So my friend sent me this video about Adrian Belew:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qsqDl8_nQQ . I wouldn't recommend sitting through all six minutes of it, because it's pretty pointless self-promotion and self-aggrandizement. Not that I, of all people, have a problem with self-promotion. It's just that this doesn't offer much in the way of new or interesting information.
What it does offer is a standard infuriating cranky old man complaint: "Too much of today's music is fashionable crap dressed as artistry. It's mostly about the way you look, or how you dance. I grew up in the golden age of ideas! Well, things go in cycles; maybe creativity will become fashionable again. Virtuosity is sexy."
Ugggh. Where to begin. I guess there's this--there's always been fashionable crap in music. Adrian's just put out because the kind of crap he was associated with doesn't happen to be fashionable right now. There was no golden age of ideas. And if there had been, it wouldn't have been the Jurassic period of oxymoronic "art rock". (Unless that was the golden age of, "Hey, I've got an idea! Let's put together a band that really sucks and put out a laughable concept album!") Finally, virtuosity, at least in popular music, is probably the most overrated quality of all.
Adrian Belew may be a fine guitarist, but the reason nobody cares about him now isn't because nobody cares about good guitar playing--it's because good guitar playing doesn't mean squat unless it's in the service of a good song. This is why Clapton's post-Cream output has been so lackluster, and why Van Hagar sucked despite the continuing presence of Eddie Van Halen on guitar. (and don't talk to me about record sales--so, yeah, Van Hagar picked up some casual listeners who listened to them once and threw their CDs next to the Mister Mister CDs) It's why Zappa, whatever his instrumental skills, was a sub-Weird Al humorist of a songwriter and therefore never found a mass audience. Adrian Belew played on some good Talking Heads songs. Other than that, it's the art-rock noodling of King Crimson and, um, the Bears? Bleh. It's not the fault of contemporary music, Adrian. You need to play on some decent songs, fer chrissakes!
I mean, my personal favorite guitar solo comes courtesy of Keef in "Sympathy for the Devil". It's not particularly virtuosic--seems like it consists of about 6 notes, actually, but it slices right through the song perfectly. I love that final solo in Deep Purple's "Highway Star," but who cares about Richie Blackmore's work with, say, Rainbow? Presumably he's still the same guitar hero he once was--it's just that nobody cares how well you play unless the song is good in the first place. Did anybody buy the Slash's Snakepit albums? I mean, he's the same guy who knocked out fantastic solos in "Sweet Child O' Mine" and "Paradise City."
I guess Joe Strummer said it best, calling out, "you're my guitar hero!" to Mick Jones as he wails out a rudimentary solo in "Complete Control." You're a guitar hero if your playing makes a good song better.
