Greatest Guitar Songs: The trouble with internet comments

There is a Twitter account whose spirit I kind of admire: https://twitter.com/AvoidComments

Don't Read Comments is dedicated to reminding people that nothing good comes of reading internet comments, which are overrun with ignorance, racism, and misogyny.

They are not wrong, and yet I have a hard time resisting. Sure, you expect news stories about crime and politics to bring out the worst in people, but just this weekend I was fascinated by how much hate was being directed towards Jack White's soon-to-be ex-wife. She was the shameless hussy who could clearly not be trusted, even though he was the one who wanted to make his kids switch schools so he would never have to sit next to Dan Auerbach.

So yes, internet comments can make you hate people and weep for the fate of the world, but sometimes they are also kind of funny and interesting and I am glutton for punishment. And that's pretty much how we got here.

To review, at some point after Valentine's Day 2012, I got really into My Chemical Romance, and started remembering how great guitar can be. On April 5th 2012, Jim Marshall, the inventor of the Marshall Stack and the "Father of Loud" died, and the 8 at 8 picked songs from Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time in his honor.

This was before I read that issue of Rolling Stone on the cruise, so I was not disillusioned with them yet, and the idea of such a list was very intriguing. I found a copy of it on Stereogum, and started working through that:

http://www.stereogum.com/10114/rolling_stones_100_greatest_guitar_songs_of_all_ti/list/

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/04/rolling-stones-100-greatest-guitar.html

Quite honestly, it started out horribly. It did get me listening to different things, and a lot of it made me think, but I disagreed with much of it strenuously. Naturally, so did the commenters. Much of that was merely hate for what was included, especially Nirvana, but there were also alternate suggestions.

There was so much that I had never heard of, or where the name was familiar but I really didn't know anything about them, that I decided to go through. Internet comments are very disorganized. I am going to post the list I was working from below. Don't be afraid, but it's a monster.

First of all, no one reads anyone else's comments, so there were many duplicates, and it took a while to weed all of those out and consolidate, but some duplicates stood, because one person mentioned a specific song, but another put them as part of a list, or put it in a quote that was worth capturing, or maybe I just didn't notice the duplicate because monster! (I think I counted 179 line items, but I can't vouch for it.)

Also, Rolling Stone gave you all specific songs with titles and artists. Some people were much less helpful. I thought I had a song title, but it was an album title, or they had the title wrong or not specific enough, or the name of an artist but not his band.

Magic Band: was that the album by Howard Roberts? No, it was probably the Captain Beefheart thing. Crimson Red could have been "Red" by King Crimson, or The Crimson Red, or the song "Crimson Red" by Seikima?.It was probably King Crimson. Similarly, did "Spacemen" mean The Spacemen, or Spacemen 3?

In all of those cases, I preferred the ones that were probably not the intended ones, so it may have been in my favor that the comments were not clear, but still, it also made things take longer.

(For whether "Russolo" meant Luigi or Antonio, they probably meant Luigi, but I care for neither.)

The worst, though, was whoever put Bowie. Seriously. Do you realize how vast his output is, and not particularly focused on guitar, and I am just supposed to figure it out?

Plus some things led to other things, which will be another post, but I did want to clarify one thing. The first name on the list is Erik Rutan, and although he does play guitar, he was listed not as a contender for a song, but as a Stereogum rebuttal to Rolling Stone referring to Bruce Springsteen as the angriest lead guitar on record.

I do think it's fair to say that Erik Rutan, of Hate Eternal, Ripping Corpse, and Morbid Angel, does come across as angrier, but actually, I think a lot of guitarists do. James Hetfield might be angrier. I think of Ted Nugent more as crazy and vile, but yeah, I guess he's angry too. Johnny Ramone is dead, but still strikes me as angrier than Bruce.

I'm not saying that Springsteen doesn't have any anger in him, but it seems like kind of a stupid comment, and that one is by a professional!

Anyway, the next few posts come from working my way through the following. I did copy and paste, which is why there are different orders, syntax, and punctuation.

Erik Rutan
Teenage Riot, Candle, Sonic Youth
Dinosaur Jr (freak scene) Living All Over Me album, Sludgefeast
Pavement (summer babe, grounded, watery domestic ep, frontwards, wowee, slanted, shady lane, carrot rope, rattled by the rush)
Television
Hell, Blank Generation
Gang of Four Love Like Anthrax
Tool, parabola
My Morning Jacket One Big Holiday, Mahgeetah
John Mayer No Such Thing, others that are not gravity
Pixies other than Debaser, Dig for Fire, holiday
Pearl Jam Yellow Ledbetter
Coheed and Cambria Welcome Home
Dragonforce Through the Fire and Flames
The Spill Canvas, Black Dresses
Pantera Walk
Dire Straits, So Far Away
Eric Clapton, Cocaine
Lindsey Buckingham
Springsteen Born in the USA
My Iron Lung but not Paranoid Android? Solo at the end of Just? Paranoid Android should be over My Iron Lung (Radiohead)
Gang of Four, and Link Wray should be higher
Stone Temple Pilots
Smoke on the Water, All Right Now, The Boys are Back in Town, Mississippi Queen
Stevie Ray Vaughn, Couldn’t Stand the Weather
Van Halen, Ain’t Talking about Love, Mean Street
Pink Floyd/Gilmour, Comfortably Numb, wish you were here, One of these Days instead of interstellar overdrive, Mother, Shine on you crazy diamond
Rush, Limelight
Robert Cray, Time Makes Two
Built to Spill (Doug Martsch)
Stooges, Search and Destroy
Bowie
Hawkwind
Magic Band maybe album by Howard Roberts? Captain Beefheart
Keiji Haino
Don Caballero
Mick Barr (Orthrelm)

