Is the Guitar Era gone for good?

[Surreal For Real]

Is the Guitar Era gone? Now, I mean the era where great guitar players and MUSIC itself ruled. Jeff Beck had an instrumental album that reached #4 on the Billboard 200 and went platinum. If you looked at the 70's era there were actually INSTRUMENTALS that made it to the top of the charts. I contend that it will never happen again.

 

The prominence of the guitar has fallen, in my opinion. Yeah, you can find great playing but you have to really LOOK for it. Musicianship has eroded and the versatile guitar has lost is hold. I always thought it would come back but I am still waiting.

 

A friend of mine is the lead singer for a Grammy award winning band (rock/psychedelic genre). We had a conversation awhile back and he stated that the fact that every kid can record in his bedroom with the new technology makes music much better than what it was.

 

I disagree. It makes it easier to record but the ease of it all takes away from beating on your craft and cultivating the music with other musicians. I think players take the path of least resistance and the sound and talent reflects that.

 

When things are too easy, things will suffer.

 

I think that over time music has devolved and the masses don't even realize it. I think the kids are mimicking junk. And once the junk started selling, we were in for it.

 

Back in my teenage days heavy/glam metal ruled. Yeah, it was superficial and it makes me laugh now, BUT, we guitarists strived to get better. We were sometimes competitive and that pushed us. There were musical bars that were set, just like the great bands of the 60's and 70's set. All genres looked to guys like Chet Atkins, etc., and no teenager I know nowadays knows who the great Chet Atkins is. And they don't want to know.

 

I may sound like a music snob, but so be it. I think we are racing to the bottom...and I hope someone shows me that I am wrong.

[Riffster]

Once it all has been done it is hard to become a fantastic player to only then be compared to something that has already been done. A lot of guitarists of the 60s, 70's and 80's did not have to deal with that.

 

I don't know, after Grunge and its deflation nothing exciting or at least nothing that hasn't been done before has followed. There are a lot of great bands right now but not so much guitar heros like those of the past.

[Surreal For Real]

Yes, but current chart-topping genres have all been done, as well. The simple timing, lack of melody, etc., is old hat but gains 'music market share'.

 

Our society has turned its creative focus to video games, the playing and creating of them...:(

[deeman]

Ugg, it's the 'every generation after mine isn't as good' arguement again.

 

You were saying that back in the day 'us guitarists' strived to get better.

 

Are you saying that us 'kids' who record in their bedrooms aren't striving to get better? I'm playing around with recording and playing and effects and midi all the time. Sorry grandpa, but I take offense to that statement.

 

Also in the late seventies and early 80's guitar really wasn't a part of the pop music but It came back again later in the decade with the hair metal/GnR/Grunge craze. Who's to say that we're just arond the corner from another guitar centered music genre?

[Sailjunkie]

Is the Guitar Era gone? Now, I mean the era where great guitar players and MUSIC itself ruled. Jeff Beck had an instrumental album that reached #4 on the Billboard 200 and went platinum. If you looked at the 70's era there were actually INSTRUMENTALS that made it to the top of the charts. I contend that it will never happen again.

 

The prominence of the guitar has fallen, in my opinion. Yeah, you can find great playing but you have to really LOOK for it. Musicianship has eroded and the versatile guitar has lost is hold. I always thought it would come back but I am still waiting.

 

A friend of mine is the lead singer for a Grammy award winning band (rock/psychedelic genre). We had a conversation awhile back and he stated that the fact that every kid can record in his bedroom with the new technology makes music much better than what it was.

 

I disagree. It makes it easier to record but the ease of it all takes away from beating on your craft and cultivating the music with other musicians. I think players take the path of least resistance and the sound and talent reflects that.

 

When things are too easy, things will suffer.

 

I think that over time music has devolved and the masses don't even realize it. I think the kids are mimicking junk. And once the junk started selling, we were in for it.

 

Back in my teenage days heavy/glam metal ruled. Yeah, it was superficial and it makes me laugh now, BUT, we guitarists strived to get better. We were sometimes competitive and that pushed us. There were musical bars that were set, just like the great bands of the 60's and 70's set. All genres looked to guys like Chet Atkins, etc., and no teenager I know nowadays knows who the great Chet Atkins is. And they don't want to know.

