WEEDLEE WAW…WEEDLEE WAW…WAW..WAW..WEEEEEEEEE!!!!
by Billy Metts
I really hate guitar solos. I mean I hate them with a passion. I have never seen the value in that 20 seconds to 20 minutes of spotlight dance that some prick in almost every band on Earth, metal or not, feels a need to do. I’m not impressed by your ability to jiggle a tremolo,whammy, or whatever bar in a creative and rhythmic fashion. I’m not interested in you tricky finger work. I couldn’t give less of a damn if I tried about your quick scale runs and sweeps all over the neck. Just not my thing. Never has been.
Truthfully, what every member of the band should be actively doing on every song of every set on every album they ever do is try and get the songs themselves over, not themselves over the songs. No one remembers what neat metric ass ton of nebulous arpeggio patterns a guy throws over a terrible song. The song matters, that’s what stands the test of time. But guitarists are tortured, tormented and haunted in their dreams by the fact that they aren’t singers and many of them care more about showing off their skills than doing what’s right for the song they’re playing. Guitarists dream also that they are violinists before a vast orchestra, playing Paganini before royalty. They believe that the band can’t exist without their input. Every instrument has it’s own seemingly inherent delusions of grandeur, strange feelings of importance beyond reality, and ego issues/neuroses that non musicians can not possibly understand without a Ph.d in Clinical Psychology. They can all wreck the living hell out a great band. They can all screw up a great song. It’s when all those issues click together that you get something good. Guitarists are the most likely, however, to screw up a band or song through a desire to get themselves and their skills over- at least equally as much so as a sing is through egomania.
I take issue with guitar solos for a lot of reasons. One of them is that it’s only pleasing the player, really. Most fans, I’m sure would be pretty much just as satisfied if the solo was two notes back and forth like Neil Young. “It’s really fast and goes from low to high pretty often and ends with a big drum fill while a single note is hit about 6 million times in quick succession”- that’s the best most people in the audience can describe what was done. They want to hear a song. If you do something that is only pleasing to yourself, that is masturbating. Most people who masturbate in public go to jail, except in music where they put you on a magazine cover. The guy who was jerking off in the library reference section? Jail. Yngwie Malmsteen or Steve Vai? Magazine cover. Something is wrong with that from where I sit.
Oh yeah, Just to point this one out- Metal is NOWHERE near the biggest offender when it comes to endless self gratifying dicking around on guitars. Jam bands are approximately 135,298 times more guilty than any metal band has time to dream of thinking of considering to be. But Metal bands I hold to a higher standard, jam bands are a lost cause and are mostly a type of lame college retardation, like lacrosse and disc golf. The other difference is there are about 11 jam bands in the entire galaxy and through a couple decades incestuous cross jam pollenation, those 11 now have about a quarter of a billion side projects. So a total of 55 guys (nearest estimate of jam band members based on 2010 census) make up for 78.5 percent of all guitar masturbation in the world. Metal makes up for all but 1 percent of the rest, and that one percent is split between Brad Paisley and John Mayer at award shows. These ratios, though mostly for laughs, are fairly accurate or at least as close as we will ever get to accurate- who’s going to fact check this?
Hating ambitious guitar work (basically, soloing) isn’t hating prog metal, by the way. A lot of times prog gives me throbbing, vein sticking out of my neck and temple seeing volcanoes exploding with my eyes closed migraine head aches from all the poly rhythms, weird sounds and non repeating off time signature wacky shit WAY before a guitar solo can offend me. Some of it is actually “progressive”. It moves something forward, it’s finding a new way to use the same format.Progression is by nature, if not definition, advancement, to be “progressive” is to work to create that advancement. I totally love hearing that in every form of music. Of course, I’m of the school of thought that believes Isis is more progressive than Atheist, and I don’t feel a need to argue that point past saying that I don’t see technique as progressive as much as intention is progressive. But wasn’t metal and punk kind of a revolt against that drippy headphone hippie garbage anyway? A lot of what is coming out is very progressive by the definition I go by, but a lot of it is just Yes and Genesis with harder beats and way more distortion. That’s your granddaddy’s rock, kids.
Not all guitar solos are evil. Some are beyond needed for the song to be paced right or atmospherically correct(example- Baroness’ Red Album). Sometimes they’re a great way to give an overworked drummer a break (example-every Slayer guitar solo ever). Sometimes they can allow a singer to interact with the crowd without the burden of singing (example- Iron Maiden). I get that. I’m cool with that. Some bands know how to do it, some don’t. Some just figure that they’re supposed to have them so they’re gonna have them. Sometimes, the song is so monotonous and boring that a really really big dose of weedlee waw HAS to happen or the audience is going to fall asleep (example- Mayhem). So before you fill the comment section with your top 5 list of best guitar solos EVAR!!!, know I don’t hate them all- just the vast majority of them.
I’m going to close this up before I make too many more enemies. I, like most of the world, like a good song. I like a song that has good lyrics, some really bad ass music, and something that distinguishes it from the endless drizzling shits of uninspired dreck that surrounds it on all sides. I don’t want a dazzling display of searing rock guitar power, I just want the song to be good- front to back. If that includes a guitar solo, so be it. Most of the time, it’s just superfluous fluff that sucks the life out of it. I don’t want to hear some cat weedlee weedle weedlee wack off all over something great, and if it’s terrible- it’s gone from my speakers way before a guitar solo has a chance.
Guitarists- do what’s right for your song, not for yourself. Bands- slap your guitarist, tell him he’s not a real man, that no one could ever love him, that he’s stupid, and then slap him again if he gets all tearful about not being able to shred on a song that doesn’t need it. The world will thank you and you will have a great time.
About Billy Metts :
He “kinda” works here, he’s sorta like Creed in the office- we’re not sure exactly what he does. He used to sneak listens to the Misfits “Walk Among Us” and Slayer “Hell Awaits” while pretending to listen to the classical records in his Uncle’s collection as a young kid and hasn’t been the same since. At least he’s friendly.
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