosy. But nobody can measure how many people are really playing, so nothing is said about that.
Pop music has always been a measure of, well, pop music. Just because rock is no longer at the forefront of pop music doesn't mean it is dead or dying.
Plain and simply, that author doesn't know where to place his finger to check for a pulse.
That's what happens with the internet, where everyone is now an author, writer, columnist, etc.
And that includes me spouting off on a forum.

[Hep To The Jive]

As a Rock band coach for kids I'm doing my bit to preserve the tradition. Most guitar based songs kids like are pre... 2005 maybe?

Also my concept of bringing rocknroll back to jazz seems to be working on a local level.

[rob taft]

I've been a lot happier since I stopped worrying about what the entertainment industry calls good music.

I've been a lot happier when I quit paying attention to the incessant drivel posted on music forums about the "death of <insert genre>.

For example in this article is the following:

"That’s a problem for Gibson. According to Freddie Cowan of the Vaccines, a young British guitar band whose first three albums reached the top five, Gibsons are the wrong instruments for guitarists who want to use lots of effects. “The Gibson is far more difficult to manipulate,” he says. The pickups beneath Gibson guitar strings – which transforms the vibration of the strings into an electrical signal that is then amplified by the amplifier and converted into sound by the speaker – send out such a strong electrical message that attempts to modify it with effects pedals simply don’t sound good. “Once you start manipulating that signal,” Cowan says, “all the colours mix up, and you get a one-dimensional tone”. He plays a Fender Stratocaster because its more fragile electrical signal is easier to warp."

Huh! someone forgot to give Sonny Sharrock the message.


40 years ago, one didn't have many choices i.e. there were only two big companies Fender and Gibson and a few smaller tier companies e.g. Guild. In addition, there wasn't that many small builders either. Today, there are dozens of companies the size of or larger than the former Guild making high quality guitars and thousands of small builder making customs instruments.

And what the h*ll is "Rock" anyway?

[MarkRhodes]

What is written here about musical fashion could have been written 20 years ago.

The cool guitarists when I was growing up were Kurt Cobain, Thurston Moore, Lee Renaldo, Graham Coxon, Johnny Marr, Johnny Greenwood and so on.

All imaginative musicians with a great way of painting with the instrument but not one of them chops guys. I actually think my approach to electric jazz etc owes a lot to those indie guys.

Funny you should say this, Christian. Takes me back. I'm older than you, so when I heard these guys (and Rhys Chatham and Scott Johnson and J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. and Tom Lyle of Government Issue and Howe Gelb of Giant Sand and Jon Williams of Volcano Suns and the guys from Naked Raygun, Live Skull, Band of Susans, Green River, The Meatmen, Black Flag...) I was writing record reviews. My, um, deepest musical inclinations were already formed. I enjoyed a lot of that music then but don't listen to any of it anymore. (Might enjoy some if I did, but it's nothing I'd go out of my way to hear. I think my first choice would be Howe Gelb, as I think he was the best songwriter / lyricist of the lot. The Volcano Suns were a lot of fun, though. "All Night Lotus Party" was a very entertaining record.)

Except for this: I think this is one of the most amazing records I have ever heard. And I still enjoy it.

Not complaining about the guitar playing of that era. Or judging it. But, probably due to the timing of my encounter with it (-it was then new but I was not), I don't think it made much impact on me at all. (I don't think all of them together meant as much to me as, say, The Buzzcocks and Wire, but that could just be my creaking bones talking. ;o)

Ironically, I got deeply into Wes and Kenny Burrell AFTER this. I listened to jazz for many years before I had any jazz guitar heroes. I'm not sure if any of the first 100 jazz albums I bought even had a guitar player on them.

Now I turn my nose up at jazz players with "processed" sounds. I don't make a fuss or anything---and I wish them all the best--but I just don't listen to them. I think I just don't like "loud" anymore..... ;o)

[Boston Joe]

I've been a lot happier when I quit paying attention to the incessant drivel posted on music forums about the "death of <insert genre>.

Haha! Yeah, that too. Of course, I was an early Internet guy, and back before the web you used to see "Imminent Death of the Net" posts on bulletin boards that it got to be a joke. So I never took that kind of thing too seriously to begin with.

(Speaking of which, two weeks from yesterday is April Fool's Day. Don't believe anything you read on the web.)

[Stubbyfingers]

Ah yes, I will miss those days of playing a Gibson Gravel, Fender Formica, Ibanez Igneous, Ovation Obsidion, Guild Gneiss, and Eastman Oolite. Rocks can't die! What's going to take their place, wood?

[Wildcat]

Typically I do not engage in this type of trivial populist "reporting". However, with the issues and transition of an institution, Gibson Guitars, that we all have admired and love, I find your all intellgent, inspired, insightful thoughts a true treasure . Your passion and the devotions to instrument is truly an inspiration for our collective generation.

