IS THE GUITAR SOLO DEAD IN THE 21ST CENTURY?
The guitar solo has been declared dead many times. Late-70s punks actively tried to kill it, bored by 20-minute stadium rock indulgences. In the early 80s, some critics declared that the electric guitar itself was finished, replaced by the synthesizer. That prediction turned out comically wrong as the decade produced shred, Johnny Marr and a US alt-rock scene that went mainstream in the 90s.
In the 90s, according to critics, solos were facing the mortuary slab once more. This did not, however, stop them from appearing in the biggest alternative rock hits of the decade, such as Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit, Pearl Jam’s Alive, or even Weezer’s Buddy Holly. Dying, it would appear, did little to deter the guitar solo.
In the early 2000s, having recovered from nasty bouts of death in the preceding decades, solos again lookedas his bandmates told him the new album would contain no solos? In the event, Metallica produced their most reviled work. Young bands like Trivium and Avenged Sevenfold promptly filled the vacuum, ripping out the kind of solos we wished had been on .
