Neil Young - Guitarist

Neil has a unique style which is not for everybody.  It's easy to parody but impossible to really duplicate.   If you didn't like it 50 years ago you're not going to like it any better now.  Personally I liked it then and now.  He's no great technician but he plays with a lot of feeling and intensity. 

If I may add--though I like his playing, I don't know if Neil would make my top 100

Okay, so they had him ranked around #15 I think.  If you look at the list of people he is in front of you'll see how ridiculous this is.  He's good, he's interesting but top 100 he ain't.  I would list some people who I don't listen to as much as I listen to Neil, but I recognize that they are the greater talent on the instrument.  And as much as I enjoy Mark Rothko's chapel in Houston, I don't know if it would even occur to me to list him as one of the top 100 visual artists.  In short, these things shouldn't be mere popularity contests.  Some evaluation of talent and skill should figure in, don't you think?

You know they have classical music competitions--the Cliburn piano competition being among the best-known.  I think it's generally accepted that a great deal of both technique and musicality are required to do well.  I don't see why a list such as this one of Rolling Stone's shouldn't be the same.  It's not all about emotion and neither is it all about technique.