just watch and read the comments lol

http://www.ultimate-guitar.tv/guitar_lesso..._his_solos.html

I really like his slow lead playing but not so keen on his wah-pentatonic widdlefests. His playing suits Metallica to a tee. You can't really knock him as he is the lead guitarist in the biggest metal band on the planet.

I really do believe Metallica became a victim of their own success though.

OMG THIS IS THE MOST RIDICULOUS THING I HAVE EVER SEEN! I cannot even believe how bad/stupid he is. Every word that comes out of his mouth is ridiculous false info. He said "I use the phrygian dominant because f the eastern feel of it"... is he retarded? Phrygian dominant is hardly an eastern feel but a spanish one. He is the worst guitarist I have ever heard in my life and should not be famous. He says "all guitarists steal other guitarists solos". WTF IS HE ON? All of the little guitar kiddies are like "OMGZ HAMMET IS MY GOD HE SO AMAZING HOW DOES HE PLAY SO DAMN GOD LIKE". It makes me sick... He is a damn idiot with horrible tone, and horrible chops, and horrible musical abilities.

Verbal and Harmonic diarrohea courtesy of Kirk Hamster. I'm surprised Satriani ever took him on as a pupil. He obviously never applied any of Joe's superior knowledge to his playing.

Crap tone, terrible phrasing from a truly dreadful guitarist. I'd love to 'cut heads' against this guy for sure! ;)

lol! I might be wrong but I'm guessing Devon and ID arn't too keen on Hammet's guitar playing then? :P

and I totally agree with dev and ID

Going by the way your first post was worded ac/dc you knew what was coming in terms of the content of responses to that video. Nice one! ;)

I've never liked this guy though I do like Metallica and to see him win poll after poll in Rock magazines while guys like Yngwie and Vai languished way behind him used to drive me insane.

I'm gonna post a thread about Thrash/Death/Doom guitarists as I don't want it to distract people from the subject here 'cos there should be some interesting replies still to come on that vid.

This is an interesting thread. In my mind it comes down to two things.

1. Success as a guitarist from a technical/theoretical standpoint. No doubt Hammet's technique and theoretical knowledge is flawed. There are many guitarists in my opinion who have way better chops and who can easily blow him away when constucting a meaningful guitar solo. As one guy said in the comments of the video - his string bending is pretty aweful.

2. Success in the real word. It may grit us, but this guy has played on three or four of the most influential metal records in existence. He regularly plays to thousands of people.

Sad but true. ;)

his success came from metallica stealing all of Dave Mustaine's riffs.

Hmm.......funny how they managed to keep staggering along for 25 years after Mustaine got fired.

Seriously though I'm much more into Megadeth than Metallica, but please give them some credit. I mean I haven't bought a Metallica album since Justice for All, but I can still appreciate their achievement.

My opinion will probably not be well liked, but I don't really think any us can really knock him. Sure he makes mistakes on stage and plays some crappy stuff, but who has totally perfect technique and musical sensibilities? I for one only like Metallica up to And Justice For All, but that doesn't mean they don't have good stuff, and I don't think Kirk is a bad player. His style is perfect for Metallica and so his tone and technique, flawed as they may be. Oh and about Phrygian Dominant sounding more Spanish than Eastern. If you look at a map you will notice that Spain is to our east(if you live in USA or Canada). Spain is also fairly close to some of the countries that would be considered "eastern". So I would say those nearby countries have similar sounding melodies and such in their respective styles of music.

Vinnie Moore :P

Thats not the context that Kirk was using the word "Eastern" in. He was not using it to mean everything east of where he was currently standing like you say... but he was using it to mean the "Middle East" or "Far East" if you will... meaning indian, and china etc... He meant Eastern sound as apposed to Western sound.

When you said Spain is nearby eastern countries and have similar sounding melodies.... first of all we are talking modes here, which means you could play the same melody in several modes and get a totally different feel in each mode. So melody is irrelevent considering Hammet was not talking about them. Also, I don't see how spain (where the phrygian dominant scale/mode was developed by spanish gypsies) is anywhere near eastern countries?

Now to stop taking this out of context by bringing up bad arguments against it. We should both be able to agree that Hammet was not thinking of Spain when he said Eastern.

