Y'all should get a kick out of this....

[Jesse]

......ANOTHER LIST!


This time it's Guitar World's Reader's Choice 100 Greatest Guitar Albums Of All Time! Oh, boy!

It starts off well enough, but then slips into the usual ruts. I dunno, I got some comments, but I guess I'll put them in red behind the questionable picks. Overall, I'm not sure if people in general are this clueless about music or if they've just been innocently brainwashed into voting for the same damn albums that critics tend to trump up the worthiness of.

Anyhow, here's the list and some comments:

1)Led Zeppelin-IV Is this REALLY THE best guitar album? I dunno anymore. I like it alot, but there's a lot of other great stuff out there. Kinda hard for me to believe that enough people still vote for this thing for it to be #1.

2) Guns'n Roses-Appetite For Destruction

3)Jimi Hendrix Experience-Are You Experienced

4)Metallica-Master OF Puppets

5)Pink Floyd-Dark Side Of The Moon So far, they've been pretty good, but I'm not sure about this one. Good album? Yes. Good GUITAR album? Yes. GREAT GUITAR ALBUM? I dunno. Even from the Pink Floyd catalog, I'd tend to choose "Wish You Were Here" or "The Wall" over this one....and I don't think I'd put them in the top 10 either.

6)Black Sabbath-Paranoid

7)Van Halen-Van Halen

8)Nirvana-Nevermind Ok, this one is retarded. Cite it's popularity and influence all you want, NEITHER of those things make it a good GUITAR album, let alone a great one.

9)Led Zeppelin-Physical Graffiti

10The Beatles-Revolver

11)Pantera-Cowboys From Hell

12)Metallica-....And Justice For All

13)Ozzy Osbourne-Blizzard Of Oz

14)Tool-Aenima

15) Pearl Jam-Ten

16)Stevie Ray Vaghan And Double Trouble-The Essential Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble Since when do we include compilation albums on these lists?

17)Iron Maiden-Number Of The Beast

18)Red Hot Chili Peppers-Blood Sugar Sex Magik

19)Rolling Stones-Exile On Main Street

20)Joe Satriani-Surfing With The Alien

21)Rage Against The Machine-Rage Against The Machine

22)Pink Floyd-Wish You Were Here Good choice and placed around where I'd place it.

23)The Who-Who's Next

24)Yngwie J Malmsteen-Rising Force

25) Megadeth-Peace Sells.......But Who's Buying

26)Kiss-Alive

27)Rush- Moving Pictures

28)Radiohead-OK Computer

29)Slayer-Reign In Blood

30)Judas Priest-British Steel

31)Steve Vai-Passion And Warfare

32)Black Label Society-Mafia

33)System Of A Down-Toxicity

34)U2-The Joshua Tree Once again, The Edge is treated as some sort of guitar hero . Note that U2 has been represented BEFORE Ted Nugent, Jeff Beck, Robin Trower, Angus Young, Ritchie Blackmore, Pat Travers, Paul Kossoff or ANY Southern Rock.

35)Van Halen-1984

36)Pantera-Vulgar Display Of Power

37)The White Stripes-Elephant

38)The Smashing Pumpkins-Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness

39)Cream-Disraeli Gears

40)Jimi Hendrix Experience-Electric Ladyland

41)Bob Dylan-Highway 61 Revisited

42)Korn-Follow The Leader

43)Lynyrd Skynyrd-Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd Nice choice until you realize that the like of Nirvana, White Stripes, U2 and a host of other braindead guitarists have already been represented before this one. Oh and, at # 43, this is the fist Southern Rock album on the list. Most other styles have already been repesented....several more than once

44)Children Of Bodom-Hate Crew Deathroll

45)Soundgarden-Badmotorfinger

46)Metallica-Metallica

47)Queen-A Night At The Opera

48)Boston-Boston

49)Lamb Of God-Ashes Of The Wake

50) The Doors-The Doors

51)Deep Purple-Machine Head I guess the Deep Purple fan in me is now even madder than the Skynyrd fan in me. 51???

