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Oct 05, 2023

The One Thing 'Rolling Stone' Got Right with Their Guitarist List

Rolling Stone is making headlines again, and thankfully, it’s not for absolutely bonkers things its co-founder said to a newspaper of record. This time, the iconic music publication is garnering

Rolling Stone is making headlines again, and thankfully, it’s not for absolutely bonkers things its co-founder said to a newspaper of record.

This time, the iconic music publication is garnering attention for its new “250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” list. In recent years, Rolling Stone has revisited some of its “Greatest” lists, updated them and republished the new rankings. The original “Greatest Guitarists” list was published in 2011 and only featured 100 guitarists. The outlet notes the original list “was compiled by a panel of musicians, mostly older classic rockers.” For the updated list, the ranking has been significantly expanded. However, it was determined by editors and writers for Rolling Stone. (Not having musicians help determine a list like this may feel off to some. This is understandable, but a separate rant for another story.)

After scrolling through the list, some significant things jump out at the reader. For starters, there is diverse representation in a number of categories, including music genre, gender and race. Obviously, the overall ranking will always be up for debate, which is the design for any list. (Even Rolling Stone had the self-awareness to share a video on social media where they asked New York City guitar shop workers what they thought of the list.)

But there’s one thing Rolling Stone got right with this list that I’m confident many music fans would agree on: They recognized the importance and validity of guitar duos.

In the intro to the list, Rolling Stone wrote, “Many great guitarists realized their genius as part of a duo, so Kim and Kelley Deal of the Breeders, Adrian Smith and Dave Murray of Iron Maiden, and other symbiotic pairs share an entry.”

This concept was something Rolling Stone recognized with their original 2011 list. That ranking included three guitar duos: MC5’s Fred “Sonic” Smith and Wayne Kramer; Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and Ed O’Brien; and Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore. The difference with the 2011 list, though, was that two numbers represented each guitarist and didn’t share an entry. To truly recognize a guitar duo, it only makes sense for them to share the entry. Fortunately, this detail was corrected.

Additionally, the updated list features more guitar duos. For starters, AC/DC’s Angus Young was ranked #96 in the original list. In the new one, he’s rightfully paired with Malcolm Young, and they’re ranked at #38. The only guitar duo ranked higher than the Youngs were Metallica’s James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett, who came in at #23. Other guitar duos that made the list were Judas Priest’s Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing (#219), Thin Lizzy’s Brian Robertson and Scott Gorham (#194), Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready and Stone Gossard (#124) and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Allen Collins and Gary Rossington (#113).

So, congratulations, Rolling Stone! Someone you have no idea exists is happy about something you did! Of course, that’s not always how I feel, as evident in the list below.

Lester Bangs tore Sabbath a new one in his review on their debut writing, "The whole album is a shuck...the album has nothing to do with spiritualism, the occult, or anything much except stiff recitations of Cream cliches that sound like the musicians learned them out of a book, grinding on and one with dogged persistence...The even have discordant jams with bass and guitar reeling like velocitized speedfreaks all over each other's musical perimeters yet never quite finding synch - just like Cream! But worse."Bangs may have been lauded as "America's greatest rock critic," but we're sure there are plenty disagree with his assessment here.

Charles M. Young declared in the first sentence of his review on Van Halen's debut, "Mark my words: in three years, Van Halen is going to be fat and self-indulgent and disgusting, and they'll follow Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin right into the toilet."It's pretty safe to say that Charles was a little off in his prediction.

John Mendelsohn spent the bulk of his review comparing Zeppelin to the Jeff Beck Group. Mendelsohn saved his harshed critique for Jimmy Page calling him "a very limited producer and a writer of weak, unimaginative songs" and that "the Zeppelin album suffers from his having both produced it and written most of it (alone or in combination with his accomplices in the group.)"It's a good thing Jimmy improved a little in the writing department, right?

It's difficult to imagine anyone saying anything negative about the Jimi Hendrix Experience, but Jon Landau found a way. While Landau praised songs like "Purple Haze," "Hey Joe" and "The Wind Cries Mary," he wrote of the rest of the album, "Everything else is insane and simply a matter of either you dig it or you don't. Basically, I don't for several reasons. Despite Jimi's musical brilliance and the group's total precision, the poor quality of the songs and the inanity of the lyrics too often get in the way."Yeah...whatever, Jon.

Billy Altman wrote that with the release of AC/DC's debut, the hard rock genre "unquestionably hit its all-time low." On top of that, "Lead singer Bon Scott spits out his vocals with a truly annoying aggression which, I suppose, is the only way to do it when all you seem to care about is being a star so that you can get laid every night."And what's so wrong with that?!