 

I may sound like a music snob, but so be it. I think we are racing to the bottom...and I hope someone shows me that I am wrong.

[Riffster]

Yes, but current chart-topping genres have all been done, as well. The simple timing, lack of melody, etc., is old hat but gains 'music market share'.

 

Our society has turned its creative focus to video games, the playing and creating of them...:(

 

I thought we were tallking about guitar, I was.

 

This is too wide an argument for me.

 

Who knows, maybe the best guitar player it ever existed was never able to record since it used to be expensive?

 

If what you are trying to say that rock is not mainstream, yea, it has been that way for a while now. Things will come around.

[spacealf]

Yes, there are no great players anymore like Al DiMeola, or John McLaughlin, or Jeck Beck or any of the others like ZZTop or other such people.

Oh wait, they all are still playing, even Joe Walsh!

 

I think I can find utube videos of them all.

[charlie brown]

Still lots of good music, and good/great bands, too!

Guitar Gods, are (largely) in the eyes/ears, of the

beholders. They always have been, and always will be.

 

Times, and tastes change, but good/great music, is great music.

Even if one has to go (somewhat) "underground" to find

it. One may have to look a bit harder, farther, to find

what "does it" for you. But, it's all still out there.

Eveything has been "done" before! So what?! If we really

worried about that, we'd all stop playing, entirely. It's

true, I like what I like, but I'm not so single minded,

that I won't at least give something new, a chance. One

can always go back to their favorites, at any time.

 

IMHO, as always.

 

CB

[Sailjunkie]

I tend to agree that guitars and guitarists have taken a sort of "back seat" to all the vocal music going on these days. The state of popular music today is absolutely horrid in my eyes, so I find myself either listening to much older music, or losing myself in fusion or ambient stuff.

 

I also feel that the general public, after being spoon-fed "American Idol" and "The Voice", have become so much less sophisticated music listeners. We live in a cut-n-paste world now with DAW. Why deal with a guitar solo when you can simply replace that part with a vocal part (so many newer arrangements are cutting and pasting a vocal part in a place that was traditionally a guitar solo...really sucks). Everybody and their brother wants to be a vocalist now, and, with the access to home recording, they all THINK they can hit the big time...so, consequently, we are buried in garbage. Don't get me wrong though, there are still a few gems out there, but they are few and far between.

 

Thanks for posting this discussion. I generally keep these thoughts to myself. At 52, people would probably just see me as an old goat.

[pippy]

Is the Guitar Era gone?

No.

 

You're just looking in the wrong places.

 

P.

[quapman]

Music hasn't changed, the music business has changed.

 

It's still just as hard to learn the guitar today as it was 30 40 50 years ago.

 

The business today has more to do with marketability than talent.

For every success story there is a million other more talented unknowns playing in their bedrooms.

 

Yes there are still the Al DiMeolas and John McLaughlins out there. They just make up a very small part of the market.

You have to go looking for that kind of music. Just like I had to go looking for it when I was young.

 

There is tons of good music being made,, it's just not being sold. Don't wait for television or radio to bring it to you.

You have to go find it.

[quapman]

No.

 

You're just looking in the wrong places.

 

P.

 

 

Damn Pippy Reader Digesting my thoughts before I can click "add reply"...

 

[milod]

I'm personally convinced that there is as good a level of musicianship as ever. I'm playing far better today than I did in the '60s when I was considered pretty good as a fingerpicker - but frankly there are all kinds of younger folks who are far more skilled and talented than I am. And within just some miles of where I live now.

 

The difference, though, is that we live in an entirely different world. The Internet, for better or worse, is a marvelous teaching tool for guitar and doggone nearly anything else one might imagine - but it's also stolen the focus of the pre-web and pre cable TV era when literally everyone heard "The Beatles" and dozens of other "top selling" artists whether they liked 'em or not.

 

Now it's all splintered. The Rock kids ask why they can't be "known" as those of the 60s through the early 80s, and the answer is the same as the country pickers and folk pickers and jazz pickers and whatever else: The marketplace is incredibly fragmented and it's unlikely a "new" artist regardless of skill will ever have the degree of fame as in the era of fewer media options.

