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crumbling_mice
It would be interesting to see the criteria which they use to reach these results. It's clearly obvious to me after seeing these type of things for over 40 years that it's nothing necessarily to do with technical abilities. I'm guessing it's an all round type of criteria, taking into account, riffs, song writing, noteriety, technical ability, chart success, death, the look, how influential etc etc. In which case Keith definatly deserves his place in any top 10. He defined a new way of playing electric guitar, he wrote some of the most memorable riffs, he looked the part, he lived the part, he wrote fantastic songs, songs which charted, songs which have been used for advertising, sound tracks etc etc...he influenced several generations of guitarists. I'd also argue he is a damn fine rhythm guitarist.

I think if we judge him against the likes of technically gifted guitarists such as Steve Howe and Carlos Santana then he will come out badly as they are way ahead of him in this respect but they are also limited in that they don't cover as many musical styles as Keith has and fall into their own genre. Keith has only been defined by one genre and that is The Stones and the Stones cover many genres!

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audun-eg
I don't see why people care. At best these lists are interesting / fun to read, but that's it. How to measure "greatest" when it comes to guitarplayers? It can't be done and who's the greatest comes down to personal taste and preferences.

The only scientifically measurable factor in guitarplaying is speed, and in that case there's guitarists like this:



I wouldn't even put him and his likes on my top 1000 list anyway...

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stonesrule
Everytime RS wants to beef up sales they do this stupid list. Have no idea who the expert panel is or if it even exists.

Hendrix always said "There is no 'best.' He admired Clapton. who was a good friend, and particularly Beck.