Is Guitar Music Dead?

Have we lost interest in the real guitar heroes and is guitar music as we know it dead?

When was the last time you heard a decent guitar solo?

Before you ask is guitar music dead? ask yourself this one. For me, the closest to anything approaching something ear-catching isn’t even a solo, it’s the rhythm track to Get Lucky by Daft Punk (2013), played by legendary father of funk and Chic guitarist Nile Rodgers on his famous hitmaker strat. Before that, it has to be said, Daft Punk again, for the wig-out solo on Digitial Love (2001), which isn’t even played on a guitar! (it’s originally done on a synth and vocoder), but hey, it’s still brilliant and others have attempted it on guitar since.

So, 2013 then. That makes me sad. Anyway, check out the solo on guitar by The Royal Concept.

Great guitar music is out there, for those willing to search it out.

The counterargument, but kind of missing the point. Before the turn of the millennium, it could be argued guitar music was pop music, with the likes of Oasis and Nirvana (never a huge fan of either) perhaps being the final nail in the coffin. Guitar music used to be really great and really popular didn’t it? What the hell happened? Why did it go underground?

I suppose back in the 60’s and 70’s, the composition of music was limited to the technology at hand. Everything was still analogue, so the guitar was more of a necessity than it is now. These days? Well, you can produce a song in its entirety on a mobile phone. The fall out of this is that guitar music now has a niche, even retro feel to it when at one time it was a core component to the soundtrack of our lives. Is this why tribute bands are so popular? Will there ever be tribute bands for post-year-2000 music?

So, yeah, great original guitar music is still out there, it’s just, unfortunately for everyone, a lot rarer than it used to be.

Guitar music is dead because there’s no quality control anymore.

Before the internet, YouTube and streaming, to get heard you either needed to build your reputation by playing live gigs in front of real people or convince someone outside of your peers you were good enough for a record deal. More often than not, those that were good enough made it, those that weren’t didn’t. Nowadays all you need is a phone and a little confidence, but crucially, not necessarily any real, game-changing talent. Result? A deluge of sub-bar wannabees, buskers, and copycats with egos far outweighing any musical skill or god-given assets. I think maybe we’ve been turned off, over-saturated and so worn out with mediocre to mid-level efforts that when somebody really great comes along, they’re drowned out in all the noise.

The Instagram-fed millennials want a quick fix, a one-minute TikTok burst of noise, hardly enough for one-verse and one chorus, nevermind the multi-layered intricacies of a concept album to explore and to cherish. No. Part of me is resigned, we’ll never hear the likes of Pink Floyd’s The Wall again.

John Mayer and the new breed of guitar hero.

… are not exactly pushing boundaries, are they? All fantastic players, but the likes of John, Joe Bonamassa, and Chris Buck really aren’t the next Eddie Van Halen by a long way. John Mayer, in particular, has made it into the mainstream as a blues guitarist without producing anything new or exciting, and, although maybe it’s the green-eyed monster speaking here, there’s something else missing…

For starters, I know of John Mayer, as we all have, but I couldn’t name you a single John Mayer song or remember a single John Mayer solo or riff. So that instantly puts him out of my list of real guitar heroes. Secondly, where’s the humility? John Mayer is a self-confessed ego-addict. I watched him induct Albert King into the Hall of fame and it was excruciating, but hey, that’s my opinion so make your own mind up.

Simply put, the Steve Vai’s and Guthrie Govan’s of this world are humble, genuinely nice guys, whose services to the guitar-playing world have earned them god-like status and the right to possess egos the size of a house. Could anyone say the same about John Mayer?

Maybe those comparisons are a little unfair. John Mayer is not a technique-orientated guitar god, he’s more the total package of a guitarist/singer/songwriter, a modern-day Eric Clapton if you will, but there’ll only ever be one of those. Do we really need another? Do we really need more blues?

What is the future of guitar music?

I often get myself into the rut of the same old chords and chord progressions, but taking guitar playing to the extreme, what else is there? Fretted notes, hammer-ons, pull-offs, bends, tapping, vibrato, etc., etc. Can we get new, exciting sounds out of the instrument, or has it reached its end-of-life and we’re left with regurgitating blues music?

The late great Les Paul himself famously said:

A guitar is something you can hold and love and it’s never going to bug you. But here’s the secret about the guitar – it’s defiant. It will never let you conquer it. The more you get involved with it, the more you realize how little you know.

Les Paul

This suggests there’s always something new to discover on the guitar, but the problem is, if indeed anyone does conjure up something fresh, as I said earlier, it gets lost in the noise. But I think there’s hope. I’m fairly sure we haven’t simply missed another Van Halen or Jimi Hendrix moment as I don’t believe any amount of social media-driven drivel has the power to drown out something truly spectacular, something that can only come from somebody in love and inspired by the guitar. To me, it seems a lot more likely that we just haven’t had anything for a while.

Guitar music is NOT dead.

I could never be labelled an optimist, but taking everything into account, I don’t believe guitar music is dead and, at some point, it will rise again, It just hasn’t happened yet. I find it impossible to believe that we’ll never have another Stairway to Heaven moment, or that some young upstart rips up the rulebook and inspires a generation.

It’s happened before and it can happen again, but it won’t be someone playing the blues.

When was the last time you heard decent guitar music? Do you think guitar music is dead?

Drop me a comment below.