 

I think the guitar actually is as popular as ever because it's not a single instrument, but many. It can be a sensitive classical instrument, a "folk" singer's backing, a reminder of earlier times for nearly every genre, played either as a single melody thread of lead guitar or as various sorts of chord backing for a vocalist or other instrumentalists.

 

But... fame for an individual as was possible in the '50s through the '70s? I'd suggest it's so unlikely as to be impossible.

 

m

[pippy]

Reader Digesting my thoughts...

 

 

I'm gonna steal that one, quap!

 

On topic; when I was 11 / 12 ('70, '71) I was into Free, Rory Gallagher, Cream, Zep, Hendrix, Trower etc...etc...

Does anyone here think that stuff was being played on mainstream radio or T.V.?

 

No.

 

Same story today.

 

P.

[milod]

Pippy...

 

Compared to today, yes, those groups were being played by "mainstream" media, at least here. There really wasn't anything else.

 

m

[Sailjunkie]

Pippy...

 

Compared to today, yes, those groups were being played by "mainstream" media, at least here. There really wasn't anything else.

 

m

I have to agree...I was actually introduced to Rory Gallagher (at the tender age of 11) on a TV show called "In Concert" in 1972 (and I have been a huge fan ever since). We also had "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" around the same time playing some really great talent.

[pippy]

Pippy...

 

Compared to today, yes, those groups were being played by "mainstream" media, at least here. There really wasn't anything else.

 

m

My, you were fortunate, milod!

 

We were getting the likes of Dawn, Clive Dunn, The Sweet, Mungo Jerry, T-Rex, Perry Como, Middle of the Road, R Dean Taylor, Shirley Bassey, The Supremes, Lobo, The Jackson Five, The Four Tops, The Bay City Rollers....etc...etc...

 

I'm not saying it was all bad and I like some of the acts I've mentioned but, with the exception of The Stones (I've just checked), the first band with a great guitarist in the 1970 UK top 100 was Free at #65 (My Brother Jake).

After that, The Who were in at #90 with 'Won't Get Fooled Again' and the last OF THREE bands with a 'proper' guitarist to make the list was Deep Purple at #94 with 'Strange Kind of Woman'.

 

Guitar players were NOT getting a fair crack of the whip in the UK in the days of my youth....

 

P.

[Surreal For Real]

But...I still contend that there will never be an instrumental to reach #1 on the charts. Music itself (the black dots on the page) has dwindled and the guitar, to me, was the foundation of modern American Music. That's how I wrap them together for my point.

 

The fact that people say "It's still there, you just have to find it" proves my point. It's not about 'rock music' being a fad. It's about 'music' being a fad. It's about talent being a fad (in the mainstream). It's about the admiration of talent being a fad.

 

Are there talented musicians out there? Of course, playing to sparse crowds. There is a reason that the famous people in musictoday are not known for their music. Could you ever imagine a band like Weather Report or Return to Forever being famous today? No, because they played music.

[pippy]

But...I still contend that there will never be an instrumental to reach #1 on the charts. Music itself ... has dwindled and the guitar, to me, was the foundation of modern American Music.

Your whole argument pre-supposes there was a time when the 'Popular Charts' or the 'Hit Parade' were populated in the main by instrumental music.

 

Instrumental music has never dominated the 'Pop Charts'. People who buy 'Pop Records' like to listen to singers. They like lyircs. They like to 'sing-a-long' to the music.

 

P.

[Surreal For Real]

Your whole argument pre-supposes there was a time when the 'Popular Charts' or the 'Hit Parade' were populated in the main by instrumental music.

 

Instrumental music has never dominated the 'Charts'. People who buy 'Pop Records' like to listen to singers. They like lyircs. They like to 'sing-a-long' to the music.

 

P.

 

I never said it dominated the charts (modern charts), but it did top them at times and had a regular presence on them. And if you back further in time, it did dominate.

I will wait for an instrumental to break the top 10 on the charts. It doesn't have to be rock, it could be fusion, whatever. I will take any style of music, just to see it come back to the mainstream.

 

And the songs with lyrics back in the day had much more to them, black dot-wise.

[charlie brown]

Why get hung up, on "boxes?" There have always been great guitarists,

and great instrumental tracks, too. But, sooner or later, we all seem

to "need" the sound of a human voice, hopefully singing some great, and

meaningful lyrics, along the way.

