According to this article at RollingStone.com listing the top 25 underrated guitarists Kurt Cobain is the #2 underrated guitarist. And who’s the #1 underrated? The great purple one, Prince himself.
The top 5 from their list of 25 is:
- Prince
- Kurt Cobain
- Neil Young
- George Harrison
- Ace Frehley
The list is sure to provoke some interesting discussions. Check out the full list of 25 at the link above.
What?
I wonder where the hell this poll was taken….
Rolling Stone probably asked all the people walking on the red carpet at the Brittney Spears memorial tribute concert who they thought the most under rated guitar players were. Not real guitar players mind you, but people they seen playing Guitar Hero on their Nintendo Wii.
What about players like Pat Travers, Buck Dharma, Kevin Kinney, David Gilmore, Audley Freed, Tim Sult, Duane Roland, Frank Marino, Woody weatherman, Tom Scholz, Dave Colwell, Rick Emmit…….
Ehhh… whatever. Rolling Stone doesn’t know #### about music anyway.
i couldnt of said it better myself jagfinger. apparently kurt isnt #2 if he was #12 in the 100 greatest guitarists (also appearing in the rolling stone :P). does that make any sense? and, john frusciante of RHCP was also in the 25 too! he was a prodigy! somebody needs to organize this magazine and stop letting musically-challenged folks poll in this magazine.
Hmm… I am a huge nirvana fan, and kurt was an amazing song writer, but he was around average at guitar most of what he played where power chords riffs with sloppy solos. He was good when he put his mind to it e.g MTV unplugged but his guitaring skills are overrated in my opinion.
Listen to early Nirvana like “Aero Zeppelin” or “Mexican Seafood”. Or even the chaotic outbursts of things like “Endless, Nameless” or the SCREAMING guitar sound on the “In Bloom” solo. He was a great guitar player at one point who let his skills decline for lack of caring about that part of music. In the early years, he could do a lot and was much more into riffage and general “rock”. At the end he was struggling to create something “new” and that didn’t necessarily include showy guitar or other rock-trappings. And I think he stopped smoking pot which helped him to devote long hours to his craft before becoming famous, as his journals testify to.