Iamthebeerking

My brother is a great fan of 80's commercial metal. This includes Ratt, Motley Crue, Skid Row, and the rest. But in particular, he loves George Lynch from Dokken. "That was the best motherfuckin' guitar player in the 80's and yer an idiot if you don't think the same. "Better than Eddie Van Halen?" I asked. "Fuck yeah. Eddie was innovative but have you listened to Lynch?" Better than Yngwie? "Fuck that Swedish fruit. He was fast but he couldn't write a song to save his life." And on and on.
To him, no one was better than Lynch.

I think Lynch was pretty damn good. However, my first ace in the hole trump card is Kirk Hammet. "Have ya' ever heard him? Dude, I know you've heard him. How in the hell can you say that Lynch is better than Kirk Hammet?" His response goes something like, "that fuckin' Mexican with the devil beard and that idiot that looks like the Cowardly fuckin' Lion? Fuck that guy, he sucked and that whole shitty 'bus on it's side and killin' the shitty bass player band' sucked too"!

Does my brother's crude opinion have any merit though? I really don't think so. Lynch was somewhat of a man among boys in his virtuosity. Had Dokken really played the songs they wanted to play and just been themselves looks wise, they might still be around. But I digress.
The facts are thus; Eddie Van Halen was and is one of the greatest guitar players that has ever lived. I'll take my brothers stance and say that if you don't agree, then you might wish to extricate your head from... Second, Malmsteen set a new standard for speed and guitar virtuosity. No one was faster or cleaner than Yngwie. The rips that guy could pull between one chord and the next were un-fucking-believable. I've never counted the amount of notes he could play in one riff but it's probably several hundred.
The REAL musicianship of the 1980's among hard rock musicians will never be matched by any of these pathetic "hard core" bands that exist today. A bunch of non-melodic doglickers who's ability to scream throaty unhearables into a microphone qualifies them as cutting edge.

Anyway, at least my brother has standards as misguided as they may be.

So who do you all think is the best 80's rock guitarist?

Of course I forgot to mention Randy Rhoads. Now come up with your own ideas.

Monkeybot

Would Slash count?

I dunno if he's the best -- admittedly, '80s metal is not my area of expertise -- but he's probably the soloist of that era that "spoke" to me the most.

Godot

I think Steve Vai is worthy of at least an honourable mention.

Xeluan

Aaahhh, the halycon days of guitar.

I started a pickin in direct repsonse to listening to Angus Young. While not the most technically accomplished pickers, he played some damn fine and exciting solos.

I liked DLR era Van Halen. Eddie was a genius. What I find is often overlooked about Eddie's guitarmanship was his rhythm playing. It was phenomenal and illustrates that to be a good guitarist you have to be able to lay down the groove.

I though Eddie was eclipsed though when Steve Vai teamed up with DLR. "Eat Em and Smile" was full of brilliant work and was better than the next few Van Hagar albums. Steve Vai's "Passion and Warfare" was an ambitious album.

Mentioning Vai, we must remember Joe Satriani. "Surfing With The Alien" was the album that broke the whole guitar instrumental genre. I spent a lot of time with that album in vain attemtps to try and learn some of the licks.

Yngwie's first album was brilliant (ignoring the overly self important and quite unintentionally funny vocals/lyrics). Unfortunately Yngwie, whilst keeping his talents intact, quickly fell into self parody. The "Live In Leningrad" video is chock full of cringe inducing Spinal Tap moments. I did the whole GIT thing in LA back in the mid '90s. Collected a few prize Yngwie stories out of people who knew him.

I could go on mentioning Rhandy Roads along with, getting outside the genre, Stevie Ray Vaughan (though I hate what happened to blues guitar after he died).

What killed the whole guitar god movevment was the lack of substance. A few players did manage to combine technique with soul but there came too many imitators that had flash, style but no middle. IMHO, grunge was (an understandable to a degree) a reaction to that.

I agree that most hard rock/metal guitarist are hacks. They can do sludgey riffs with aplomb but that is about it. My prediction though is that rock guitar will make a comeback. In Australian, there is a band call The Casanovas who are getting good airplay and feature extensive, exciting Angus Young inspired solos. At this stage, the rock guitar movement seems to be confined to the AC-DC/Kiss influenced genre. I suspect it will move out into other areas of hard rock and musicianship will resurge with good songs to back it.

Iamthebeerking

Vaughn, Vie, Satriani... True Guitar players.
My cranky brother absolutely insists that "man, you remember the lead from 'Light's Out' that Schenker played when he was with UFO? Dude, someday there's gonna be some German kid who blows it away."
I hope so. I hate to think that today's shitty musicians from the pathetic underground of "hardcore" are the future of rock music. I hear so much of this crap being touted as the next great thing in rock and all it is is regurgitated rhythym guitar players who learned how to play 5 notes in an exercise that their teacher taught them last Wednesday in a lesson.

"Bro, this dude that I take lessons from is like so old, but he's like all cool n' stuff 'cause he knows how to use like those high strings and notes n' shit.He says that he knew this motherfucker named Ritchie Blackmore. Man, who gives a shit about some old fart named Blackcat, what the fuck does he know. Let's jam bro!."

Maybe my brother wasn't so harsh about George Lynch.

nixon

Ian Crichton from Saga

DarkBronzePlant

I second (or third, whatever) the nod to Steve Vai. Not a whole lot of commercial success, but I think he's one of the best, if not the best, in the genre, when you consider everything... technical skill, songwriting ability, innovation, music theory, application of technology to his music, etc.

George Lynch is not anyone to sneeze at, by any means, but there are some better.

I agree with the Yngwie assessments. The guy was fast; maybe the single fastest rock guitarist ever (Steve Morse is the only one I can think of who might rival him.) But aside from that, he's very one dimensional. His songs all sound like basic exercises in writing Baroque music. His leads, while impressive technically, are quite predictable.

And yes, I hope that we're just going through a phase (going on 10+ years now, though) where shitty guitarists reign supreme, and that someday we get back to hearing truly talented musicians on the radio. Me, I listen to the local jazz station as much as I listen to rock these days to get my fill.

Flynn McKerrow

I can't think of Steve Vai without the song "Stevie's Spanking" coming to mind.

Frank Zappa was actually a pretty damn good guitarist, and always surrounded himself with amazing musicians, including Steve Vai, Adrian Belew, and Mike Kennealy on the guitars.

mecca777

Randy Rhoads was my idol when I started out. I listen to Tribute every week or so, just to hear the live solos off "Revelation (Mother Earth)" and "Mr Crowley". Randy was just lining asses up and kicking them.

Other names that come to mind in no particular order: Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai, George Lynch, Joe Satriani, KK Downing, Glenn Tipton, Michael Schenker, Jason Becker, Richie Kotzen, Warren DiMartini, Jake E Lee, Steve Lukather, Paul Gilbert and John Sykes. And for some reason I've always had a weird fondness for Peter Szigeti of Warlock.

Yngwie's first album was incredible. It's just a shame he blew his creative wad so quickly. My brother is a hip-hop/dance DJ who hates most metal with a passion, and even he can be made to admit that the riff from "Now Your Ships Are Burned" is an absolute masterpiece, although the lyrics and vocal performance are pure cheese.

Incidentally, why am I being singled out in the thread title? I'm not the only guitar geek on IIDB. Or so it seems.

dangin

Vernon Reid.