 

CB

[Surreal For Real]

Why get hung up, on "boxes?" There have always been great guitarists,

and great instrumental tracks, too. But, sooner or later, we all seem

to "need" the sound of a human voice, hopefully singing some great, and

meaningful lyrics, along the way.

 

CB

 

 

Of course we need the human voice. You are misunderstanding me. Nothing against that stuff. Look at the history of the Billboard, plenty of instrumentals and high musicianship on them. Then it disappeared. That says a lot of the state of music today.

[rct]

But...I still contend that there will never be an instrumental to reach #1 on the charts.

 

As soon as you use the word "chart" you are no longer talking about music, but sales. That's different.

 

Blow By Blow was a record that raised I don't know how many millions of guitar players, including me. So much came out of that record for so many of us that guys my age still play them songs when we get together, I covered Freeway Jam on my own record it meant that much to me. Blow By Blow was briefly in Billboard, but I don't remember how high up it got.

 

The point is, nobody that cares about music cares what is on the charts. And once something takes off, once something really gets popular and people really want it, the artist has to go with it and give it to them, fostering more sales, moving it up the chart(s). Mr. Beck doesn't do Freeway Jam, not ever. He does Cause We've Ended, and he does AIRBlower and a few others from that record, but not the most popular, the one that every garage band in my area at least was mangling from the day we heard it. But it didn't chart at all as a single I don't think.

 

Don't worry about it. Listen to what you want to listen to. Better yet, you want to get an instrumental on the charts, write one and record it and tour it and sell it. It's business, and you will learn very quickly that talent and musical skill have nothing to do with it. Until you know that and embrace it, you are going to have a sad time of it.

 

rct

[ksdaddy]

Meh. I've seen peaks and valleys. When my brother was in garage bands in '67 with his Mustang, seemed like everyone had a guitar. I graduated high school in '78 and out of a class of 239, there might have been 8 or 10 of us who played. I opened my rinky-dink guitar shop in '85 and every kid in town was buying a cheap Strat copy and trying to figure out how to put a $300 Floyd Rose on it. That waned too. I think there was a time in the 90s when rack equipment became so 'de rigueur' that a lot of kids were discouraged from playing unless they had several thousand dollars to complete the setup. Seems like acoustics are more popular than ever now. That will change, too, when singer/songwriter stuff becomes passe.

 

Nothing stays the same, ever. Peaks and valleys. The pendulum swings. If the guitar era is "over", then it'll be back in a different form in a couple years.

 

But I don't know nothin'.

[Surreal For Real]

As soon as you use the word "chart" you are no longer talking about music, but sales. That's different.

 

Blow By Blow was a record that raised I don't know how many millions of guitar players, including me. So much came out of that record for so many of us that guys my age still play them songs when we get together, I covered Freeway Jam on my own record it meant that much to me. Blow By Blow was briefly in Billboard, but I don't remember how high up it got.

 

The point is, nobody that cares about music cares what is on the charts. And once something takes off, once something really gets popular and people really want it, the artist has to go with it and give it to them, fostering more sales, moving it up the chart(s). Mr. Beck doesn't do Freeway Jam, not ever. He does Cause We've Ended, and he does AIRBlower and a few others from that record, but not the most popular, the one that every garage band in my area at least was mangling from the day we heard it. But it didn't chart at all as a single I don't think.

 

Don't worry about it. Listen to what you want to listen to. Better yet, you want to get an instrumental on the charts, write one and record it and tour it and sell it. It's business, and you will learn very quickly that talent and musical skill have nothing to do with it. Until you know that and embrace it, you are going to have a sad time of it.

 

rct

 

I understand that. The 'charts' reflects what people are buying. I know that and that is my point. They don't buy music. Compare the musicianship of 1973's bands on the chart and the billboard 2013. Not even close. I do write and play plenty of original instrumentals and wouldn't even think of trying to publish them, no market for it and unless I made it platinum it would be a financial loss to change careers.

 

My overall point is that it is sad that musicianship and the guitar itself has lost ground in the mainstream. I know I can find it elsewhere, I get that. But it is sad that we have to look so hard for it.