Nah
Although I own a RATM album and will quite happily listen to them, I appreciate that they're a bunch of hypocratic twerps.
But the politics and GCSE grade activism don't get to me much, it's friggin' Tom Morrello that pisses me off.

There was, and still is, an immense amount of fellatio directed toward him and his guitar playing. Well I have news, he's not THAT good (going on purely the evidence he has provided in his recorded material and a few live examples I have seen).
Sure the guy is capable, great even, and I like the fact that he contributed to making the guitar solo acceptable in contemporary mainstream alternative music again after grunge seemingly killed it off in the early 90's. But all the twats who hailed him as a guitar god and refused to stop suckling his phallus gave me the rage.
He really hasn't brought anything new to the table. Pitch bend? Whoop-de fucking doo. I've got one on my 20 year old guitar effects pedal. Dead pick-up/Slicer? Countless guitarists use it and have done for years.
Some fan boy even tried to convince me that the solo from Audioslaves 'Show Me How To Live' was unique and fantastic. Fuck off. It's one note repeated without variation and it's not even unique because Neil Young did it 30 fucking years before him and i'm sure someone probably did it before him too.

The only thing that separates Mr Morello from other guitarists is that he pisses about with pedals more than he plays. He should fuck off and have a mutual masturbation session with The Edge, or just be done with it and start a shoegaze band.
(Megamoss, Tue 4 Jan 2011, 14:20, 1 reply)

He is technically very proficient.
I have heard him playing "straight" guitar and he's actually very good. Very clean technique.

Like him or not, theres no denying he revolutionised the way people thought about using guitars. He came at it from the angle of a hip hop DJ and yes, all his equipment has be around for years, and people have used killswitchs and whammy pedals and such for decades, but there really aren't any other guitarists that sound like him.

And personally, I don't even rate him that highly. He's certainly not in my top twenty guitarists. Mainly because I get tired of listening to him far too quickly. But the guy deserves credit for doing what he does, and not just being an Yngwie or Vai clone.
( PMGT -Bacon., Tue 4 Jan 2011, 20:20, closed)