What ever happened to the guitar solo???

The days of Eddie Van Halen and his progeny have long since past. Not since the late 80's or early 90's has there been a decent complex guitar solo in a popular song. In your opinion, what has caused this trend, do you think this trend will continue and why?

I thought about this when I heard a Nu-Metal band do a solo and I came up with this conclusion.
Solo's decended into absolute meaninglessness (is that word?...It is now!) They just became a way of filling a few seconds on the song rather than an expression of the guitarist. Instead of playing to fit the song, a lot of guitarist played to showcase their abilities and (in a lot of cases) simply weren't all that good I've noticed.
Also, if you look at a lot of the band structures, there's often only one guitarist nowadays and in a live situation, take away the rhythm guitarist and often a song will lose alot of its power and drive. I think a lot of people realised it was a lot more important to maintain the riff throughout the song rather than take a 20 something second solo.
Will it continue? I don't think so - at least, I hope not. Some new, more mainstream bands are bringing solos back, while some bands never stopped doing them. I think given a little bit of time, the up and coming "kids" will get bored of what they're getting at the moment and perhaps go back a generation or so, discover what influnced their influences or perhaps just us, the fans of soloing...I guess time will tell!
Anyone any other thoughts?...

here's my very cynical view: the guitarists today do not have the skill to perform a solo.

however, i know that's not completely true. there are many factors. i don't think it's because there is only one guitarist, because i can name hundreds of bands that with on guitarist that still performed great solos. (Zeppelin, J.H. Experience) anyways, nowadays everything being crunched down into a three minute pop song. in addition, in todays record industry i've noticed that you don't necessarily need talent to succeed. anyways i am major cynic when i comes to tdays music. there may be other reasons.

I think you've got a point. I'm not sure whether it's down to skill as such, but perhaps after the eighties' somewhat flamboyant solos, people got wanted something completely different...hence no solos!
You're right too about being condensed into a 3 minute pop song. I think the music business has become a lot more of an industry than a profession...It's not about being popular than being talented. I wouldn't apply this so much to the guitar bands that are around, but the lack of popular guitar bands in the "industry" means has given birth to the lack of a lot of deserved talent.
Something that's just come to mind is also the change in music styles...Guitar's aren't overly mainstream any more so perhaps that's why we're not hearing as many solos any more?...
Hmmmmm...I think you've opened a very interesting subject - let's get everyone's views here!

first time I heard "killing in the name of" by Rage against the machine, I just went "Huh?" might not be a shred fest nor very hard to play, but dang, makes you go "wow"... And it was on the air!! (maybe a long time ago, but it was cool)

It's all about what trend that's out or not out.
It's all about what type of music we're talking about.
A lot of truth on the posts. It got real boring when everybody copied Eruption but they couldn't come up with their own.

I think the problem is lack of creativity. I got bored so I started listening to guys like Matheny, and S. Henderson. These guys have speed and content which is more important.
A lot of guys (and girls) don't know what a song needs. Solos aren't the answer for every song.
If you play too many nobody wants to hear them. If you play just enough the'll beg for more.
it's all about variety. That's what makes the whole thing come together

There were '60 and early '70, and then there was punk. There were '80 and then came grunge. I have no idea what this nu-metal crap has to do with that, but all that looks like a cycle to me.
Although I mostly listen to the likes of Steve Vai and Buckethead, my perfect solo is more "November Rain"-like, so I'd say it's not only the lack of technical abilities, but the overall impact of the music. It is not (at least for me) as emotionally involved as it used to be. It seems people want shallow music they can listen while having lunch and relaxing after work.
Last, but definitelly not the least, is the industry: If they make the "no-solos-easy-for-playing" music commercial, they get millions of kids buying guitars (and other instruments, for that matter) thinking they could do it themselves. But, in a way, that makes centuries of musical heritage painfully obsolete. And that, for me, is the real problem.

OK, I think this thread seems a bit pessimistic but I agree with most of it. Commercial tunes generally only purvey single-mindedly trite ideas about "love" (itself a complex topic that most people seem too stupid to write anything really revealing about) and add some cheesy pop-riff that you don't need any musical aptitude to remember and wish to hell you couldn't!
I think that what guitarists need to do is to cultivate a shift in empthasis away from the whole idea of grand guitar solo vying with mainstream music to using their technique to properly augment their music. A guitar solo doesn't have to be long to be impressive. With the levels of technical knowledge available to players today there are ways of packing blistering licks into impossibly small spaces without losing the drive of the song. What's wrong with players dropping in the occasional explosion of dexterity every now and again and keeping the real solos a bit more tuneful and radio friendly - like for instance David Gilmours solos on the Pink FLoyd album division bell? 1 or 2 seconds of tapping/sweeping says all anyone needs to know about your abillity to play scarily fast. Add these up during the course of a song and you have.. a complete solo slot. Such short-lived displays of virtuosity are also hard for even the most bigoted of DJs to edit out!
Perhaps eventually people will eventually come to like the guitar again and being able to play it properly will become fashionable just like it was in the 80s. Perhaps next time round everyone will realise that shredding isn't an aim in itself but simply a great way of adding rhythmic variation and colour to their playing.

