The 100 Best Guitar Players List, Revealed In The December Eight Issue Of The Magazine, Improves Upon Rolling Stone's 2003 Rankings By Opening Voting To 'A Panel Of Top Guitar Players And Other Experts'.

For the second time in a decade Rolling Stone mag has named Jimi Hendrix the greatest guitar player ever. The hundred Greatest Guitarists list, unveiled in the December 8 issue of the mag, improves on Rolling Stone's 2003 rankings by opening voting to "a panel of top guitar players and other experts" including one or two rock legends who themselves occupy spots on the list.

Like Rolling Stone editor David Fricke's 2003 list, the top 100 is heavy on classic rock, with boomer-friendly, blues-influenced players dominating the top 10. Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page tail Hendrix, while rhythm god Keith Richards finishes 4th. Southern slide master Duane Allman, Fricke's runner up, slid to number 9, just ahead of the wind-milling punk fury of the Who's Pete Townsend.

The remainder of the list is light on modern day rockers and stuffed with the guitar gods of generations past. While this reflects the graying readership of Rolling Stone (the mag's heavily white [75%] and male [58%] circulation audience is loaded with tie-died kids of the 60's) it also showcases rock and pop music's gentle drift away from the guitar-as-lead instrument setup which controlled Rolling Stone's early years. At number thirty three, Prince who rose to eminence twenty-seven years back is the top ranking guitarist still actively developing as musician. Tom Morello (fortieth), who earned guitar king standing with late 90's revolutionaries Rage Against the Machine, stands as the best ranking guitar player to "recently" break onto the scene.
So where have all of the guitar gods gone? To the dance-floor, mainly. The rise of hiphop and dance music have crippled rock music's growth, pushing it out of the main line and towards the fringes of youth culture. One only desires to spin the FM dial to see the proof. During the past 3 years, the Big Apple metro area has lost its 2 biggest modern and alternative rock radio stations. Though the (former) 101.9 RXP lives on in the fast growing Internet radio realm, a scarcity of FM presence definitely hurts{ as even the most hot ears need stations to tune up to.

Lacking vital radio exposure, rock bands have seen sales suffer. Having a look at the "Charts" page of the Greatest Guitarist issue of Rolling Stone, the top 10 Poster advertisement best-selling albums contain just one entry from an act that could be given the "rock" tag. That band Coldplay exists 1 or 2 hundred weepy and insecure miles from the swaggering Led Zeppelin types who ruled the charts in decades past. Meanwhile, the newest copy of the pop collection series NOW, the 40th contains only 2 tracks from rock groups, one being perennial punchline Nickelback. Hip-hop and dance music fill the iPods of the Apple generation and rock sales plunge. In the place of the guitar using machismos of Rolling Stone's list, rappers and DJs have become the new rock stars witness David Guetta hanging with Bono or Lil Wayne donning Wayfarers and croaking Bob Dylan's part on the "We Are the World" remake,writes tagza.com.