Change of Heart

I change my mind about going into depth of the Rolling Stones Article. I already gave enough information in one of my earlier posts. If you're curious about the list, here is the link to the article.

I HATE COMPUTERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was going to create a blog post going into detail about every single guitarist mentioned in the Rolling Stones article in detail, but for some reason, my computer just felt like deleting the post. And to top it all off, Blogger likes to autosave your sh** so that now, the damn blogger website saved a blank document where there was once a copious amount of beautiful information. I apologize to all the people who I promised a nice blog going into more depth about the Rolling Stone article. Where the hell was control z when I needed it?!?! will try to recreate the blog I was going to post as soon as possible. So instead, I'm going to rant about how much I hate computers.


You see, I hate computers. I hate auto save. I hate what computers do to the music industry. It gives talentless pieces of garbage access to auto tune, synthesized notes, and synthesized sounds. Computers practically ruined hip-hop. What ever happened to turntables? Hip-hop was born from a turntable in the first place. Another stupid thing about computers is that they cause antisocial habits and activities. Remember when kids used to play outside? Neither do I. I would much rather be with my friends in real life than have to chat with them on Facebook or Gmail. And if you think I'm a hypocrite for writing all this on an internet blog, then screw you! I am just making my way through a messed up social system. If there was a better way to communicate with my friends, I would do it. Plus, I'm required to write this stupid thing for an English class. Besides, I seem to be doing a crappy job at communicating on the internet because barely anyone from outside of my school has seen my blog. I started this blog in hopes of learning something, but so far, I've just been having to tone down my material so a broader audience can understand it (which is what my real post would have been about).
I feel like I'm forced to use a computer sometimes just because of the way my generation behaves. The only thing I actually like about computers is YouTube.

Even though I am not too fond of computers, I don't feel the same way towards all electronic devices. For example, there are special sound effect "stomp boxes" that can be plugged into electric guitars that can directly alter the electric signals given off while playing, thus making the guitar sound different. I happen to own one of these things. Mine is a wah-wah pedal (like in Voodoo Chile). It takes a certain knowledge and skill to use stomp boxes right.

On a related note, here is the song that was running through my head as I was furiously typing this post. It is related because the lead guitarist in this band is very well known for his heavy use of stomp boxes and pedal.

"Top 100 Guitarists of All Time"

Several years ago, Rolling Stone released a cover story called "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". Clearly, the people from Rolling Stone and I have different definitions of what defines great. There are several problems that I personally have with this list. For one thing, it is greviously foolish to create such a list when there are so many different opinions on the subject. The whole list is based on opinion, and should never have been created in the first place. In my opinion, many of the guitarists on the list don't belong there and some of the guitarists that I think are some of the best of all the time are either near the bottom of the list or not on the list at all. For examle, I know that many people believe that the list was blasphemous to rank Van Halen as 70 and to rank Jack White as 17. Personally, I am disgusted that Keith Richards was ranked so highly and Angus Young was near 100th. To me, it seems half the people on the list got on because they won some sort of popularity contest.

Here are some examples of people I think should not have made the list. For one, I don't think ANY guitarist from a punk band belongs on the list. Because punk music is traditionally fueled EXCLUSIVELY by raw adolescent energy, it requires little to no guitar skill to be in a punk band. That eliminates such guitarists as Johnny Ramone, Ron Asheton, and Greg Ginn. Also, I don't believe Joni Mitchell should have made the list. She is primarily a singer and songwriter aside from being a decent guitarist. If they put her on the list, they might as well have put Bob Dylan on the list. Also, Trey Anastasio does not belong on the list. He was a sloppy guitarist whose primary audience consisted of stoners. The Rolling Stone people were probably smoking something when they picked him.

Here are some examples of people I think should have made the list. This may be very biased since half of these people are some of my favorite guitarists; but then again, this whole post is biased. Another reason these guitarists may not have been chosen is because they had not yet become famous by the time the original article was published in 2003. But here are my choices and why (I will only go into detail with the possible Candidates). The first person I would put on the list is Cesar Rosas, the guitarist from Los Lobos. The band is from East L.A. and they play just about anything from rock and blues to country to traditional Mexican genres. Although he isn't technically the greatest guitarist ever, I think his versatility makes him a perfect candidate for the list. Another possible candidate for the list would be Mato Nanji, a blues guitarist from and Indian reservation in South Dakota. His style is extremely passionate and intese that. Just listening him play a solo is like being smacked in the face with an iron. Then, there's always the shredder virtuosos such as Steve Vai and Joe Satriani who both took Van Halen's innovative finger-tapping and combined it with  Frank Zappa style harmony and created an explosively beautiful sound. Also Joe Bonamassa, who was a guitar prodigy who started touring at age 14. He has the speed of Vai with the soul of a bluesman.

Here is a list of guitarists who could have made the list had they been famous at the time:

-Henry Garza (Los Lonely Boys)
-Johnny Hiland
-Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriella Quintero (Rodrigo y Gabriella)
-Orianthi Panagaris

Here are some other guitarists who could have just made the list:
-Slash (Guns n Roses)
-Brian Carroll (Buckethead)
-Yngwie Malmesteem
-Eric Johnson
-Ritchie Valens
-Did I leave someone out?