It seems with modern music that the guitar is taking a back seat to the bass and drums. The bass and drummers are kicking, some real good players doing some interesting stuff, but not much happening in the guitar dept. It seems almost uncool to be a good player anymore. Guess thats why I get so bored so easily with the modern rock.

Originally posted by chris mood
It seems with modern music that the guitar is taking a back seat to the bass and drums.

Yup, there are some incredible dummers and bassists out there now, but if the guitarist dares to do anything but bang on a few power chords, forget it. You're too 80's man!

Kicking drummers and bassists make great music in their own right. Heretical though this sounds I listen to some fabulous music without any guitar players in it but if these players are so great then surely their egos are not so fragile they can't play with other acommplished players. Ever heard of Dream theater?

right..just a quick word... Hendrix, Zepplin, The doors, Pink flyde etc are all greats, but remember you have the benifit of retrospect... When these bands were around, there was alot of crap then as well, but it's all be forgotten (praise the lord)... So there will always be this mentality of "yeah, the new music is no good"...

A solo is be no means an essentail part of the song, and you dont really need it... It's actaully worse (i find), to have a routine song, with perdictable solo... Right I'm gonna say something against Gun's and roses, so hold on, right, Slashs solos are ok, but sadly they're over hyped to proposterous levels, and sadly they're quite cheezy... now if you look at a band like Radio head, and listen to the solo from "paraniod android", you'll see it's not preditable or cheesy, unless you've heard the solo from "just", which isn't too disimlar ... what I'm trying to say is that you can over do it with solos... Why not have keyboard or bass solos, or the hell with solos...
Anyway that's just my humble oppinion..

Personally I like solos, thats why I love jazz, cause everybody solos all the time.............................!!!
the solo gives us an uninhibited view into the mind of the artist (maybe thats why you find Slash's solos cheezy)

I'm with Chris on that one but quite agree that solos aren't strictly necesary and very often cover the same ground to the point that they are cheesy; it's so easy to play the same shapes again and again simply cause they're easy to do fast. I'm getting bloody bored of my soloing. I'm even getting bored of some really smart guitarists, I know how important a good song is.

MTV has shoved dance music down the throats of the hungry consumer. People want the same four count heavy bass drum beat in everything they listen to. It is even an underlying theme in other types of music. Radio will only play what they think people want to hear. They think people dislike guitar bands, and the labels are scared of guitarists right now. Playing live is evidence to me that people still love a killer guitar solo. We do it with our 3 piece in about 80% of our original material. I think it will come back around, people will get tired of the steady dance beat thing, and guitar solos that really come from the soul will be heard on the air once more.

indeed, the guitar is getting more into the rhythm section again (think James Brown, but ok, different).
Lallimacefolle is right: when I heard the Rage stuff, the first album, I learned to play every song and hey it basically wasn't all that difficult. But at the same time that the catch: seemingly simple things can be really hard to play fully with the heart and soul. Only after years one discerns an evolution within oneself in doing so. Frusciante (RHCP) can sometimes give so much in playing so few-noted solos.

I can only say - there ARE guitarist that still play GREAT solos!

JEFF BECK ( do i need to say more??)
STEVE LUKATHER (he knows what a song needs)
DIETER LIBUDA (unknown dude from my hometown - can be compared with Beck - noone knows how he does that)
etc...

Solo is not dead - it´s what YOU make of it ;)

-=[Azrael]=-

I still believe the Solo is an art.

Some of the greatest solo's make me want to be a better guitarplayer...they are my urge.

someone said it earlier...you had punk...grunge...and now nu-metal. It's just a fase. I don't say i don't like these styles (i love system of a down) but they will never be as immortal as 'the classics'

Sorry guys but what about Billy Corgan and the ex-Smashing Pumpkins, they had some sick solos, yet no-one seems to have metntioned them...

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to see a return to the days of Winger, Poison, and White Lion. Soloing just for the sake of soloing gets just as old as all of this "teen angst" music you hear on the radio today. I'm not saying that I hate nu-metal--it kicks ass when you're work out--I just won't buy any of it because it gets old quickly. I'm just hopeful that music sees a return to the days of the "megabands," where the solos were as memorable as the songs themselves. To the guy who mentioned Jeff Beck -- he is still one of my personal favorites. I have also heard some buzz about a guy named Derek Trucks. A friend saw his band open for Gov't Mule a couple of years ago and said that he was pretty incredible.