- Wish You Were Here
- Animals (very close second)
- The Dark Side of the Moon
- Meddle
- WYWH
- DSOTM
- Meddle
- The Wall
Piper was a close behind.
The four shortest ones
dunno what kinda guitar wankers y’all hung out with but David Gilmour def in the top of the class as far as who actual guitar player wanker types name check and argue over. Its something like Hendrix, Clapton, Gilmour, Beck, SRV, Blackmore, Townsend, EVH. Page, Harrison as the top 10.
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Pretty tough to pick 4. Meddle my fav currently
A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell are albums of my childhood and I fucking LOVE them (thanks, my dad).
Division Bell is borderline dad rock, i love some of it tho no doubt. can’t tell you how many times i looped Wearing the Inside Out, Take It Back (basically a Brian Adams song) and Coming Back to Life to help me fall asleep at night in middle school.
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yeah, both of these albums are really solid. I haven’t heard The Endless River yet, but pretty much everything Floyd has ever done is solid as fuck.
not one album dips under a 6/10
Gilmour’s precision is amazing. And that’s part of the point, but most of those ‘big’ Floyd albums are following very trad blues chords structure and as a result his soloing tends to be in a standard minor scale (or whatever - it’s been fucking 20 years since I studied any music theory stuff) which means actually working out what’s played isn’t a problem.
Let’s compare with someone like Hendrix who actually sounds like something crazy. You have to be a lot better at guitar to play what he plays by ear alone. And to be more contemporary with '94 most people I knew who weren’t shit hot couldn’t play the opening riff of There’s No Other Way.
This is all I’m saying.
In terms of your ‘top 10’ guitarists, I have no real idea. It’s not something I’ve bothered to consider since those sorts of days either. People always like to pull out guitarists who are technically good but actually never really did much that reached me musically. My guitar heroes at uni were the likes of Jonny Greenwood and, yeah, Graham Coxon, alongside your obvious Hendrix and Gilmour options (I was also a fan of Mark Knopfler).
I don’t know how much I rate George Harrison. I mean it’s not like Beatles were really a band to showboat for a guitarist. Most of the ‘classic’ guitarists I came to a lot later in life because mum never really played much of that music at home when I was growing up (she had got bored with a lot of guitar music and was into Philip Glass, new world weird shit or stuff like Amampondo) and by the time I had my first CD player in 1st year all the ‘classics’ were over priced at £15 to £20 so listening to stuff like Led Zep was out of my price range…
Coming Back To Life is bloody great.
Deffo massive dad rock vibes, you are right 
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yeh man. i hated most all those guitar gods for life until i ended up working at Fender for 9 years of my life and kinda fell in love w classic rock. still can’t get behind a few of those guys tho (Clapton). Knopfler def in that conversation. Greenwood, Coxon on that next rung of the slightly younger generation with all the grunge/indie heroes.
Hendrix obv is unfukwittable and its too bad he gets lumped in with those other guys.
I’d like to add Peter Green and John Mayall to this list, please
I always thought that George Harrison gets lumped in BECAUSE he’s no showboat. More often than not he’s restrained, providing the perfect understated backing for Lennon and McCartney - but even then, if you really listen, there’s a lot going on. The main riff from Octopus’s Garden, for instance, is mental. I appreciate that’s a Ringo song, but you know.
Yet every so often he soars - Helter Skelter! The second half of All Things Must Pass! - and when he does, it’s fireworks.
It’s been a very long time since I’ve maintained a list of favourite guitarists too. These days I’d include Jerry Garcia/Bob Weir, for their ability to maintain endlessly creative duets for 20+ minutes.
I do have a list of favourite guitar solos, though. My top three:
- Jane’s Addiction - Three Days
- Pink Floyd - Time
- Super Furry Animals - Hometown Unicorn
And yet no mention of While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Something or Here Comes the Sun, all of which I would say are far more interesting pieces of guitar work.
Anyway, the point is more that rating guitarists is really dubious thing. Some stand out for what they’ve brought to the table in a band more than others. There are thousands of guys who can play guitar as good as George Harrison. There are maybe fewer who can play exactly like Hendrix maybe because he used a left-hand reverse slung guitar? It’s such a mug’s game frankly.
As for solos, not really sure. Probably Jonny Greenwood’s Maquiladora one is the only one that comes to mind as truly amazing.
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I didn’t mention While My Guitar because I believe that’s a guest spot by Eric Clapton, and I like to avoid talking about Eric Clapton wherever possible.
Something though, Something. Yes. That’s my favourite Beatles song.
Love that Maquiladora performance.
yes, yes it is
I’m keen to hear about this, unless he killed your pet parrot or whatever
Racist fucking bigot, man.
Wasn’t sure if all the guitar parts were him to be honest but as a piece of writing I think it’s amazing, which is what I’m getting at. Also Here Comes the Sun: pretty simple guitar piece I guess but it sounds so good and requires such fluidity to pull off.
I mean there’s the version on Anthology III if you want a Clapton-free version and it’s still damn good. (The version with Prince going fucking APESHIT is also up there. Oh man if we’re talking solos of course basically ANYTHING by Prince ever natch.)
There’s a version with Prince! I had no idea. I’m going to seek it out tonight.
@bird re: Eric Clapton - it’s partially the bigotry. It’s mostly the bigotry. But it’s also because he’s my dad’s absolute favourite, which means that I’ve heard pretty much everything he’s ever done. His past 13 albums or so have been dreadful.
Boring answer - it would have been much more interesting if he’d killed my parrot.
true enough, man. however, for me - the shit he did with The Yardbirds, John Mayall and the Bluessbreakers, Cream and Blind Faith gives him a free pass for life.
people (idiots) sometimes forget that Clapton was the original guitar god. way, way before Hendrix came on the scene and stole his crown.