10 Rock Guitarists That Are Impossible To Imitate
3. Tom Morello - Rage Against the Machine
As the '90s started to open up, the market of technical masters of guitar weren't really in style anymore. Compared to the hair metal virtuosos of a few years earlier, the grunge revolution marked a distinct move away from the intricate side of the spectrum, with artists like Kurt Cobain and Stone Gossard playing from the heart rather than mapping out guitar symphonies. Since we were going back to basics though, why not recontextualize the concept of the guitar altogether?
Arriving almost in conjunction with the alternative movement, Rage Against the Machine brought a new guitar wizard to the world with Tom Morello, whose sound was almost alien to the tones we were used to. Though the riffs hit like a battering ram on songs like Bulls on Parade, the solos were what threw everyone for a loop, as Morello became an interim DJ in the band, using volume switches and presets to create some of the most dissonant sounds ever to come from the world of rock.
The amount of off the wall noises coming from Morello's amplifier ended up being so strange that Rage actually put disclaimers in their liner notes that said that every single sound coming from these songs was done by a guitar. It's one thing to have your own style of playing...but it's another to actually separate yourself from the guitar world entirely. With Morello, it's not just guitar...it's music.