3 ms·

You and everybody replying to you are making the same baffling mistake, i.e., assuming that technical/song writing ability/education = star. If you want technic

by anjc 6y ago

You and everybody replying to you are making the same baffling mistake, i.e., assuming that technical/song writing ability/education = star. If you want technical ability, there are 8 year olds on YouTube with better chops than EVH. Possibly every 8 year old has better chops than Kurt Cobain. But technical ability does NOT make you a rock star. Same applies to the other fields you mention, painting etc. I'm sure young rock stars (in the same vein as EVH, Axl, Hendrix, Cobain, Morrison) would still exist as the personalities and talent are still there, but rock is not mainstream anymore, so they can't exist. The closest thing to real rock stars now are the likes of Justin Bieber. You should re-listen to the Beato/Satriani clip you told someone else to listen to, because he essentially says this. The artists you suggest are irrelevant and can not be compared to EVH in any way whatsoever. Guthrie Govan?! Van Halen drove mainstream culture. Nobody outside of guitar forums know Guthrie Govan. The other suggestions in this thread of comparators to EVH and Chris Cornell (Tosin Abasi, Petrucci, Belamy) are just embarrassing.

PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
and as I said separately, I'm not interested in the "rock star-y-ness" of any of the people you've mentioned (or all the other ones you could name). I'm interested in the music. EVH did, in fact, push this along with his technique and compositional ideas. I don't give a damn about his personality, or who becomes a "star". Almost none of my favorite musicians are stars, despite levels of creativity and technical ability that are hard to measure or even imagine for most of us. I wasn't suggesting that technique is everything. Great musicians have imagination and strong connections to existing cultures (even when they ignore them). But so many people talked about EVH in terms of his technique ("OMFG, did you see that Eruption solo?" etc. etc). And for reference, the "mainstream culture" I grew up in (London, 70s-early 80s) was unimpressed by EVH and american rock in general. But yes, rock is not mainstream anymore, and thus "rock stars" are not a thing. Bieber is not even close to being a "rock star" - we had "pop stars" all through the 60s and 70s and they were entirely distinct from the "rock stars" of those same eras.

by anjc 6y ago

PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago

and as I said separately, I'm not interested in the "rock star-y-ness" of any of the people you've mentioned (or all the other ones you could name). I'm interested in the music. EVH did, in fact, push this along with his technique and compositional ideas. I don't give a damn about his personality, or who becomes a "star". Almost none of my favorite musicians are stars, despite levels of creativity and technical ability that are hard to measure or even imagine for most of us. I wasn't suggesting that technique is everything. Great musicians have imagination and strong connections to existing cultures (even when they ignore them). But so many people talked about EVH in terms of his technique ("OMFG, did you see that Eruption solo?" etc. etc). And for reference, the "mainstream culture" I grew up in (London, 70s-early 80s) was unimpressed by EVH and american rock in general. But yes, rock is not mainstream anymore, and thus "rock stars" are not a thing. Bieber is not even close to being a "rock star" - we had "pop stars" all through the 60s and 70s and they were entirely distinct from the "rock stars" of those same eras.