Originally posted by u10ajf
maybe I missed some cool early 80s stuff but personally I think that Satriani was as much of a revelation to guitar music as Hendrix. Try satch tracks like Echo, Hordes of Locusts and The Forgotten and tell me Hendrix was better. I'll laugh but you won't hear me.
Lots of the people who say X was the greatest were young when they met their music and associate it with discovering how cool music can be. As for me, my fave guitarist might well be Alex Lifeson from Rush, check out La Villa Strangiato, so much tragedy, so much soul, such a great dearth of stiltonesque miasma (AKA cheese), such tone, such blinding technique. How old was I when i first heard lifeson? 6. Now I'm 24 and I'm stuck in my old ways.

I'm 16 and so are my friends. And I'm quite positive they suffer the "legend" syndrome where they go with the flow saying that Hendrix is the best and blah, blah, blah, instead of having an opinion on their own. Players like satch and vai i think are as gifted as him... but as they play and have innovated in another genre they aren't as recognized as Hendrix.