Originally Posted by Rainard Jalen

Number 75 is pretty much an honorary mention, and as for the Guitar World poll, it mentions quite explicitly that, and I quote:

"This is not a list that ranks who can play the fastest or with the most taste, feeling or technique (although many players on our list have all of those arrows in their quiver) ... It is, rather, a tribute to the great men who **** iron and piss stainless steel razor blades, and do it every time they plug into an amplifier."

If you want to talk actual pure dexterity in terms of speed and amazing technique, Jones is not skillful in that way and I believe he has admitted that too in interviews. This is one of the factors that has actually shaped Tool's sound. If Jones had always been an AMAZING riff player, soloist, and had all sorts of other insane tricks in his repertoire, Tool would have come to sound quite different to how they do. As it happens he's quite an unpretentious player, doing simpler things (compared to many other metal bands) but doing them very well. This is clearly reflected in Tool's music. The guitar parts never whizz off into the land of look-what-I-can-do. The complexities of Tool's music is built more in the interplay between the instruments and how the contrastive rhythms play off each other.


Actually, Jones is the one member of Tool who has been known to mess up in live sets. He didn't get his negative reputation among many guitar junkies for no reason. As I say, he's phenomenally good at what he does, but he simply does not possess the sort of skill that the really great metal guitarists do. Only the most fanatical of Tool fans would seriously try to claim that he has as much skill as the widely revered great players.

Originally Posted by lucifer_sam

I never once said that Adam Jones was a particularly fast or dexterous guitar player. I said he was great and he had a great deal of technical prowess. Which is perfectly true. But speed, as you quoted yourself, doesn't seem to be straight formula for a great guitarist.

I suppose his negative reputation also makes him less than great. He's simply unskilled compared to those other great metal and progressive guitarists. Rolling Stone was obviously just giving him an honorably mention for being "good at what he does." Just like they did with Eddie Van Halen, who came after Adam Jones. And Dave Gilmour, who was in the eighties. Angus Young, at #96, must have realized he would never be a great metal guitarist.

I'm not saying that the mundane list is concrete evidence that Adam Jones was a godlike demon on guitar, ripping people new ones as he played faster than ears could handle. You're perfectly right: if Jones had that speed and dexterity, Tool would sound very, very different. But you're ignoring what I'm trying to say. It's not me proclaiming like an ignorant fanboy that he was better than everyone else. I simply stated, and I'll repeat:

Adam Jones is a great guitarist.