Fair enough then. I was told that you should develop your own opinion on how each mode sounds, so if Kirk(or anyone else for that matter) says the Phrygian Dominant sounds eastern than they are retarded? I am perfectly aware that you can play the same melody in different modes and get a different feel. I was not aware that the Phryigan Dominant was developed in Spain. Thank you for pointing that out though.I did not mean that Kirk was saying everywhere east of where he was standing. I was pointing out that Spain is,indeed, to our east. That means to us westerners it would sound eastern, at least to me it does. Maybe Kirk meant Spain maybe not I really can't say.

I will agree that Vinnie Moore is perfect though.

I really don't want this to turn into an ultimate guitar.com type argument. I was just voicing my opinions :D

Haha no worries man, we are more civilized than ultimate guitar. I am not trying to sound hostile as you know, since I just told you now that we are talking on msn! I am currently reading Plato's Republic so I am getting in as many constructive arguments as I can, haha!

So, one thing I think you have wrong though is your view of eastern and western. To Americans and Canadians, Spain is still a western country, all of Europe is western. They are western culture, western civilization, western tonality. The saying of East does not start depending on where "you" are but it starts roughly at the border of Europe and Asia. These titles of Eastern and Western where made long before North America was discovered by Western civilization (Europe) and too this day the titles mean the same as they did before.

WIKI ARTICLE ON "THE EAST" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_world

well for one a lot of dave's stuff was still used up to AJFA, and even on the BA. Kirk was even told to do solos like dave. IMHO if it wasn't for dave mustaine metallica and kirk hammet would be nothing but shit on a stick.

Yeah thanks Devon, it's cool. I guess I should have taken those Geography classes a little more seriously though, haha

That's cool Acdc. I mean most people are aware of the acrimony between Mustaine and Hetfield/Ulric. However, regardless of the bitterness over the Leaper Massiah riff or the prayer idea in Enter Sandman or whatever else, Mustaine has always begrudgingly admitted himself that Metallica are a great band - and not just because they may have used some of his ideas.

Anyway, obviously just comes down to opinion, and yours is equally valid as mine so I suppose we're just gonna have to agree to disagree on this one. :)

I've got to agree with the majority of you guys on here. kirk is a clown. having said that, we all know the first 4 albums rocked and I am sure we have all played tunes from those albums. I must admit the kill'em all got me into soloing in the first place. even if majority of it was pentatonic and was actually mustaines leads. now that that's out of the way, I for one will always hold a grudge against metallica for selling out so even if kirk was a guitar god I would still knock him for it. And that death magnet album still doesnt make up for all the crap they were putting out in the 90's. I guess even rick rubin couldnt save them :D

I totally agree :D. Also I accidentally edit your post while trying to quote it.

I'm with you on that one. I actually wish they had called it a day after and Justice for all. That way they wouldn't have turned into the overblown type of band that they used to slag off in their early days. They just became hipocrits.

I remember an interview with lars on the TV in the late 80's when he was saying how great the NWOBHM era was - when people used to pass around bootleg tapes etc. Then he goes pulls that Napster stunt later on down the line.

I've heard a few tracks from the new album. Its getting back to the older sound a bit I suppose, but I wasn't that impressed really. I don't think I'll be buying it.

agreed, I heard a few of their new songs, "trying" to be like they once were, it's still crap and it still doesnt make up for all their other bullshit. rick rubin couldnt even help them. And yes lars is another turd. one of the crappiest drummers I've ever heard.

Can't beleive i missed this :P

I don't mind Kirk. I think some of his solos are great. Intro solo to Sanitarium, intro solo to Fade To Black, Master of Puppets solo etc but when you see people saying he is the greatest i just wanna punch them for being so stupid.

About the Phrygian dominant thing you guys were talking about. It sounds eastern to me, i know it is from Spain and it isn't actually Eastern but when i hear it, i interpret it as Eastern if that makes sense?

About guitarists stealing ideas, i have to disagree hear and say that they do sometimes. A lot of times i hear things that sound very similar to something i heard somewhere else in a solo. I wouldn't say it is plagarism as it usually differs in someway.

Bear in mind that this is usually just in the rock and metal genres.

Hope that makes sense?

I had a late post, but whatever... Kirk Hammet sucks.

I'm indifferent about Kirk. His simple solos suit the simple songs.

