Where are all the good guitarists nowadays?

I disagree Jeff, check out bands like Trivium, Luna Mortis, Nevermore, Symphony X, Children of Bodom, Opeth, Dream Theater, Lamb of God, Shadows Fall and Unearth. All those bands have released and will continue to release guitar dominating albums. The guitar players in these bands always try and push themselves to get better and crazier with their playing. Sure they don't play like SRV, Satch or Vai, but they can play the crap out of their instruments.

If you want to hear good guitar, listen to metal. That's where the a lot of todays incredible guitar players hideout. Of course you will always have good guitarists in other genres as well, but I think metal will be the strong hold for excelling guitar players. Most metal is pretty raw, of course you have bands like Dragon Force that use all kinds of crazy effects, but a lot of new metal bands are really bringing back gutiar shred as it should be, which is awesome!

yeah "good" guitarists is just another opinion thing, if you like the shred-the-crap-outta-guitar thing, then yeah theres quite alot of good guitarists. but if you like slower more mellow music theres not as much i guess

True that Bodom.

Agreed with both of you.

Music is about the individual. I personally find good music in EVERY genre. Humans are bound to changing interests, which is exactly why music is so interesting; to see where we started out, and to see the enormous quantity we've made since then. Music itself is a blessing, and it affects each person differently. We should just appreciate the fact we have something that saves us from insanity.

I agree too. I like how oyu can get guitarists who adopt different techniques and seem to have different strenghts and weaknesses in their playing, I don't think there is one who can do literally play everything no matter how good they generally are.

buckethead can play just about anything lol

@Guitarslinger124
True, metal has great guitarists, but the power chord hungry rhythm of most metal music really turns me off. I mean... when the majority (I say majority as a categorical thing. Of course there are bands that do not follow this trend) just play fast power chord changes over a double bass drum, it gets boring to me.

If you've heard any of the music I play, I'm looking for the next Eric Clapton, the next B.B. King, the next big bluesy/rock player. There are many great musicians, but none that you can say flat out are paving a new path for musicians to follow. It's just not there anymore.

I guess you can blame that on the over exposure of the internet to musicians and the way you can promote yourself... and the fact that people will listen to someone talking about a poker face...

to justjeff. check out keller williams, john butler, or tim reynolds if you want good acoustic guitarists. and check out jake cinnegar and billy bayliss from umphreys mcgee. one of the best guitar duos of today i think.

and yes buckethead can play everything. no joke.

@morphdusseldorf
Tim Reynolds is crazy good. I've seen him perform with Dave Matthews and they are a killer combination.

John Butler is by far my hero. He has such a great understanding of rhythm and composition. His technique is insane! I love his song "Ocean" and bought his CD "Grand National" last year... love the CD to death.

Never heard of Keller Williams or Umphrey McGee... I'll have to check them out. There's a lot more great acoustic music, with Ben Harper, Xavier Rudd, Donavan Frankenreiter, and many more that I can't thing of off the top of my head.

I am a fan of many different styles of music. I listen to everything from the Yellow Jackets to Behemoth or The Blue Man Group to Sergei Rachmaninov. However, metal is by far my favorite genre, the reason being (granted there are some metal bands that suck, but don't judge all for one) metal has the most diverse musicianship I have ever heard. I believe the number of talented guitarist, bassist and drummers that exist in the metal community outway that of any other genre. Also, when I say metal, I don't mean bands like Metallica, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest or Korn.
Check out bands like, Symphony X, Dream Theater, Lamb of God, Shadows Fall, Children of Bodom, Divine Heresy, Megadeth, Pantera, Unearth, Opeth, Nevermore or Luna Mortis. These bands employ some of the most brilliant guitar playing and they truly stand out as premere musicians.

on a side note, if you want to hear the brilliance in Children of Bodom listen to the first 2 albums