10 Rock Musicians That Get Way Too Much Hate

The age of the guitar hero is dead...and John Mayer is the one that killed it. Even though he seemed like a perfectly nice dude coming out in the early '00s with his pretty pop songs, the entire aura behind him was more in line with the insufferable frat gig that you would meet at a party and want to be as far away from as possible. Underneath all those layers of AXE body spray though, you're actually looking at one of the greatest guitarists living today.

Although songs like Your Body is a Wonderland may be John's calling card, his original inspiration was always in the blues, taking the basis of guys like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix and making something of his own, almost like he's trying to speak through his guitar on songs like Gravity and Slow Dancing in a Burning Room. For a man that seemed to be a media magnet at the time though, John also did the sensible thing for any musician and took time out, logging off of the rock star circus and making the songs that he wants to, like the rootsy rock that you'd find on an album like Born and Raised.

That's not to say that John has mellowed with age either, going out on the road with the surviving members of the Grateful Dead and becoming more of a blues troubadour in his older age. It might seem impossible to take a guy who writes lyrics like 'bubblegum tongue' seriously, but it takes a special breed of guitar player to play a song like Bold as Love and actually pull it off effectively.