'The death of the electric guitar'

The slow death of the electric guitar

 

1. Very cool online presentation by the Post. Incorporated photos, graphics, videos (and of course, ads).

2. The article talked to a lot of rockers, and had some good quotes from them, but its arguments and structure could have been written about any consumer item which came out pre-smart phone.

3. Prediction: In about 100 years or so, as we toil for the brotherhood of man under the watchful eye of overlords, computers and priests, some youngster will see a shiny object in a stream, pick it up and proclaim, "What can this strange device be/When I touch it, it gives forth a sound. It's got wires that vibrate and give music/What can this thing be that I've found ..."

 

Meh. Tom Petty addressed this in '83. Rock 'n' roll -- and the electric guitar -- will live forever.

(Also the first video I ever saw on MTV, and still my favorite along with Da Funk)

 

No music - or instrument - is dead as long as people play it and others listen. I am sure articles like this popped up in mid-to-late 70s and early 80s and when disco and later new wave ruled the world.

Great to see Vernon Reid in the videos. What a great player....

I love guitars and while I don't play - I just bash around on my Epiphone acoustic - I love to spend an hour or two at Guitar Center.

 

Acoustic guitar >>>>>>> electric guitar.

 

Boy that story just won't say it: Hip hop and rap permeates pop culture - even country - and it doesn't have much of a place for the electric guitar. What's more, millennial music critics aren't very good at their jobs; they focus so much on the lyrics and atmospherics of an album that the music can often just be sonic mud.

 

I really concur with this. Melody has taken such a backseat. We were talking about it here in regard to Jason Isbell. He has a tin ear for melody. No one will write it.

 

For 4 reasons:

1. It'd be uncool to do so.

2. If you write it, you'd better come armed with a working theory of what's better.

3. Even if you have that theory, culture is so celeb-absorbed that a writer may quickly be hit with "well, can you do it?"

4. Isbell's story is a classic southern rocker tale, and that attracts some respect irrespective of his music.

I don't personally love his work. Neither his nor the other guy, Simpson. He's worse. He sounds dreary.

 

No. He's fucking amazing.

 

He's dreary. A sad, recalcitrant hound dog of a voice.

 

He sounds like Waylon.