Why are players so under-appreciated?

Beck never made great music? Have you ever actually listened to Beck? Listened to things like "Cause we ended as Lovers" , Freeway Jam, his version of Greensleeves off the Truth album? Listen to The Pump. Almost every hit the Yardbirds had was because of Becks playing. You're way off base on this one C

I gotta side with tele here . . .

I'm a die-hard jazz guy now . . but Beck's music has always just impressed the heck out of me. From early stuff with Rod Steward and Ron Wood to his most recent release has been utterly fantastic, both for the music and the flawless technique, but mostly for the music.

Blues and rock (and disco, hip-hop, rap etc etc) are music genres that rely on fairly basic, simple and almost universally appreciated 'blocks' This could be the four or so basic 12-bar blues patters that pop up everywhere or the four or so different 'grooves' oldschool hip-hop has. Jazz, classical music and more such genres are harmonically more complex, which takes time to get used to. In the old days you hadn't much choice, that was the music that was being played. Now, with everyone growing up surrounded with this 'simple' music people are far less inclined to take the time to appreciate other genres. It's just way easier to hear emotion in a slow wide clapton-bend with vibrato then in a more complex piece of music.

Which, on itself, isn't good or bad. Complexity is unrelated with quality.

Tele/KP/Gnease,

This is the whole issue with music and musical tastes. I can't argue whether or not Jeff Beck is a great guitarist or not all I know is that when my ears hear his music I'd turn it off...Why? I have no clue..

Does that make him underrated? Kind of like a golfer with a perfect swing...technically he's perfect but he doesn't necessarily win alot of tournaments, same with Beck, he may have great technical skills but he doesn't make music that the masses like, so of course he would be thought of as underrated, no one is going to rate somoene high that they don't like.

There's no real way to talk about concrete ideas when it comes to music because it's all subjective one ma's steak is another man's poison as the saying goes.

As much as all of you can tell me how great Beck is and how I should be listening to this great music you will never convince me that it's good.

If you make a sound in the middle of the forest and no noe hears it did you really make a sound...if a guitarist makes music that no one likes is it really good? The end result is the music that comes out of the instrument/performer not their proficiency with the tools he uses to make it.

Tele/KP/Gnease,
...if a guitarist makes music that no one likes is it really good?

I'll answer this question with one of my own . . .

Hector Berlioz is considered today to be a great composer and a number of his works are part of the standard classical repertoire. During his lifetime, however, he was not particularly well regarded as a composer compared to his contemporaries, but was considered a very fine conductor.

Was his music bad then because it didn't have a following but good now because it does?

KP,

There's no argument for any of this really. I get your point and it makes sense but that's where the subjectivity comes in. Probably the people that dismissed him earlier still dismiss him now, it's just that now a new larger group of people like it.

To me and this is only me, music is a culmination of a million different variables all rolled into a song, a performance, whatever and it's that song or performance that people relate to either on a conscious or subconsious level.

The actual playing of the instrument is part of it but far from all of it, so if you take and I'll use Jeff Beck as an example and look at his playing, his phrasing his dynamics, stage prescence, mix it all up and there is an out put from him and that output is music but to me that output is not something I enjoy or want to hear.

Does that make him an inferior player? No

Does that make me ignorant because I can't appreciate his music? I doubt it since I'd say most people feel the same way.

One thing I find when people discuss music is this sort of superiority thing going on and I'm not saying this about you but, everytime I hear that Jeff beck is great, Steve Vai, Yngwie, EVH etc., there's always someone saying how great these guys are and I must be an idiot or something if I can't find the genius/talent in their work. I don't and I never will and no one is ever going to convince me otherwise.

Well I've been looking at some of Becks stuff since he came up in this thread, to me I like his stuff when he plays simpler stuff, he kind of loses me when he gets too complcated.
Its like this for me, I'll take a less proficint guitarist who plays with great feeling over a technicaly brilliant guitarist who plays with no feeling...hands down no contest.