52)Trivium-Ascendency

53)King Crimson-Red Interesting choice.

54)Opeth-Ghost Reveries

55)The Mars Volta-De-loused In The Comatorium

56)Aerosmith-Toys In The Attic :-/I'm actually surprised that this is the first we've heard from Aeosmith.

57)Ozzy Osbourne-Diary Of A Madman

58)The Allman Brothers Band-At Fillmore East

59)Slipknot-Slipknot

60)Kiss-Destroyer

61)Alice IN Chains-Dirt

62)Derek And The Dominos-Layla And Other Assorted Love Song This is one album that constantly makes these lists, but......I dunno that I would put it on. "Layla"= Great guitar song. The full album? Couple more good songs, about half of it puts me to sleep.

63)Avenged Sevenfold-City Of Evil

64)Frank Zappa-Strickly Commercial: The Best OF Frank Zappa Again, another compilation album, I really don't think these albums should be included.

65)Pink Floyd-The Wall

66)Blink 182-Enema Of The State

67)Yes-Close To The Edge

68)AC/DC-Highway To Hell It's about time they got to AC/DC!

69)Coheed And Cambria-Good Morning Apollo I'm Burning Star IV, Volume 1:From Fear Through The Eyes Of Madnesss

70)The Clash-London Calling

71)Neil Young And Crazy Horse-Rust Never Sleeps

72)Santana-Abraxas

73)Stone Temple Pilots-Purple

74)Green Day-American Idiot Apparently there must be more than just one "idiot" for this to make the list

75)Sonic Youth-Goo

76) Weezer-Pinkerton

77)AFI-Sing The Sorrow

78)Meshuggah-Chaoshere

79)Eric Johnson-Ah Via Musicom

80)In Flames-Clayman

81)Motley Crue-Shout At The Devil

82)Death-Human

83)Led Zeppelin-II

84)Robert Johnson-The Complete Recordings

85)Ted Nugent-Cat Scratch Fever

86)Shadows Fall-The War Within

87)Jeff Beck-Blow By Blow

88)Nevermore-This Godless Endeavor

89)ZZ Top-Eliminator Are you telling me that after all the great Sh*t they put out in the seventies that there are enough gray mulletheads stuck in the eighties reading this rag to vote for this over-polished turd?

90)John Mayall-Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton

91)Tool-1000 Years

92)Extreme-Pornograffitti

93)Venom-Black Metal

94)At The Drive In-Relationship Of Command

95)Dream Theater-Scenes From A Memory

96)Robin Trower-Bridge Of Sighs

97)Scorpions-Love At First Sting

98)Ozzy Osbourne-No More Tears

99)Jimi Hendrix-Band OF Gypsys

100)The Black Crowes-Souther Harmony Musical Companion

[Jesse]

Whew! That was a lot of typing and as I got further down the list, it seemed to be less and less worth it.

Overall, the list isn't horrible as it does (eventually) touch most of the bases, but that's part of my complaint here. All the usual suspects. The top 7 artists are pretty much standard for any great albums list. Perhaps not the albums they got here nor the order, but they are almost always there. You know Nirvana, Pearl Jam, U2, and Neil Young will be represented whether they are truly worthy or not. Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Allman Brothers Band, Ted Nugent, Boston, Jeff Beck, and other greats get almost reluctant token spots further down the line. 90's and 00's are over represented, 60', 70's and 80' are underrepresented. A whole bunch of stuff here that I don't have the slightest clue about meaning either I'm way out of touch with guitar playing or Guitar World readers are. (Honestly, I AM open to the idea that I may be out of touch here, but these guys I've never heard of had BETTER have the chops if I'm supposed to admit defeat and purchase one of these albums!)

I know everyone is sick of these lists and they always give us heartburn, but I knida enjoy seeing them. Kinda like car accidents: It's sick to look at, but you look anyway so you have something to tell your friends. ;D

[mak]

Yeah Jesse,this is a list as recommended by the Record Companies

[Frank]

NOW HOW CAN TOOL'S NEW ALBUM MAKE IT AT 91? BUT AC/DC'S BACK IN BLACK DIDN'T MAKE IT ALL?

