I never said Guitar was EXTINCT, but for all real intents and purposes it is DEAD and has been dead since around 1995.
There hasn't been any guitarist to come out AFTER 1995 that I care about at all, not any NEW guitarist that just got fame say in 1995 or later.
GUITAR is as dead as Jazz or Classical music, those two forms of music are a Niche thing, and most young people listen to neither of those two most of the time.
Look let me spell it out for yall.....
--------THIS------- is GUITAR music right here, pay attention....
Yngwie Malmsteen, Randy Rhoads. Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Eddie Van Halen, Slash, Jimmy Page, Joe Perry, Kirk Hammet, Marty Friedman, Dave Mustaine, Richie Kotzen, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix, CC Deville, Doug Aldrich, Nuno Bettoncourt, Reb Beach, KK Downing, Glen Tipton, Eric Johnson, Andy Timmons, Angus Young, Tony Iommi, Zakk Wylde, and Jake E Lee
Those are the MAIN Guitar GODS, if you ain't a Guitar GOD, you are a NOBODY. I don't care about SONGS, I care about guitar and I especially care about Guitar Virtuoso.
I I was born in 1974, that makes me 43 years old, and when I was Seven years old I was listening to bands like Black Sabbath, Rolling Stones, Hendrix, Zeppelin, Aerosmith, then I was about 13 years old in 1987 and I continued listening to hard rock/metal and got into Poison, Guns N Roses, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, Cinderella, Vain, LA Guns, Faster Pussycat, Pretty Boy Floyd, Pantera, Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, Suicidal Tendencies, Alice In Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, Bon Jovi, AC/DC, Black Crowes, Smashing Pumpkins, Jason Becker, George Lynch, Dokken, Whitesnake, David Gilmour, The Cure, Ratt, Twisted Sister, Ozzy Osbourne, Skid Row, etc.
If it's not in THAT ballpark, it's not ROCK and it's NOT guitar. Guitar is all about the SOLOS, the whole song could be a solo and that would be cool.
It's also about image, whether that be Glam with the long hair and make up like Poison or the leather and spikes like Judas Priest.
When I was 13 to 18 during the years '87-93 that was when GUITAR (as I described above) was at it's peak, and it was DEAD by 1996 if not dead before like say 1994.
This music was so big at that time it became pop/mainstream, almost everyone listened to it, almost everyone wanted to play guitar, almost everyone idolised these guitarists like they were GODS.
It was everywhere, literrally everywhere you looked! We had Headbangers Ball a 3 hour show dedicated to this music every week, we actually had MTV that played mostly rock videos 24/7 even when Headbangers Ball wasn't on.
It was in the magazines, I could walk into a CVS and see half a dozen different Guitar magazines as well as half a dozen different Rock/Metal magazines.
There were tons of concerts every week, everywhere. There was actually new CDs cioming out by each of the above bands each year and more tours, it was the most exciting time to be alive!
It was even big in the movies, Bill & Ted Excellent Adventure, Waynes World, Decline of Western Civilization Metal Years, it was always in the NEWS all the contraversy with the PRMC and twisted sister and the Ozzy suicide/bat incidents. Back then it had real balls and was sexy.
Even women were sexier with the big hair, spiked high heels and stockings and short leather skirts and makeup.
It was a WAY of life, it was just something we played or listened to, we LIVED it, it was our RELIGIION, we took OZZYs lyrics seriously, Rock N Roll is my religion.
It was also always featured on all the talk shows of the time for the outragous contarversy.
Like I say, every where you turn around, there it was, everywhere.
It's like it started with Chuck Berry and Blues Guys that passed the torch to Rolling Stones and Zeppelin and they passed it to Aerosmith and Def Leppard and they passed it to Guns N Roses and Poison, and then it was even passed to a somewhat lesser extent to Stone Temple Pilots and Alice in Chains.....
But Point is, AFTER "THAT" it was not passed on to anyone else, the scene died, the lifestyle died, the cultural movement died, the mainstreamness of it all died, no one after the bands I listed has carried on the tradition.... YOu can try to name one or two bands, but even if you do, you will still FAIL, because one or two bands is not the HUGE number of bands I grew up with! Nor is what we have today the same huge magnitude of what I had.
The generation before me had Aerosmith and the Stones, and I liked them, they were still in the same BALLPARK as Guns N Roses/Def Leppard, the generation after me caught the tail end of STP and AIC and they also were in the same ballpark as Leppard/GNR, you see ALL these bands fit into the same general ballpark, it's called TRADITION, carryong on something, making it your own, but not changing it TOO much, and for certain not LEAVING out the most important things like SOLOING and VIRTUOSO.
The only music worth listening to AFTER 1994, are the SAME bands I listed above that were already making music long, long BEFORE 1994, if it weren't for them, I wouldn't be listening to any music at all, period. It all sucks, all of it. And even if I did find a few bands I liked that were new, I'd still say it sucks, because its not gonna be the huge thing it used to be, and it never will.
Rock started out as a small niche, then in the 70/80s/first half of the 90s it blew up into this HUGE thing as HUGE as the universe itself, now it's just a small niche thing again. It will never be big again, not in the way it was as I described it above it won't.
So you can believe your illsuions and delusions if that makes you feel better, just because you have a paying gig and some students, means very little, if I heard your music I'd prolly say you suck cause I compare everything to the greats I listed above.
I'm gonna repeat this one thing one more time, because that's how imporatnt this is, if a person don't play guitar in the same ballpark, lead guitar not Rhythm or Djent crap, but GUITAR like these guys then its NOT GUITAR by my standards and defuinitions, and what I say and what I think is all that matters in this lifetime and universe. I am not living in this universe, I-AM- the Universe, if you can't understand that then you will never understand ANYTHING!
Yngwie Malmsteen, Randy Rhoads. Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Eddie Van Halen, Slash, Jimmy Page, Joe Perry, Kirk Hammet, Marty Friedman, Dave Mustaine, Richie Kotzen, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix, CC Deville, Doug Aldrich, Nuno Bettoncourt, Reb Beach, KK Downing, Glen Tipton, Eric Johnson, Andy Timmons, Angus Young, Tony Iommi, Zakk Wylde, and Jake E Lee
P.S.
I am placing the most important emphasis on Randy Rhoads, Yngwie Malmsteen, and Steve Vai..... at the end of the day, those 3 people did more with GUITAR than EVERY other guitarist that has EVER lived COMBINED!
THAT is guitar! Yngwie, Randdy, and Steve, ya got it?
If you don't then you need to go learn some sense cause you know NOTHING if you don't know that.
3 last words.... Rhoads! Vai! Malmsteen!
If it's not in their league, its NOT guitar.
PEROD!
