10 Greatest Indie Guitar Heroes

1. Johnny Marr €“ The Smiths

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxZo5UODCCg The hands down winner without a doubt. To borrow a quote from 'Airplane', "He's the boss, the head man, the top dog, the big cheese, the numero uno honcho." Johnny Marr invented the template for the modern guitar hero more than thirty years ago and still keeps going and reinventing it again and again, he made guitar playing cool for a countless generations and influenced just about everyone that's worth listening to. So, how did it do it? Well for a start, there's never been a guitar player like him, name any style and he can play it and still sound like no one but himself. There's a buzz about 'Change Agents' at the moment, people who do something different and influence all those around them, well if you want the definition of a Change Agent, then look no further. Indie music as we know it would not exist without Johnny Marr, so let's look at the template he created. Rule #1, the tunes have to be amazing, rule #2, the band need to be the gang that you're dying to be a member of, but you know you'll never be cool enough to get close to breaking into their inner sanctum and rule #3, the band have to show an unbreakable belief that they are the best thing since sliced bread, and you have to look no further than the guitarist to know that's indisputable. What made and still makes Johnny Marr so wonderful is this - you have to be an absolute genius to be truly inspiring, but you also have to make it look ridiculously effortless. So my final challenge to you is this, name me a guitar player who has managed to do both so flawlessly? Answers on a back of a postcard please.