Forgive me if I drop my usually genteel editor's persona here, but sometimes you get to the point where enough is enough. Seems like everyone has an opinion these days. Including me, so...
Haven’t we all had enough of these clickbait “best of” lists? If you haven't heard about it, there was a recent firestorm generated by The New York Times publishing their list of “The 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters.“ To say that many people found it insulting would be putting it mildly. (Check out Rick Beato's take here.) While it contained many worthy candidates, it also had some glaring omissions, which I think were either meant to be gratuitously provocative, or which demonstrated some serious blind spots and prejudices on the part of the list makers.
I mean, no Jimmy Webb? That’s like excluding Leonard Cohen from a list of greatest Canadian songwriters. All Jimmy Webb did was write “By The Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Didn’t We,” “MacArthur Park,” “Wichita Lineman,” “Up, Up and Away,” “The Highwayman,” “Worst That Could Happen,” “All I Know,” and many more. His omission alone renders the list invalid. I admit, I haven’t heard every single artist on The New York Times’ list, but go ahead, convince me that they’re more deserving of than Jimmy Webb. Or John Fogerty. Or Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. Don't take my word for it: Bob Dylan called “Wichita Lineman” the best song ever written.
But perhaps the most controversial omission was for Billy Joel. Maybe you don’t like all of his songs – I never cared for “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” and even Joel himself has called it his least-favorite – and maybe Joel is considered uncool by certain hipper-than-thou know-it-alls, but you can’t deny the talent of a man who wrote “Piano Man,” “Summer Highland Falls,” “I’ve Loved These Days,” and “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant.” And, oh yeah, the hits: “Uptown Girl,” “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me,” “Just The Way You Are,” “The Longest Time,” “Keeping the Faith,” “Honesty,” the inarguable classic “New York State of Mind,”…you get the idea. There is simply no denying the man’s musical and lyrical song craft, or the acuity of his reflections and observations on the human condition, or the fact that he made such great-sounding records.
In fact, last June the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame recently hosted an entire symposium on the music and influence of Billy Joel. The keynote speaker was none other than Copper contributor Wayne Robins. For many years, Wayne covered Billy Joel for Newsday, and as a reporter, had to maintain an objective and professional relationship with him and keep himself at a distance. Some of today's writers could learn something from that. The two-day symposium featured more than 20 presenters who covered many aspects of Joel's work, from musical analysis of how his chord structures and melodies evoke emotions in the listener, to critical analyses of his artistry and life. The fact that he was excluded from The New York Times list did not go unnoticed.
Dr. Frank Doyle, adjunct professor at Five Towns College, offers a thoughtful analysis of Billy Joel's music at the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame's recent Billy Joel Symposium.
In researching this article I discovered a new term: rage bait. It's clickbait ratcheted to a higher level, designed to cause outrage in the reader. Well, the May 2026 Rolling Stone list of “The 100 Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time” certainly did the trick for me.
While lists like this are admittedly subjective and ultimately meaningless – how can any human listen to every guitar solo ever recorded, making the all-time-best-of premise invalid – this particular list is so flawed as to be comical if it wasn’t ostensibly trying to be serious. I’m sorry, but good as it is, I can’t call Prince’s solo on “Purple Rain“ the greatest of all time. I don't know about you, but while Slash's solo on “Sweet Child O' Mine“ is certainly iconic, is it really one of the 100 best? (While I haven't heard every solo on the list, I did some spot-checking of the ones I wasn't familiar with, and some of the choices...really?)
True, the list did have many worthy entries, like David Gilmour of Pink Floyd's inevitable “Comfortably Numb,” and Robert Fripp's incendiary solo on “Baby's on Fire” from Eno's Here Come the Warm Jets, and kudos for acknowledging The Cars' under-acknowledged but brilliant Elliot Easton, but...how could you leave out Danny Cedrone's solo on Bill Haley's “Rock Around the Clock?” Or Duane Allman and Dickey Betts' playing on “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” from the Allman Brothers' At Fillmore East? No mention of country pickers like Speedy West and Jimmy Bryant, or Albert Lee, or Chet Atkins? Or...ever hear of jazz?
Maybe I should have just ignored this list. After all, here I am giving the list makers attention, which is the whole point of this kind of jive.
Either these kinds of lists are proliferating, or getting more desperate in their attempts to attract eyeballs, or I really have become the old man yelling at clouds. Maybe I'm just nostalgic for the days when such lists were carefully crafted by knowledgeable critics (The Village Voice's annual Pazz and Jop Poll held great weight), and even if you didn't agree with them, at least there was a rationale behind the lists other than, we need to get our numbers up this month.
But when it comes to the Rolling Stone “The 100 Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time,“ well, I'm a guitar player with 58 years of playing under my strap, so, yeah, maybe I'm a little more irritated than others might be at such clickbait grasping.
And at least they didn't put Skrillex on the list, like that notorious 2012 Spin article.
To counter the rage bait I’ll just offer my own sampling of great guitar solos that could in my estimation equal or better anything on the RS list. I’m chagrined to say that I'm less-knowledgeable about guitar music made after around 1990, which means that fabulous players like Tosin Abasi, H.E.R., Marissa Paternoster, and Nels Cline aren’t on my non-list, deserving though they may be.
Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, “Inca Roads”
Bill Nelson, Be-Bop Deluxe, “Crying to the Sky”
Roy Buchanan, “The Messiah Will Come Again”
James Burton, “Fools Rush In,” with Ricky Nelson
Jeff Beck, “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers”
Joe Walsh, James Gang, “Take a Look Around”
Mick Ronson, David Bowie, “Moonage Daydream”
Alvin Lee, Ten Years After, “I'm Going Home”
Phil Manzanera, “Diamond Head,” from 801 Live
Molly Tuttle, “White Freightliner Blues“
Jeff Baxter, Steely Dan, “Rikki Don't Lose That Number“
Adrian Belew, David Bowie, “Boys Keep Swinging“
Robbie Krieger, the Doors, “Light My Fire“
Albert Lee, “Country Boy“
Larry Coryell and John McLaughlin, “Spaces (Infinite)“
Ollie Halsall, “May I,“ from June 1, 1974
Tal Farlow, “You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To“
Wes Montgomery, “No Blues”
Amos Garrett, on Maria Muldaur’s “Midnight at the Oasis” (a particularly egregious omission; this is considered an “impossible” solo by many guitarists)
I could go on and on...Pat Martino...Wes Montgomery...Barney Kessel...Joe Pass...Jim Hall...Pat Metheny...Michael Hedges...George Benson...Charlie Christian for cryin' out loud...I’ll just stop here...
Header image courtesy of Shopify AI.
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