Shredders?!

[sixxswine]

Who do you feel is the most overrated?

 

[sixxswine]

I placed my vote for Steve Vai. I've never been a huge fan & he's always consistent.
Consistently bad.

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

I voted for Malmsteen. Love some of his songs (the AOR ones) but never been a fan of his guitar style. It's fast & technical but in my opinion that needs to be accompanied by flash & excitement which he lacks, and that's what makes guitarists like George Lynch & Eddie Van Halen so much more fun to listen to.

 

[SLAYER85]

i think kirk hammet is way overrated, people arel ike omg! hes in metallica hes great! ble ble ble ble, i mean hes good and hes got good solos, but i mean one goddamnt hing he aint is a mustaine and mustaine dont get none of the rep hammet does.

 

[tedvanfrehley]

I had to vote Vai on this one. I "like" Vai and think his best effort was PASSION AND WARFARE. I think he relies too much on effects...I know all these guys use 'em but I think Vai is helpless without 'em. Let's face it...I can plug my guitar into my amp and put the gain on 10, soak it with some reverb and chorus, maybe a little flange and then let my 7 month old bang on the strings and it's gonna sound pretty good! haha ALTHOUGH, I'll say that the "cuttin' heads duel" that Vai did (against himself!) on the movie CROSSROADS was some damn fine pickin'.
SWINE...I have a cd of all Vai's movie scores...CROSSROADS is in it...it is scratched all to hell but plays fine...drop me a note...I'll either burn this one for you or burn myself a copy and send you the original if you want it...the 3d cover is the best thing about it, though. haha

 

[sixxswine]

I voted for Malmsteen. Love some of his songs (the AOR ones) but never been a fan of his guitar style. It's fast & technical but in my opinion that needs to be accompanied by flash & excitement which he lacks, and that's what makes guitarists like George Lynch & Eddie Van Halen so much more fun to listen to.

I would have agreed with you 5-6 years ago. I think he's an original, he's fast, flashy but over the years he has gotten better as a singwriter & now has the passion that I didn't think he had in the beginning. I feel the same way you feel about Yngiwe with Vinnie Vincent. He's a case of a guitarist that never developed & will always be know as that "little freak" with the Egyptian make-up. Lynch has gotten better with age & has mastered the art of "restraint." Eddie Van Halen? I don't know about him, his best is in the past at this point & I get a kick from people when they point out that he wrote "Eruption." So what?! He's great 'cos he wrote Eruption?! So I close with this, Yngwie has grown on me, Lynch has learned restraint(a plus), Vinnie is a technical midget & Eddie wrote Eruption.

 

[Wicked Child]

I went with Malmsteen. Like The Trooper, i dig his more radio friendly tunes, but his shred-o-ramas don't do much for me.

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

I think Vinnie is underrated if anything. When he needs to restrain he does (eg. in Kiss and on "All Systems Go") and he is a brilliant songwriter as well. But I think as far as the speed/shred playing goes, the difference between Malmsteen & Vinnie is that with Malmsteen it seems like the speed isn't there for a reason. The songs are melodic, the production is very polished and the guitar sound is very crystal clear... yet he's playing a million notes and it really just seems out of place alot of the time. With Vinnie Vincent, in the case mainly here of the VVI debut, the songs are over the top, dripping with attitude, intense & ear piercing and Vinnie's guitar tone is really a "screaming one" that shatters your ears at high volume, so the million notes a second in that situation has more of a purpose as it adds to them intensity of the songs, and more melodic, slower solos might take away from the overall energy. Whereas with Malmsteen I think more melodic AOR sounding solos would add alot to the songs.

Malmsteen & Vinnie are both excellent & underrated songwriters though. But this is a totally separate issue to their guitar skills. As a guitarist, Malmsteen is far more highly regarded than Vinnie Vincent and I don't think he deserves to be which is why I think Yngwie is a bit overrated and Vinnie is certainly underrated. Especially when you take into account that speaking purely technically in terms of speed & difficulty (not that its important though), Vinnie wins out over Malmsteen by a long shot.

 

[lord667]

I vote for Joe Stump. If you think Malmsteen is boring, Stump will send you into a coma. I love shred, but even I can't stand Joe.

