I know, Metallica is the biggest, baddest and most talked about band in the world, "Master of Puppets" and "...And Justice For All" have been the Old and the New Testament of metal to practically all aspiring guitarists on planet Earth, and they have enough money to buy a third world country if they want to, BUT...

My question is this: How can people (I won't mention names, but some members of this forum) claim that Kirk Hammett is the best guitar player in the world? Yes, some people have said exactly that, and I am not exaggerating. Some have also claimed that he is by far the fastest, much faster than Yngwie, and even better than Vai and Satch (who taught him to play, for crissakes!) Sure, I love Metallica (up until the Black Album at least...), but the way Kirk Hammett is being deified by kids around the world is, to me, preposterous.

It annoys me when the older generation says things like "Clapton is God" or proclaim Santana a genius and a virtuoso just because he happened to play some blues licks over a Latin backing. Sure, musical innovation is nice, but when the guy only plays the same lame pull-off triplets over and over, only to disguise his lack of actual dexterity on the instrument, and then pulls out a bottleneck to make random (sorry, that's "BOLD and EXPERIMENTAL") jet plane noises by sliding it up and down the strings, I'm not exactly left gaping in awe, nor am I spellbound by the cathartic impact that his musical vision has made on me.

Why do I think Hammett is undeserving of his praise? Well...

1. His vibrato is nervous and uncontrolled at best, if indeed he utilizes any at all.

2. 90% of his solos are pure wanking, void of distinguishable chord movement (unless he's ripping off EVH with three-note tapped arpggios), and interspersed with too many cliched pentatonic licks, always played slightly faster than he can handle. On more recent records, he has adopted a slower, bluesier style and prefers to reiterate the same cliched blues licks over and over (with excessive amounts of wah), only now people mistake it for being "tasty", simply because it's slower. Mindless noodling will always be mindless noodling, no matter what speed it is played at.

3. He is using the notion that "The songs really sounded a lot better without the solos" as an excuse for not putting any leads on Metallica's latest album. This is evident at their recent gigs, where he has great trouble playing his own solos from their older songs.

4. Kirk Hammett gives the wah pedal a bad name like George W. Bush does to Texas.

5. A simple grasp of modal theory and not-so-simple key changes are not a good combination for soloing. In songs like "Creeping Death" and "Blackened", he plays long scalar passages that DO NOT fit with the key of the rhythm guitars. And please don't give me that crap about "playing what sounds right". It's just plain wrong. You can blame it on Pitch Axis Theory and jazz improvisation (although it still sounds like crap), but I doubt he knew those terms when he played those songs.


There. I had to say it or I would have exploded soon. It's only my opinion, but I honestly believe that this guy gets WAY too much credit. Bring on the flaming...

__________________
"I'm playing so fast, the tubes can't reproduce all the notes!"
- Marcus Paus

Hey man. Don't feel like your the only one who notices. I personally think he's one of the sloppiest lead guitarists out there, who counts on fuzz, whammy bars and wah-pedals to disguise it. "Oops I'm playing something that doesn't sound all that great, I'll just hit the whammy bar or wah-pedal and no one will notice". He was alot better back in the day but I guess what Jason Newsted said had some truth to it. They didn't take what they did seriously anymore and they didn't feel they had to work as hard to keep it. It shows on the last album which is just mainstream crap, and only carried itself on the back on their name "metallica". Young generations will think it's great or Kirk is the greatest because...

1) He's the only real lead guitarists on MTV now.
2) They're naive and he and the band fit perfectly into the world of music that bases success on things other than good music.

Maybe I should be quiet before I get sued for using E and F in my music. I heard that is actually true, but they have to keep it on the down low because they are trying to sue not sueing yet.

__________________
"My whole life is a dark room...ONE BIG DARK ROOM" - a.f.i.

yea i agree also that he is overrated as far as being the best guitarist in the world. He is good but here lately he has definetly gotten sloppy with his playing. I saw him in atlanta a month ago and his lead work in blackened was very sloppy i thought. It was sloppy in a few other songs to. I liked his playing much better back when they were good, but now it looks like he has given in to the nu-metal generation. (very very UNCOOL!!!!!)

I'm a big Metallica fan (I don't like anything after the black album tho) and because I'm 26 I've been a fan since the mid 80's. I do think Kirk is 'good' but the fact that he is said to be 'amazing' does bug me a bit too. Sure he's pretty fast but there are plenty of people faster.

You can't really blame him for the fret wanking on their early albums coz given the rhythm what else could he do? It wasn't as 'done' then either.

I do think though that Kirk was never good live even in the early days. I've seen em a couple of times live and watched every vid they've ever made and Kirk's solos NEVER sound as good as on the albums. Most of the time he alters them a little, which normally could mean he's a great improviser, but I believe he alters them coz he either can't remember it or can't keep the speed up.

I've heard Yngwie say that Kirk has ****ty vibrato and bends out of key, now I'm learning to play I understand what he meant now, at the time I was like "OMG shut up you arrogant dick he's great".

yngwie really said that? what a suprise!

It's funny actually coz it was from a magazine a few years back and the mag had a column going by Kirk at the time and they had a piece on Yngwie where he slated Kirk.

I definitely think that Kirk gets too much praise everywhere, but he is really good, just not the best.

__________________
If I leave here tomorrow,
Will you still remember me?