Guitar World Readers Poll: The Greatest Guitarist of All Time

[BayRocker]

GFTPM...best guitar mag ever...still have every copy.

[Larz]

I grew up on GFTPM too....tab before the internet was a precious thing.

GW polls....ha ha, just waiting for them to crown the guys from Bullet For My Valentine as the best guitar duo of all time over Tipton/Downing

[decadence5423]

What no Lil Wayne??

[Whoopu2]

What no Lil Wayne??

[Axewielder]

Mark Tremonti beat out Jeff Loomis in the first round? Puleeeeze.

[The Rossness]

The best guitarist of all time...

From a technical level, it's Shawn Lane. No one has ever been on his level and may never get there. Fusion isn't everyone's cup of tea, so I don't know how he'd ever get a top 10 spot???

From a composition level, its either Satch or EVH.

For pure speed- MAB, Rusty Cooley, Chris Impellitteri

IMO, the best overall players out there are either Steve Vai or Guthrie Govan. Vai is incredible both with his technical ability and song writing. Govan is simply incredible and to see him live is beyond jaw dropping and he can play any style with grace, speed, tone, technical ability and songs that don't get boring.

[Mr Metal]

Guitar World actually had a "50 Fastest Guitarists of All Time" poll not long ago. Shawn Lane placed second. MAB was first, and the rest of top 5 were:
3. Synyster Gates
4. Steve Vai
5. The Great Kat

http://www.guitarworld.com/50-fastest-guitarists-all-time

[VanHoosen]

Synyster Gates is beyond gay and The Great Kat should have been known as the great cum dumpster. Way to fuck it up again Guitar World.

[Trem]

The Great Kat...

Wouldn't touch it, but she could shred most anyones faces off And she was metal to the core, and is actually insane.. which is cool and all kinds of comedy.
But surly one of the "fastest" metal shredders in the genre. Plus she seemed to be able to back up her attitude/persona, her music is pretty fucking banging shit. So yeah she deserves mention in a rock mag "fastest" poll for whatever it's worth anyway.

[VanHoosen]

To each their own, but I could never shake the feeling that she wasn't quite serious.

http://youtu.be/p2E5-AgwRpk - case and point

[surfreak]

The Great Kat is/was a very good musician, who created her act as a self parody, and was actually quite successful, considering how many people - even here - took her for serious...

[METAL MANIAC]

For my opinion it is Yngwie and I know he is out of the running.......nobody has the tone, speed and clarity of note seperation that he has...yeah, there are faster but do they have the killer tone...and their playing starts to get blurry....the notes have no seperation...and he does it all with a simple rig....he started shred....he started neo-classical when it came to the constant use of harmonic minor and natural minor...leaving the blues scale behind.....Everyone wants to compare him to Richie and yeah he got some ideas there but he is light years above what Richie ever thought about being.....his real influence was Niccolò Paganini. His tone, clarity and vibrato are unmatched. MM

[horns666]

For my opinion it is Yngwie and I know he is out of the running.......nobody has the tone, speed and clarity of note seperation that he has...yeah, there are faster but do they have the killer tone...and their playing starts to get blurry....the notes have no seperation...and he does it all with a simple rig....he started shred....he started neo-classical when it came to the constant use of harmonic minor and natural minor...leaving the blues scale behind.....Everyone wants to compare him to Richie and yeah he got some ideas there but he is light years above what Richie ever thought about being.....his real influence was Niccolò Paganini. His tone, clarity and vibrato are unmatched. MM

Everything said above. Uli Roth did 10 years prior...IMO

Except making classical "shred" popular. Many people that know about Yngwie, still don't know who Uli is..sadly.

Yes, Yngwie is amazing.."unmatched".. In some ways probaly.

[horns666]

Mark Tremonti beat out Jeff Loomis in the first round? Puleeeeze.

Hahhaa..Thank's bro. I won't even waste my time checking the list.

Truly, American Idol Mindset

I'm out

[METAL MANIAC]

I KNOW who Uli is and he is amazing...I am in my early 40's so trust me I am familiar but Yngwie's pure mastery of the insturment is untouchable....I understand taste is a factor and respect that but Yngwie's overall skill and tone is undisputable. I do not agree with the quote "Everything said above. Uli Roth did 10 years prior"...he may have had the some of the ideas but again I remain steadfast that Paganini was his main influence...listen to the wide vibrato and listen to Paganini's ideas. Again I understand taste come into play but I am refering to pure talent............I watched Yngwie, Joe and Steve live and Yngwie was so far beyond their skill set it was unreal!