[rob taft]

Typically I do not engage in this type of trivial populist "reporting". However, with the issues and transition of an institution, Gibson Guitars, that we all have admired and love, I find your all intelligent, inspired, insightful thoughts a true treasure . Your passion and the devotions to instrument is truly an inspiration for our collective generation.

There is no need to apologize. My post was not directed at you but at the article which is just another "drive by" or "click bait" about the death of rock based on Fender and Gibson sales. I bought my first guitar in 1971 and I was a late bloomer at 20. At that time there were really only Fender, Gibson, Martin and a few offbeat Italian, British and German mfgs. I went with a new company called Ovation. The workmanship or quality of the low end guitars was cr@p.

I hadn't heard of D'Angelico and it wouldn't have mattered as I couldn't afford it anyway. Today even the $300 guitars are generally well built. The other area these articles don't consider is the huge amount of small builders building guitars today.

And lastly if one took a look at the top LP sales of 1970 for example, the sales were mostly dominated by non-guitar players ( Bobby Sherman, Jackson 5 etc) or guys or gals that use a guitar as a prop or as an acoustic strummer e.g. Simon and Garfunkel 1970 versus Ed Sheeran today.

[Jim Soloway]

I've always thought about this.
I had been playing the guitar for around 6 years. That was about the 1st time I heard Randy Rhodes. That was also the 1st time I wanted to throw my guitar in the garbage. I didn't, because it made me practice more. Then, the better I got. Then, Al DiMeola 64th noted his way into my life. Now, I had to play fast and pick every note. And I did.
Then I heard Eddie Van Halen. Blown away, I tried my darndist to play like that. Couldn't do it..

Then one Christmas morning, my father got me the Joe Pass Virtuoso album, and a Joe Pass song book. That was my greatest inspiration. I tried playing that kind of music. But my brain, level of talent and patience was not ready for that. So I tucked it away for I don't know, like 30 years... Then I started boxing..

So what's the point Joe?? Just like everyone else here, we were all inspired by someone. If we keep playing music, and using the mediums available to us to help keep it alive, some little kiddie is gonna hear something we do and tuck it away for a while and then try and emulate it. It happened to us, why cant it happen to the younger generation?
Music from a guitar is still the coolest most versatile music any instrument can muster. Once the computers and the video games start to wear off as these kids get older, they will want something more, something meaningful. They will remember the sound of Wes playing octaves, George playing Breezin, Joe Pass Playing "Summertime", Johnny playing the double stops in "Tea for Two" and they will grow up and pick up a guitar.

It wont die. It cant die. Its too beautiful.

Joe D

Joe, it is happening. There are a whole bunch of terrific young guitar players in pretty much every genre right now. They just aren't having many hit songs on the radio. That doesn't mean that they aren't making a whole lot of great music. And some of them are having some real success. It's just that success is now measured in new and different ways than we're used to.

[Doctor Jeff]

Hard to predict what will happen, but one prediction with certainty is that musical trends will come and go.

I remember the late 70's when all the prog and guitar-based groups were blindsided by New Wave and tried to play catch up--some, like Yes, more successfully than others...

I doubt the days of the 5-minute, autoerotic guitar solo will come back, but who's to say? The top-grossing tour of 2017 was U2, 3rd Metallica, and 5th Guns and Roses. Dead and Company came in at 22. All groups, it might be pointed out, which have signature guitar models.

https://www.pollstar.com/Chart/2018/...nTours_622.pdf

[Max405]

Joe, it is happening. There are a whole bunch of terrific young guitar players in pretty much every genre right now. They just aren't having many hit songs on the radio. That doesn't mean that they aren't making a whole lot of great music. And some of them are having some real success. It's just that success is now measured in new and different ways than we're used to.

Jim,
You may be right.
Every form of music had great guitar in it when I was growing up.
I remember hearing Nile Rodgers playing those sexy rhythms in Freak Out and Good Times. Eric Gayle in Mr. Magic. George Benson in This Masquerade. Jimmy Hendrix in Foxy Lady. I got scared when the solo in Starbuck's Moonlight Feels Right was played on a Marimba (but it was sooo great though..). But we got it back when Dr Hook put out "Sexy Eyes". And Pink Floyd put out, the Wall. Remember Climax Blues Band, Couldn't Get it Right? Orleans, Dance with me? Kiss, Rock and Roll All Night? The Isley Brothers, Who's That Lady? And who could forget, the song that spawned more up and coming guitar players... Micheal Jacksons, Beat It.
The Guitar solo was always the cool part of the song. And I am sorry ladies, but if you played the guitar, you could join a band and had a much better chance of getting the girls, then if you were boxing..
The guitar cant die.
Its just gearing up for the next big multi decade string of coolness!
JD

[MarkRhodes]

Ah yes, I will miss those days of playing a Gibson Gravel, Fender Formica, Ibanez Igneous, Ovation Obsidion, Guild Gneiss, and Eastman Oolite. Rocks can't die! What's going to take their place, wood?

As Sherlock Holmes might say, "It's sedimentary, Watson!"