'The death of the electric guitar'

It's never too late to start playing.

 

I think we live in a really good era of music. I hear new songs all the time that I flat out love.

 

To pay my respects: My guitar gently weeps.


and long live the tambourine!

 

Shit, somebody ask her what Jesus was like.

 

I thought the article gave too short a shrift to some of the younger well-known players. They kind of dismissed John Mayer, mentioned the likes of Joe Bonnamassa in passing and ignored Derek Trucks altogether. Those are the guys who will carry the mantle when the likes of Clapton and Santana are gone.

One thing I did like, though, was that they zeroed in on the fact that girls and young women are becoming more and more prevalent as quality players. That, I think, is where the growth market is going to be for guitars over the next few years.

 

Good point and I will add guys like Gary Clark Jr. and Benjamin Brooker.

And country music is massive these days and the guitar isn't leaving that genre any time soon.

 

Mostly Boomer navel-gazing, self-aggrandizing BS.
Proliferation of more and cheaper manufacturers would work, but the market has run to the high end.
Focus on high-end products is what hurts the market and has hurt the largest manufacturers.
Sales of used guitars remains high, because when young people want to learn how to play guitar they rarely have $500-$1,000 laying around for a starter guitar plus amp and other necessaries.

The story ignores the high resales of all guitars - electric and acoustics - and ignores the double-digit annual increases of acoustic guitars sales for a decade - including during the recession.
More people buying used. More people buying acoustic.

The guitar industry has to correct itself to the market.

As for the guitar hero/charts thing - it s a chicken or the egg.
Are there no new guitar heroes because there is a decline in interest, or is there a decline in interest because there are no new guitar heroes?

The hyper focus on the electric guitar in popular rock music is a two-generation trend - Boomers and Gen Xers. It is beyond naive to think that the dominance of a single instrument would continue unabated in perpetuity.
But Boomers don't handle change well, and when they feel nostalgic about something that thing immediately becomes IMPORTANT or even HISTORIC.

Although the Rock-N-Roll HoF tries to glom onto all other genres in its effort to stay relevent, the truth is that 'rock music' is no longer the dominant genre in current popular music.
Rap and what is called R&B supplanted it a long time ago already.
That does not invalidate old rock or current rock. That does not invalidate current popular music.
Things change. Stop weeping over your lost youth.

Guitars - electric or otherwise - were not always the dominant instrument of popular music. They had a good run, but things change. Guitars will not disappear anytime soon just because they are not longer the focal-point instrument. they are still widely used in recreational playing as well as professional performance and recording.

Lastly, I've got nothing against Lita Ford. She was in the Runaways, which is an unassailably cool thing to have on your resume.
Lita Ford had some professional success.
She played guitar.
However, Lita Ford was never a 'guitar hero' or 'guitar heroine.'


To summarize:

• Guitar sales still strong in resale/used category and acoustic sales booming.
• Musical tastes change.
• Boomers are the worst.
• Lita Ford not a guitar hero.

 

People keep noting this. But it's not just that it's "no longer the dominant genre in current popular music."

It is that it is completely non-existent in current popular music.

The third-graders at my son's birthday party the other night moaned and groaned when I put rock on the speaker during dinner.

 

Great post, Buck. And you're right on about acoustic guitars.

(WARNING: ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE) There are a couple coffee shops near my workplace that have open mic nights, and crowd of young people bring their acoustic guitars and play. Good to see.

You're also dead on about Lita Ford. Was she even the best guitar player/musician in the Runaways?

 

I love playing guitar, but I don't understand why folks would be worried about it?
It is not non-existent in music. It just is not the featured instrument.
And it's going on 20-plus years that it has not been featured. Going on 20-plus years that 'rock' has not been the dominant genre in popular music:
List of best-selling albums of the 2000s (century) - Wikipedia

Coldplay has guitars, and most people couldn't pick the instrument out of the mix.
There are some embarrassing 'rock' entries on that sales list, but overall 'rock' is just not the dominant genre in popular music and it hasn't been for 20-plus years.

 

I blame Creed. And Nickelback.

 

They mentioned the Creed guy in the story as a 'guitar hero!'