THE GUITARISTS OF THE DECADE
“THE JOY OF TACKLING SOME NEW TECHNIQUE OR STYLE ISSOMETHING THAT NEVER GETSOLD.WHENYOU FINALLYGETIT, IT’SLIKE AMAGICTRICK’’ MARK TREMONTI
WE KNOW, WE KNOW— you’re sick of polls. And they’re all rigged anyway, right? Wrong! In fact, we take them pretty damn seriously, and, well, this one is particularly important. Maybe the most important GW poll ever. Because we’re not only poised at the end of another year, but also the end of a decade. With that in mind, GW put out the call to find out who you — our readers — consider the “Guitarist of the Decade,” and we received a lot of responses. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands of them. Dozens of thousands of them. Seriously. All told, it was nearly 50,000 votes!
Of course, we decided we wanted to weigh in as well, so we put together a panel of 30 trusted “guitar folk,” including the entire Guitar World editorial staff; editors from our sister music magazines, including Guitarist, Total Guitar, Metal Hammer and Classic Rock; plus a legion of GW contributors including Alan Paul, Jeff Perrin, Jon Wiederhorn, Brad Tolinski, Jeff Kitts, Brad Angle, Joe Bosso, Tom Gilbert, Adam Kovac, Damon Orion, Gregory Adams, Laura B. Whitmore, Bruce Fagerstrom, Clay Marshall, Nick Bowcott, Mark McStea and more. And then we got to work!
What we were looking for? That’s where things get a little tricky — because the past decade was an era of major activity and advances in the six-string…and seven-string…and eight-string…and 18-string (we’re lookin’ at you, Jared Dines) worlds. A little over 10 years ago guitarists weren’t djenting or thumping (or, at least, they weren’t calling it that), and in terms of gear — especially that of the signature and modeling variety — the twenty-teens coughed up a motherload of incredible stuff. Speaking of which, be sure to check out Chris Gill and Paul Riario’s “Shifting Gear” feature starting on page 60.
We considered — and asked our readers to consider — players who have chops, but there were several other factors, including their influence on the next generation of guitarists, their overall impact on our guitar scene, their level of success, if they pushed the guitar farther — either via stretching the instrument’s boundaries or spreading “the gospel of guitar” to the uninitiated — not to mention their cultural relevance, visibility and more. In the end, we wound up with a list — informed by your votes and ours — that’s bulging with avant-gardists, bluesheads, melodic pop-rockers, jammy improvisors, riff-lords, proggers and, of course, shredders. On that note, presents our 20
