“I feel like he’s saying all this — maybe sort of projecting — because he knows his solos on ’72 Seasons’ were very throwaway.”
Bradley Hall replied to Kirk Hammett’s claim that solos aren’t really important to the wider audience, and argued that the Metallica’s guitarist most recent efforts can’t be compared to his early works in terms of quality.Early this year, Kirk Hammett’s hot take on solos drew a lot of attention in the global guitar community, since the man whose solos inspired millions to take up the guitar now claimed that general audiences don’t pay much attention to them.
“I hate to say it for all your readers out there, but non-musicians, who are the majority of the fucking listening world, they are not going to remember guitar solos”,Kirk said, suggesting that it’s only the melody that sticks in casual fans’ minds.
The Metallica guitarist’s comments drew Angel Vivaldi, a guitar virtuoso & a player who self-admittedly wouldn’t do what he does were it not for Kirk’s solos, and who argued that hearing such words from the mouth of one of the genre’s most prominent guitarists can be detrimental to the overall health of the guitar community:
“Good and inspiring solos are what MAKE musicians. Kirk himself held a torch of responsibility when it came to flipping non-musicians into guitar shredders, myself included. He himself is a reason why guitar solos are dying!”
“He arguably has the largest platform to inspire even more guitarists, but because he ‘opted for a raw, improvisational approach’ (which he does not have the skill set to execute, IMHO) on [Metallica’s new album] ’72 Seasons’ and lord knows how many before that, his torch now burns very dimly if at all.”
“You need to be a good improviser — and Kirk isn’t”
Now, YouTube guitar sensation Bradley Hall — you might remember him as the guy who re-did Kirk’s solos on “72 seasons” when it first came out — chimed in with a take of his own, concurring with Angel Vivaldi’s assessment in a new video. He said (transcribed by Ultimate Guitar):
“[Kirk] feels that guitar solos should be improvised and off the cuff. Far enough, but if you’re gonna do that, you need to be a good improvizer — and unfortunately, Kirk isn’t. He’s not Guthrie Govan, let’s put it that way.”
Although Bradley agrees that guitarists are going to pay more attention to the solos, he still believes that they’ll catch the wider audience’s attention if they’re arranged in a memorable way, such as the one from Europe’s “Final Countdown”, Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall”, or Nuno Bettencourt’s solo from “Rise”, which has been drawing a lot of attention lately. Circling back to Kirk’s hot take, the British guitarist/YouTuber said:
“I feel like he’s saying all this — maybe sort of projecting — because he knows his solos on ’72 Seasons’ were very throwaway.”
Still, that’s not to say that Kirk has always been this way. Bradley notes how his playing on Metallica’s early albums is “legendary”, striking a good balance between composition and improvization. “It’s like early Kirk and late Kirk are two different people”, he added.
“It sounds like a joke”
After agreeing with Vivaldi’s assessment that Kirk apparently doesn’t have the skillset to execute good improvised solos, Bradley compared some of Kirk’s “perfect” early work — such as the first solo from “Fade to Black”, or the one from “Battery” which is a completely different beast — to the one found around the 4:20 mark on “If Darkness Had a Son”, he said:
“This sounds so amateur. It sounds like a joke. It’s like he’s recording in isolation; he’s not paying attention to the accompaniment at all. Playing random crap that could be played literally over anything in the same key.”
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However, it’s not Kirk’s approach itself that Bradley finds the most exasperating:”It’s just the attitude I can’t get over — him hating on solos all of a sudden. It’s like being a bit elitist. It’s very bizarre; very contradictory to what he used to stand for. Metallica are the biggest metal band on the planet, and this guy is a role model for so many guitarists. People who aren’t so savvy with the internet just take what he says as gospel.”
He added:
“He should be spreading a more positive, encouraging message, encouraging people to write good guitar solos, no matter what they are. I feel a bit of this myself — only a fraction of Kirk has [in terms of influence] — but I feel like it’s my duty to spread a positive message about guitar and encourage people to play… Don’t be such sour grapes Kirk, liven up a little bit.”
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