The best is when someone is technicaly great and plays with feeling, I'll use SRV as an example.

I think where some people go a bit wrong is at the extremes, you really shouldn't use opinion to over ride someones talent, I can't imagine saying EVH is not a great guitarist just because I don't like his music, my opinion is irrelivent to his talent, I do like him btw I was just using him as an example. Malmsteen, Vai, and Satch prolly fall into this catagory as well, weather you like them or not they are great guitarists, weather an individual likes them or not be it a music critic or a plumber is irrelivent.

You can go the other way to, if you like a guitarist it doesn't mean that he is great all that it means is well......you like him.

Scott

I think the big issue is, where do you draw the line between "I don't like their music but think they are talented." and "I don't like their music BECAUSE they are untalented." Though to me, neither one is really an objective statement. It's easy to rate a guitarist as skilled if you see complexity or dynamics(whatever that means) as talent. If you don't value those things in a guitarist, you won't find them talented.

We try to be as objective as possible by saying a guitarist is talented but doesn't nothing for us, but that in itself is subjective. It is based on what you and you alone see as talent.

I personally never valued technical skill, in anything really. I never knew until a year ago that Smells Like Teen Spirit is only 4 chords, and I loved then song then, and still love it now. Likewise, I never knew that I was supposed to like Jimi Hendrix for dynamics and skill, but still it doesn't sound any better to my ears, I still don't like it.

It's a per individual thing. People have their own personal tastes, it's what makes me, me and you, you.

Heck, you like “said artist”, do you like every single song he/she/they came out with? I would take a gander and say no. If true (you don't like every song), how can you recommend or even say that “said artist” is “great” when you don't even like every song yourself?

In turn, you like a percentage of said artist's music, which equals how “great” you think they are. Everyone's percentage will be different due to personal taste, exposure, etc etc. and that is where we get our staggered results from individual to individual not artist to artist.

Let's not forget though, these are all personal opinions and they have very little to do with the artist at all. You have to have an interest in the genre before you can delve into the individuals that are involved in it.

On the flip side, I bet that you can have two people play the same thing, the same way, and you will still get people liking one more than the other.

People are strange creatures.

Anyway, I say it's all personal preference reflected in an opinion that may or may not mean something to you.

After you're done chewing my opinion, you can either swallow it or spit it out. Either way, I don't care. 8)

I won't try to convince anyone that Jeff Beck is good or bad -- it's all opinion. I will say to someone who categorically states that Jeff Beck plays technically very well, but has never created great music that again, that is only an opinion and others feel quite differently. There is a reasonably large number of others who feel he has contibuted significantly to some great, classic music. And that does happen to be my opinion. But I will also freely acknowledge that I don't happen to like all "great, classic" music as other may define it. For example, I think the song Freebird is terrible and really quite boring. Yet there are many, who feel that particular tune is an all time great anthem to ... well something or other. I will never get it. Oh, I hear the emotion, it just does not resonate in me -- in fact, it grates musically against my particular wiring. I do like other Skynyrd tunes very much. Just as I also like a lot of Clapton's work. But like FB, I would be quite happy never again to hear Tears in Heaven ever again, when I could be really enjoying Motherless Children.

It probably does not matter as a specific case, but I can tell you one reason I like JB. He has created a unique voice with his guitar -- a distinctive instrumental voice I recognize and happen to enjoy. I can pick out his playing in a tune I've never heard before. In many cases (but admittedly not all) his playing betters the music. His playing sings to me, if not others. Some other distinctive guitar 'voices' are Hendrix, SRV, Eric Johnson, Santana, Adrian Belew, Robert Fripp, Cobain, Brian May, Larry Carlton, BB King, Clapton, George Harrison, Duane Allman, Leo Kottke, Buddy Guy, Martin Sexton, George Thorogood, Gilmour, Knopfler ... Not every one of these players is/was a technical whiz; but many times we know them when we hear them, and many, many people have decided they make the music better. For each, I think having that voice is a one of keys to their popularity.