[HARD ROCK UNIVERSE]

I don't think that Guitar World has been about real guitar playing since they started chasing the alternative crowd after Nirvana broke big. A lot of these choices are what people THINK should be on a list rather than what SHOULD be. where's UFO's 'Strangers In The Night',(c'mon just for "Rock Bottom" alone this would be worthy) Deep Purple 'In Rock',(same for "Child In Time" any number of Frank Marino's albums, or even Molly Hatchet? I don't know if live albums were excluded, but for my money, as much as I dig Who's Next', The Who's 'Live At Leeds' is 100 times the guitar album. Wait though, these albums must've been left off for the extraordinary guitar playing of Kurt Cobain, Jack White of The White Stripes, Korn, Weezer, Green Day and Slipnot...so a bunch of CLOWNS made the list but not Michael Schenker or Uli Roth in The Scorpions? Figures though, the average person that reads the magazine probably wasn't even BORN when those albums came out, and their main exposure to classic rock is from what's played on classic rock stations, which explains a lot I suppose

[Scott]

Ha! Another f*cked up list.


Where to begin...

-Motley Crue's Shout At The Devil? Come on. Great album? Yes. Great guitar album? Be f*ckin' serious.

-John Petrucci (Dream Theater) right up ther at #95? Say what you want about DT's music, but we're talking GUITAR albums here. And Petrucci freakin' smokes.

-Listen to For The Love Of God from Steve Vai's Passion And Warfare and tell me with a straight face that this album deserves no better than #31. If we're talking "Greatest Guitar Albums Of All Time", and I'm pretty sure we were...then PAW is MY #1 pick.

-Who in the f*ck is Trivium (#52)?

-Robin Trower's Bridge Of Sighs behind 95 BETTER guitar albums? Sure...okay.

-Yngwie Malmsteen (#24)...*yawn*.

-Alex Leifson is rightfully represented high on the list (#27)...for Moving Pictures?

-AC/DC at #68? Beacause we all know the Young bothers can't play...

-Green Day...

-ZZ Top at #89? (See Jesse's comment. It's dead on. )

-No Ty Tabor (King's X) on the list? This was a GUITAR album list, wasn't it?

-What's that no good hack Ted Nugent doing at #85? He shouldn't even be there at all. It's a good thing they didn't put Double Live Gonzo on the list...the guiter playing on that album is absolutely terrible.

-And no Sammy Hagar? No Sammy Hagar. While I wouldn't suggest that Sammy is the most "technical" player...I dare you to listen to any of his old solo albums and tell me there isn't a great "guitar album" among them. Certainly better than half of the ones on this list. Maybe it's just me, but I'll take attitude and a kick ass guitar-driven tune over "chops" any day.

[duojett71]

Korn and the White Stripes have no business being on that list. And I like how Ozzy's 'No More Tears' is on there but 'Bark At the Moon' and 'The Ultimate Sin' are not, which are both better guitar records....and better albums in general. Just goes to show that alot of that is based on popularity and not quality.

Deep Purple should have been in the top 5. Guns N Roses shouldn't have. The first Van Halen record should have been in the top 3. Hendrix could have arguably been #1 strctly because of his influence. Zeppelin IV is overrated. Zeppeling I and II are better, as are III and 'Physical Graffiti'. I dug Nirvana...but not for the guitar playing. It was the songwriting and the power of the songs. When are these pollsters going to understand that? '2112' should have been on that list somewhere...probably in the top 25. I never had anything against Venom....but I really don't think Mantas' guitar playing influenced alot of people outside Black Metal...if at all.
I think that Judas Priest should be on that list but not sure if for 'British Steel', which is a great record, but I think albums like 'Stained Class', 'Screaming For Vengence' and 'Hell Bent For Leather' were better guitar albums. Iron Maiden's 'Piece Of Mind' should be on there. I am going to stop there because I could go on all day....