Guitar World vs. Guitar Player

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Defintely Guitar World.

The articles in Guitar Player are way too short. The new layout and look are nice but the subtsance is lacking. There are less features on musicians and more articles on tech stuff and gear and sheet music.

Guitar World does great features on everybody from classic rock artists to the latest top 40 rock on the radio.

And Guitar World stories are always more in depth. Guitar World may be the only American music magazine today that resmebles Mojo. Think about it. GW has great in-depth features. Not as often as a couple of years ago, but still good.

And Guitar World has the best stable of feature writers working at any one music magazine today -- Alan Paul, Joe Lalaina, Brian Stillman, Richard Bienstock, Jeff Kitts, Christopher Scapelliti and the magazine's secret weapon -- Alan di Perna.

― Steven Ward, Thursday, 28 October 2004 20:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I have a few boxes full of Guitar Worlds going back to 1992. I've bought maybe 5 issues of Guitar Player and it usually bores the hell out of me.

So GW.

― From a Land of Grass Without Mirrors (AaronHz), Thursday, 28 October 2004 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

when I was a kid I like Guitar for the Practicing Musician best cuz they had the most tablature.

I haven't really read any of them for years though.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 28 October 2004 21:20 (twenty-one years ago)

I have nearly as many GFTPMs as GWs. At a certain point GFTPM shortened it's name to "Guitar" and the quality dropped significantly. I don't even know if it's still published. If it is, the circulation is way down because I used to by it at supermarkets and I haven't seen it there in over 7 years.

― From a Land of Grass Without Mirrors (AaronHz), Thursday, 28 October 2004 21:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Both magazines are props for their advertisers. Advertising and reviews of guitars and gear supporting and raving about the products advertised crap up every issue. If you can find a negative review of a genuinely known to be crappy piece of guitar stuff, you must be looking at the wrong magazines.

It's hard to tell now but many years ago Guitar Player was a serious magazine. Guitar World didn't exist and GP was not primarily a vehicle for advertising blurt, ad photos and color pictures of whatever is the present fad.

In fairness they probably did what they had to. The market changed toward marketing primarily to children and teenagers and they did what they had to. However, the magazine started out with a sincere effort to be substantial and it maintained a good reputation for many years. Because of this it risked being deemed boring and wordy -- not allowable anymore.

Both magazines would be more interesting if the interviews were regularly antagonistic and much less hagiography. Not everyone is
a guitar rock god or icon of metal.

― George Smith, Thursday, 28 October 2004 21:30 (twenty-one years ago)

I have to agree there. There's way to many article's kissing the likes of the guitarist for Blink 182's ass nowadays. I've pretty much stopped buying it, but in the early to mid 90's when GW was interviewing people like J Mascis, Kevin Shields and Robert Fripp (all in one issue! My favorite, I still have it) it was totally tops.

― From a Land of Grass Without Mirrors (AaronHz), Thursday, 28 October 2004 21:46 (twenty-one years ago)

my apologies for going crazy with apostrophes where they don't belong on this thread. I don't know what's got into me.

― From a Land of Grass Without Mirrors (AaronHz), Thursday, 28 October 2004 21:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Case in point, one of the mags had a feature on Black Sabbath and Ozzy wound up being in one of the pieces, discussing not only Iommie but all guitarists he had worked with. Wow, Ozzy. Now there's a guy you don't see in the media enough.

It would have been fascinating if the writer had deigned to give Ozzy trouble, or just to shit on him unbidden for the sake of scratching out an overexposed easy target celebrity for a few grafs. But one never sees that.

― George Smith, Thursday, 28 October 2004 22:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I NEVER understood what the lead singer is doing in some of these articles.
GUITAR World/Player. G-U-I-T-A-R.

― From a Land of Grass Without Mirrors (AaronHz), Thursday, 28 October 2004 22:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Whichever one reprinted the Crawdaddy interview with Jimmy Page and William Burroughs

― m0stly clean (m0stly clean), Thursday, 28 October 2004 22:09 (twenty-one years ago)

ooh! I 'd like to read that! Online anywhere???

― From a Land of Grass Without Mirrors (AaronHz), Thursday, 28 October 2004 22:10 (twenty-one years ago)

probably. as i recall, they don't talk about guitars much. mostly drugs and travelling.

― m0stly clean (m0stly clean), Thursday, 28 October 2004 22:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I doubt Old Bull knew much about guitars.

― From a Land of Grass Without Mirrors (AaronHz), Thursday, 28 October 2004 22:37 (twenty-one years ago)

At a certain point GFTPM shortened it's name to "Guitar" and the quality dropped significantly. I don't even know if it's still published.

It's now Guitar One and it sucks the big one.

― Phil Dennison (Phil D.), Friday, 29 October 2004 00:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I remember that I learned alot about music from Guitar World. In the early 90's they would mention a lot of weird records in the margins of the pages. At least they were weird to a 14 year old. I remember when they did a four issue column with Kevin Sheilds talking about the studio techniques behind loveless and other shoegaze records. That was miles beyond Guitar player which was still limping from the fact that Eric Johnson, Nuno Bettencourt, and Joe Satrianni were no longer culturally relavent after Nevermind broke.

If I had to describe my style of music writing, if I ever actually got around to writing about music, I would probably say I got it all subconsciously from Guitar World Magazine.

― Disco Nihilist (mjt), Friday, 29 October 2004 05:50 (twenty-one years ago)

nineteen years pass...

Guitar Player ceases print publication - goes digital only.
https://www.billboard.com/pro/guitar-player-magazine-print-edition-digital-only/

― Elvis Telecom, Saturday, 19 October 2024 21:33 (one year ago)

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