 

[delize]

Yngwie Malmsteen

 

[IOfTheStorm]

composing abilities : Malmsteen

 

[Wyvern]

I voted for Malmsteen because after hearing him with Satriani and Vai in the G3 tour all my devotion for him went down the drain. I have all the albums from the three of them, and frankly YM is highly overrated, especially after "Trilogy" which he has been increasingly loosing appeal.

As for Van Halen to me is the most overrated guitar player of all time (IMO), so I wouldn't even put him along the rest there.

Now if you want to hear a good guitarrist I recommend undoubtely Tony MacAlpine, no only in his solo albums, but also with Planet X and CAB. To me a very underrated guitar player. Also check Chris Brooks (from Australia), he has a really good debut album, absolutely unpretentious.

 

[tedvanfrehley]

I do like me some Tony McAlpine...but i don't have any on cd...Here's one nobody's mentioned...JUNIOR BROWN, baby! The "guit-steel" master! This man can flat out smoke!
and just look at his penmanship
Venom Wearin' Denim
My Wife Thinks You're Dead
AWESOME!

 

[tedvanfrehley]

For me it's wierd, because I used to love Vai back in the day (like 10 years ago) when I was trying to learn to shred but as I've grown I've begun to dispise him. Again, only because I think if he was to cut an album with only a Gibson SG and a Marshall a la AC/DC he'd be up shit creek. I just don't see him being able to jam without all the razzle dazzle. That, and the fact that he's now all into the yoga/pilates/vegan/goo goo/ga ga/playing guitar is spiritual/carlos santana/pot smoking/hippie/communist pinko/jagball/dumbass crap. I liked him when he played the "David...what's that over there" riff, dammit!
Bring back the Yankee Rose!
Ted

 

[Greeno]

Here's one nobody's mentioned...JUNIOR BROWN, baby! The "guit-steel" master! This man can flat out smoke!

That guy is mind boggling!!! The first time I saw him on Austin City Limits my mouth hit the floor! The guy is from Mars or something.

How about Danny Gatton? I'm not much for his albums but to see him play live is life altering. His hands are so big that he can play a Fender Tele and reach the tone knob with his pnky at the same time, rocking it back and forth to sound like a wha peddle!

I would not call these guys "shreders", they are way to good to fit in that category. The guys who shred to me get boring after 5 or 10 minutes. Don't get me wrong, I love a great metal guitar player (George Lynch is a god to me), but there's a fine line between ripping it up and just showing off and being totally self indulgent.

 

[Bryant]

I think the most overrated is Hammett and Hannerman. Hammett has really nice solos on the slower stuff like Sanitariium but his fast solos are pitiful and James is the one that really wrote most of the killer rythms back when they played good music.
As far as Hannerman is concerned, he just makes noise. I like the older Slayer as far as the rythm goes, but Hannerman couldn't solo his way out of a paper bag. He just makes a bunch of weird tremelo noises on many of his solos.
Of the people listed on the poll, I have to go with Satch. I resepect his playing, but he plays elevator music. There is no fire and energy there. Vai, EVH and Malmsteen all had moments of glory even if they haven't been consistant, but I can't see how Satch would really ever impress someone who is not a guitarist.

Bryant

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

George Lynch is the best metal guitarist of all time in my opinion.

Hanneman and King are both probably the 2 least talented lead guitarists in the history of metal. They abolsutely suck.

 

[tedvanfrehley]

I gotta agree with trooper and bryant on hanneman/king...and I do like slayer...but only for the riffs...not the leads! I think they're both great "riffmeisters" like Tony Iommi but their leads could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch!

 

[IOfTheStorm]

Hanneman and King are both probably the 2 least talented lead guitarists in the history of metal. They abolsutely suck.

well you cant call the 2 guitar players that probably "create" and influence all the basic riffing of thrash/death metal "the 2 least talented lead guitarists in the history of metal" . The amount of the influence they passed to others ( and some better musicians than they are) honors them.

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

IOfTheStorm, this is why I was careful to say "lead guitarists" rather than just guitarists. I know influenced all the basic riffing of extreme metal, but as lead guitarists they are awful.