Who Is Better After Eddie?

[Number 47]

Who came AFTER Eddie and changed anything about the way we perceive guitar?

[Brett]

Nobody. Certainly nobody in mainstream rock music has done anything revolutionary since Ed.

[fast98dodge]

CC Deville... Okay, I couldn't type that crap with a straight face...

Brett is absolutely, 100% correct... No one has even came close since Ed to changing the way the guitar as an instrument is looked at.

[Glenninaus]

Nobody. Certainly nobody in mainstream rock music has done anything revolutionary since Ed.

depends on your definition of mainstream, what the hell is meant by "better". In my opinion there are a heap of worthy nominations:

Vai & satch - Have taken "technicallity" up a few notches from Ed and I guess, at least for a while there reintroduced guitar instrumentals to the mainstream.

Petrucci & Morse - Have introduced or at least popularised new techniques such as the strict alternate picking ( at ridiculous speeds)

The Edge - stepped up tasteful uses of effects, digital delay, harmonics more than anyone else.

Actually, although I HATE it, there are few nominations for the introduction of that horrible compressed to buggery overproduced guitar tone (think Nickelback, Evanescence, Limp Biscuit.) You think this isnt influential...bloody EVH copied it on those lame tracks on BOBW.

Without doubt there is a short list of people that have made quantum leaps such as Hendrix, Page, EVH.....but there are many others that have contributed. Jeff Beck was doing a lot of the things Ed has been famous for, before Ed was doing it.

The whole "better" thing is a crock of shit. Ed is my favourite guitarist but there is serious no BEST guitarist. Anyone who thinks Ed is the BEST is ignorant and probably not a guitarist. For every great guitarist there is someone that does an elemnt better.

Jeff Beck is more innovative than Ed
Steve Vai plays technical stuff that Ed cant even dream about.
Ry Cooder plays blues better than Ed
Dave Gilmour has more feeling in his little finger than Ed
Malmsteen is faster than Ed
Nuno has better rythym and funk than Ed

The whole thing is a circular argument....it just so happens that probably my favourite collection of all the elements in playing the guitar, is probably, or more accurately, was....Edward Van Halen.

I also love listening to Steve Morse, but to say Ed is the best is childish and ridiculous, to say that no one has advanced guitar playingsince is probably a bit narrowminded.

Glenn
(donning nomex)

[lil'devil]

heh

there are a many many many guiatirsts that are technically superior to evh ... that litterally make ed look like a child. ed cannot touch vai technically ... he just can't, vai is unreal.

there are a whole lot of players out there that have a good musical sense that sometimes i preffer to ed.

there are a whole lot of players that have really great rhythm.

ed really isn't even noticed by anyone any more outside of the core fan base. ask a kid about evh and they won't know who he is.

another marker of course is that ed really hasn't become technically better. i know, there is only so fast you can play but there are so many technically superior players out there now that its astonishing to watch ed play the same stuff he has rehashed since 84.

however, where ed scores points of course is his incredibly combination of musical taste, rhythm and execution (for example his hammer on and pulloffs are just way too unique, not just because they are precise but precise in a RHYTHMIC way).

the thing about ed is that you can't replicate that feel. lots and lots of people can replicate a certain song or a certain part, but that rhythm and that melody ... you can't fake that shit.

there will only be one ed.

[grillcloth]

BRENT MASON !!!!!

[snare812]

well said Glenn!!!

[JMJ]

malmsteen faster? who cares!

nuno better rhythm that ed? pfft.

beck more influential? not quite.

ya vai plays some unreal shit and maybe ed can't do a ot of what he does. oh well. that's not ed. ed isn't "out there' musically, vai is. vai has always been that. ed is something different.

[Van Squalen]

Vai and Malmsteen are severely overrated.

Johnson, De Miola, and Vaughn are severely underrated.

[lil'devil]

http://www.videosift.com/story.php?id=20749
http://www.videosift.com/story.php?id=17437
http://www.videosift.com/story.php?id=21255

this alone, to my ears, basically outshines anything ed has done since roughly 1984.

but then again this chap isn't ed, we listen to ed because he has his own style happening.

ed rocks, just not as much as we might want to believe.

[PlexiBrown]

A lot of players put in a lot of practice and learned how to play the guitar well or fast or whatever. Eddie Van Halen was BORN to play the guitar. A true genius and one of a kind.

[Brett]

I still see no examples of anyone who has taken the instrument to the next level in mainstream rock. Chugging a bunch of Drop-D chords (that Ed already did 15 years earlier) is nothing new and nothing even worth discussing.

Satriani and Vai are great players, they're also not mainstream rock artists like Ed is. They're instrumentalists.

BTW, it's funny how you guys think play Vai and Satriani play circles around Ed because they are technically better. They're also technically better then Hendrix too...BFD. Being a great guitar player is more than just technique, and Ed has PLENTY of technique to carry him. Guys like Malmsteen, Vai, Satriani have praised Ed's writing and his approach to his lead and rhythm playing. It's not a competition, but don't get so hung up on guys who you believe play circles around Ed. None of them have had the impact on MAINSTREAM rock playing like Ed.

I'm not going to argue the merits of other players. That list above is PURELY subjective on who does what better, and we all have our favorites. However, it doesn't matter who you like, the fact remains that no one guitar player has had more of an effect on the last 25 years of mainstream rock guitar playing than Ed, whether people want to realize it or not.

And if a dumb kid doesn't know who VH is, then fucking tell enlighten them about the guitar revolution he started in 1978. Maybe that's why we have idiots who live by the shitty playing of Kurt Cobain.

Glenn - I think you're letting your emotions get the better of you on this. I realize you like other players (so do I), but this thread is about who came after Ed that has changed the perception of guitar playing. And I argue that nobody has come along since and taken mainstream rock playing to the next level.

[lil'devil]

brett, as usuall your mixing up a whole bunch of things:

- technique
- musicality
- rhythm
- style

oh and of course:

- rock star

you can listen to the first four in any order you like depending on the player and gain different perspectives on their playing. ed has a unique flavour no one questions that in totallity. when you examine each individually or perhaps a few at a time, thousands of players eclipse ed on levels he really hasn't even bothered to comprehend.

what you are really saying is however, is that 'ed is a rockstar' and that somehow qualifies him for ... well i'm not sure what it really means to be a rock star.

but i do know what a 'rock star' is ... rock stars like ed are a sort of pagan god from a behavioural perspective. you, i and everyone on this board is just following the natural tendency for 'followers' to bestow some sort of 'undeserved (or long undeserved)' qualities on him. ed is a rock star, a modern day pagan god and by first classifying him then merely showing that he is a mortal with some decent skills is similar to say insulting a religion.

i won't be able to change your mind but that doesn't change the fact that ed is a mediocre player in many respects.

that also doesn't change that the ed flavour is really an amazing thing to watch regardless of his shortcomings.

right?

[Brett]

I have no idea what you're talking about...as usual.

This was the question...

"Who came AFTER Eddie and changed anything about the way we perceive guitar?"

My answer again is no one, and I have yet to see one example to prove me wrong. To me that question is about guitar playing is it not, which is what I am talking about. Rock star? When did I talk about that? Ed is a mainstream player, and in that genre, there are no mainstream rock players that have done anything significantly different since Ed. That's it.

I think Ed's an asshole, so what the fuck? I'm hardly having hero worship here. I just think it's very obvious that Ed had a tremendous influence on rock guitar playing over the last 25 years, and I don't think anyone has come along and changed the perception of the instrument like he did.

I think I have been more than clear.

[KrazyGlue]

You all forgot to mention one thing and has its importance:

Eddie NEVER took guitar lessons.