I'm more interested in the Spanish vs eastern issue. It's actually both, because they are effectively the same thing. The Roma people, more often known as gypsies, left India in waves going westward, bringing their music with them, with elements from the music in the areas they passed by adding themselves to it, becoming a conglomerate of music traditions traveling westward. While this type of music is very prevalent in the Middle Eastern areas, the Roma people also roamed farther west than that...to Spain. What do we get? Flamenco, created by the Romas in Spain. Gypsy jazz also originates from this culture, for all you Django fans out there (should be every single one of you!)

In other words, yelling at Kirk Hammett for getting something he technically got (for all intents and purposes) correct, incorrect, is bashing him with ignorance. Oops.

Not at all. I am very 100% sure he didn't sit and think "Hm, well, technically, the Gypsies yadda yadda yadda..." He was wrong because he was using jargon that all guitarists know to mean a certain thing, and mistaking it to be something else. He's wrong in this context. What you're saying may be true in a different argument, but this just isn't the place for it. Guitarists know "Spanish" to mean one thing and "Eastern" to mean another.

Kirk Hammett in his prime didn't suck. Yeah he wasn't the most gifted technically or have great understanding of music theory but he is very melodic. Great with the aeolian scale and could shred some. His prime was 84-88 imo.

Your argument doesn't have a solid grounding to it, because 'Spanish' and 'Eastern' are both adjectives describing feels, and can be very subjective. Remember, we're talking in terms describing how we identify groups of notes played in sequence to sound, not mathematical formulas. The gypsy history lesson is relevant because it demonstrates that both the acceptable term and the unacceptable 'wrong' answer are both styles of music with the same roots.

To demonstrate this, I want you to describe the difference between 'Spanish' and 'Eastern', without mentioning scales. Remember the overlap, caused by Islamic control of region, which melded the cultural traditions (why does this so called 'history' have to be so important?).

In other words, you're upset that Kirk Hammet messed up something that is 1) subjective, and 2) minimally different, because supposedly all guitarists know the difference? If there's something seriously wrong with calling it 'eastern', then you've got a lot of people to tell.

I never said all guitarists know the difference, though most do and should, and nothing was wrong with my argument, as I'm not arguing any of those points. It's just that you can't just call something Eastern if it really has very minimal "Eastern" feel to it, just because YOU don't know the difference and it sounds Eastern to YOU. If I were to play some stupid shit around the Major scale, and I were to say "Boy, this scale sure has a Chinese feel to it"... it may sure as hell sound that way to me, but it's not commonly accepted that the major scale sounds Chinese. Kirk did probably mean what he said, but I'm sure he didn't know the difference.

Point is, Kirk doesn't know what he's talking about, which is probably why his playing sucks three bags of dicks.

And yet he'll have more success than you ever had. Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets are some of his best work. So what if he doesn't understand the Eastern feel. He's in a metal band that does a damn good job of creating music and doesn't need to branch out. And music is about feel for the most part. Not just about understanding of theory and which countries use which. Rant over. I'm just sick of the attacks.

I used to love kirk hammet. That was in my first year of playing the guitar.
Now I'm ignored by his abusive wah use. I think Dave Mustaine should have stayed.But stuff like master of puppets he did good in.

Edit: He said he was supposed to be like Jimi Hendrix.Hendrix does not abuse the wah like Kirk does.

I start playing guitar because i was impresed with his playing,when i was kid.And i still love solos from first 3 albums,and some from justice...

Hitler had great success as well, more than any of you ever will. So what if he killed millions of Jews and whatnot? He made bank. Haha, and he's had more success than I've had? I'm 20, dude. Well, your face is stupid.

I'm not going to get in a silly fight over a opinion whether Kirk Hammett sucks or not. And that is a horrible comparison. Can you really tell me these solos suck?
Solo starts at 2:48 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI8xrnOrftM
Solo starts at 5:08 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEQnzs8wl6E
Solo starts at 3:52 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z-hEyVQDRA
Solo starts at 2:48 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXWq3f01e2U

I just want to point out that the solo to Ride The Lightning is Dave Mustaines solo, he wrote it when he was in Metallica.

Too bad he was a bad drunk. I guess that was a big thing to metallica.

Metallica were also drunks and at the time Dave was really the only one of them that could really play his instrument well.

I always liked his solos. I left them after AJFA. I thought that sucked. But the solos in ONE. They're perfect.

As Kirk Hammett's solo went down, so did Metallica imo. I don't remember any wah solos until the Black Album.