Mark Ribot

Kings of Leon Four Kicks

Black Keyes, All Hands Against His Own

Karate Ice or Ground

Les Savy Fav The Sweat Descends

Magazine, Shot by Both Sides

Elvis, Mystery Train

Dale Hawkins – Suzy Q;

Duane Eddy – Rebel Rouser

Beatles Taxman

Husker Du’s “New Day Rising”

Sonic Youth, but not the ones they picked, Sonic Youth covering “Touch Me I’m Sick” by Mudhoney., Cross the Breeze

Search and Destroy

Velvet Underground

Who, My Generation
Boz Scaggs, Loan me a Dime

Soundgarden, Outshined

Jeff Beck, Bolero

Crimson Red

Amboy Dukes, Journey to the Center of the Mind

Santo & Jonny

REM, Begin the Begin

Rapeman, Steak and Black Onions

Jesus Lizards Monkey Trick

Modest Mouse, Never Ending Math Equation

Guided by Voices, Everywhere with Helicopter

Chavez, Break Up Your Band

run dmc: “rockbox”
dinosaur jr.: “start choppin’
p.i.l. : “fff”

Berry, Roll Over Beethoven

Iron Butterfly, Innagaddadavida

Black Sabbath, Iron Man

Jethro Tull, Aqualung

Beck Stewart People get Ready

Hendrix, Still Raining Still Dreaming

The Faces, Sweet Little Rock and Roller

Santana, Soul Sacrifice

Procul Harum, Whiskey Train

The Outlaws, Green Grass and High Tides

Ozzy, No More Tears

Yardbirds, Heart Full of Soul

Kinks, All Day and all of the night

Black Sabbath, Sweet Leaf

Steely Dan, My Old School

Chicago Transit Authority, I’m a man

21^st Century Schizoid Man, King Crimson

Jefferson Airplane, We can be Together

Foghat, Driving Wheel

Humble Pie, I don’t need no doctor
Van Halen “Unchained
Iron Maiden “Alexander The Great”
Aerosmith “Love In An Elevator”
Whitesnake “Still Of The Night”

Slayer

Iron Maiden, Number of the Beast

Spacemen

Nine Inch Nails

Jane’s Addiction, janes’s addiction: “ocean size”, Stop by Jane's Addiction (would've been Mountain Song if it weren't for the damn Coors Light ad! Maybe I'll get over it one day)

Cocteau Twins

Instead of Only Shallow by MBV To Here Knows When or Soon

The Chameleons

Cream

Cat Power’s “He War,”

Archers of Loaf’s “Last Word,”

Slint’s “Breadcrumb Trail,” or

Big Black’s “Kerosene.

Albini

Von LMO
John Fahey
Russolo

Rachel and the Lawn Grower

MXPX “Chick Magnet”
George Lynch (Dokken)
1. Smoke on the Water
2. Iron Man
3. Sunshine of Your Love
4. Welcome to the Jungle
5. Enter Sandman
Robin Trower. Bridge of Sighs, Too Rolling Stoned, Day of the Eagle.

The Fall of Troy
Deep Purple, Highway Star
All Right Now – Free
Born To Be Wild ? Steppenwolf
The Boys Are Back In Town ? Thin Lizzy
Kashmir ? Led Zeppelin
More Than A Feeling ? Boston
Rockin? In The Free World ? Neil Young
School?s Out ? Alice Cooper
Smoke On The Water ? Deep Purple
Wild Thing ? The Troggs
Won?t Get Fooled Again ? The Who

Boston More than a feeling
Wolfmother

Queensryche
Guns N’ Roses – Since I Don’t Have You, Ain’t It Fun, November Rain
AC/DC – Highway To Hell
Aerosmith – Cryin’
Rainbow – Black Masquerade

Muse, Hysteria, Plug in Baby
Mott the Hoople, All the Young Dudes

Paul Mccartney, Band on the Run
Rush, La Villa Strangiato
Daytripper
Satriani, Surfing with the Alien
More BB King, Lucille, 3 o clock blues

Megadeath, Tornado of Souls
Yngwie Malmsteen, Cacophony (consists of Becker and Friedman), Racer X (well executed, but did not grab me), Judas Priest
Michael Angelo Batio, Jason Becker, Marty Friedman, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani

Ted Nugent, Stranglehold, Cat Scratch Fever

Led Zeppelin

Golden Earring, Radar Love

Buckethead, Sea of Expanding Shapes, Padmasana, The way to Heaven

Lou Reed, Intro/Sweet Jane from Rock n Roll Animal

Eagles - they really have their own sound.

Santana, Hope you’re feeling better

Peter Green (Fleetwood Mac) Oh Well

Stones, Satisfaction, Start Me Up, Gimme Shelter, Beast of Burden, All Down the Line

YaYas Sympathy for the Devil, Bitch

Mick Taylor, Slow Blues

Bo Diddley

For what it's worth, the hastily-thrown-together FtY Top Ten Guitar Songs:
10) Badge by Cream
9) The Plan by Built to Spill
8) The Only Moment We Were Alone by Explosions in the Sky
7) Silverfuck by Smashing Pumpkins (this was nearly Siva)
6) Alone by Dinosaur Jr. (that no Dino was on RS's list is yet another travesty)
5) Supernaut by Black Sabbath (really, this whole list could be all Sabbath now that I think about it)
4) Stop by Jane's Addiction (would've been Mountain Song if it weren't for the damn Coors Light ad! Maybe I'll get over it one day.)
3) Johnny B. Goode by Chuck Berry
2) Maggot Brain by Funkadelic
1) Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) by Jimi Hendrix