Rolling Stone has to be feeling pretty good about life right now.
If for only a week or two, any nagging fears about the magazine’s relevance are being drowned out by a cacophony of watercooler arguments, angry paper shredders and air guitar tweedley-twees.
The instigator of this global groan? A Dec. 8 cover story about “The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.”
It’s hideous. Stab-yourself-in-the-ear-with-a-whammy-bar bad.
This is the only possible outcome for this sort of endeavor, which is built to fail spectacularly.
It’s precisely why magazines rarely do anything besides lists. Because we all love to bicker.
Doing a “Greatest Guitarists” issue is a repeat from 2003. Only back then, the 100 names on Rolling Stone’s list were compiled by a staffer. For the new issue, the magazine assembled a panel of nearly 60 “top guitarists and other experts,” including Doug Martsch of Built To Spill.
What’s insane (and teeth-gnashingly impressive) is the magazine’s unstoppable predictability.
Even if Rolling Stone itself doesn’t generate these omnipotent lists of guitarists, singers or songs, nothing really changes. It’s as if the magazine is able to select a panel of mostly like-minded voters like an attorney handpicking a sympathetic jury.
I remember laughing when I noticed a griper online dismiss the 2003 list as “99 classic rock dudes and Joan Jett.”
The song pretty much remains the same in 2011.
Anyone familiar with Rolling Stone’s blind reverence for the classic-rock era will be able to reel off the top of this ranking in their sleep.
Jimi Hendrix is No. 1 again? Fair enough. But after that, it’s like a rundown of editor and publisher Jann S. Wenner’s cocktail-party fantasy guest list: Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Jeff Beck, B.B. King, Chuck Berry, Eddie Van Halen (how’d he sneak in?), Duane Allman and Pete Townshend, who windmilled himself through the door to round out the top 10.
What? How did that fretboard whiz Bob Dylan not make the cut?
No matter what, these lists will always manage to defile our musical Cheerios. They’re ingenious.
It’s not saying much, but this new list is less flawed than the original. That atrocity of taste offered up dandies such as Kirk Hammett of Metallica at No. 11, Kurt Cobain at No. 12 (he would have hated that), Johnny Ramone at No. 16 and John Frusciante (formerly of Red Hot Chili Peppers) at No. 18.
Oh, and don’t forget ol’ Joni Mitchell who, at No. 72, ranked 13 spots over Randy Rhoads, causing metalheads everywhere to truly go off the rails of the crazy train.
This time around, Hammett’s gone. Rhoads rocketed to No. 36. Cobain and Frusciante plummeted to the 70s, where they now rub shoulders with the immovable Mitchell. And, lo and behold, the late Dimebag Darrell of Pantera sneaked in at No. 92. (Other creative rippers such as Joe Satriani and Steve Vai remained snubbed.)
The entire list is still absolutely painful. I love it.
I also would have loved to get Martsch to share his take on the concept with us. To indie-rock fans, he’s a full-blown guitar hero himself. (A call to his Boise home was not returned. In an email, the band’s publicist said he might be recording.)
Ultimately, I’m sympathetic to David Fricke, the Rolling Stone veteran saddled with creating that first “100 Greatest Guitarists” list. To accompany this updated version, he penned an almost apologetic preface to the original online: “In the end,” he writes, “I looked at it this way: Jimi Hendrix was No. 1 in every way; the other 99 were all No. 2.”
Yep. Maybe that’s what Rolling Stone should do when it inevitably reboots this concept again in a few years: Hendrix rules, then there are 99 ties for second place.
But where would the fun be in that, Yngwie?
Michael Deeds appears at 6 p.m. Thursdays on “Today’s Channel 6” news; at 12:40 p.m. Fridays on NewsRadio 99.1 FM; and from 9-10 p.m. Sundays on “The Other Studio” on 94.9 FM The River.
