[Jimi Hendrix] seamlessly weaves chords and single-note runs together and uses chord voicings that don’t appear in any music book. His riffs were a pre-metal funk bulldozer, and his lead lines were an electric LSD trip down to the crossroads, where he pimp-slapped the devil.

– Tom Morello.

One of these Top-100-guitarists-ever lists comes out every few years, and every time I read them even knowing that I think most lists are stupid, and then I find myself nitpicking with the rankings, questioning the standards by which the list is made and doubting the integrity of the entire project. And such is the case with the most recent one, at Rolling Stone.

The upside to this one is that it doesn’t seem too strongly tilted toward technical wizardry in lieu of creativity, as these lists often are. But it does seem to give too much credence to guys who were great songwriters that happened to play the guitar. I mean, it’s going to take you a hell of a lot of time to convince me that Kurt Cobain is a better guitar player than Eddie Hazel. And if you want to tell me that The Edge is better than John McLaughlin at anything worth being good at, you’re probably arguing in vain.

And the point I always make when these lists come out — to anyone who will listen, at least — is that there are a ton of session dudes and basement shredders none of us have ever heard of who can likely play with nearly anyone on this list. And you could say, “oh well yeah, but maybe they’re not as creative,” but success in music seems so eminently random that I wouldn’t be surprised if they are. So I think “Greatest” here actually means something closer to “most influential,” which doesn’t make for as strong of a list title.

Jimi Hendrix was awesome though. No beef with that choice. And really I just wanted to pass along the quote from Morello, who is also pretty awesome (and also on the list).

Apparently before he died, Hendrix hatched plans to record an album with Miles Davis. That stands as about the best reason I can think of to hope for some sort of afterlife.