100 Greatest Guitarists

Dear Rolling Stone,

You did this already. It was back in 2003. I bought the issue immediately and spent the next few weeks vigorously debating the list’s merits and faults with anyone who was willing to talk about it with me about because, at that age, I really, really liked countdowns. Probably a little too much given that, at one point, I had Vh1’s top 25 pop culture icons memorized. In order. (This has since slipped my mind, but I do remember that Oprah was number 1 and Elvis was number 3, which I still think is complete bullshit. I also thought it was weird that Einstein and Freud somehow made it onto a list that also included Axl Rose and The Rock.)

Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with printing a countdown again, especially if it was popular and successful the last time around. I’m just confused about the changes. Jimi Hendrix is still number one because of course he is, but overall the two lists vary greatly. Not so much in people. More so in the order that those people are in. What happened in between 2003 and 2011, for instance, that made Duane Allman the ninth greatest guitarist of all time instead of the second? Why is Eddie Van Halen now number eight instead of number 70? As a lifelong devotee of The Who, I’m thrilled to see that Pete Townsend has moved from number 50 to number 10, but this doesn’t change the fact that I have no idea how or why it happened.

The easiest explanation—and probably the most accurate one—is that, although these countdowns are fun to talk about and (I assume) fun to make, they’re also pretty arbitrary. Actually, scratch that: they’re completely arbitrary, and they will be until someone comes up with a formula that quantifies musical skill. Every spot on this list is based entirely on peoples’ opinions, and the whole point of opinions is that they can’t be proven right or wrong.

The thing is, though, when you’re talking about countdowns, it’s fun to pretend that this isn’t true. Discussions are much more enjoyable and animated when you’re dealing with a list that presents itself as definitive. However, this is pretty much impossible to do with Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists now that the magazine has come out with two different versions of this list less than a decade apart. It highlights how subjective and seemingly random these choices are, making it difficult to put too much stock in either countdown. This, in turn, makes them relatively pointless to talk about. Why bother starting an argument about Curtis Mayfield being ranked too high or too low when he’ll probably just be in a completely different spot the next time around?

Having said all that, in what universe is Prince a better guitarist than Robert Johnson? I mean, seriously? Come on.

Sincerely,

Eddie