Top Ten Most Influential Guitarists of the 2000s

If you’re thinking that Frusciante’s glory days were all but over after the Red Hot Chili Peppers recorded Californication in 1999, you’d be dead wrong. Frusciante has kept busier than ever over the last ten years and has explored new sounds and influences along the way.

On top of recording and touring as the lead guitarist of RCHP, Frusciante released six albums over six months in 2004, largely abandoning the melody-driven guitar hooks that had defined his sound with the Chili Peppers for experimental rock and ambient electronica.

Frusciante ranked 18th on Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” and BBC poll named him best guitarist of the last 30 years. He continues to release solo albums and record with collaborators across various musical genres.

Radiohead’s success and fame was accomplished far more than ten years ago, but with the releases of Kid A, Amnesiac, and In Rainbows all since 2000 it’s impossible to have a list of influential guitarists – or musicians in general, for that matter – without Greenwood showing up on it.

And it shall be argued by us that Greenwood’s most influential work falls into this period, under which he abandoned a more traditional rock sound and used the guitar and other instruments to play into experimental variations of jazz, electronic, and classical music.

On top of Greenwood’s avant-garde musicianship with Radiohead, he has continued to release solo albums and compilations over the past decade and was even hired by the BBC as a composer to the BBC Concert Orchestra in 2004.

Not a conventional choice, and perhaps the least mainstream of our list, Stevens has earned the ranks of most influential the quiet way. Having started out in experimental electronic mixing, Stevens picked up a guitar (among many other instruments) to record the folk rock concept album Michigan in 2003 and immediately caught the attention of many with his haunting vocals and thoughtful song-writing.

Stevens followed suit in 2004 and recorded the all-acoustic Seven Swans, which, like Michigan, featured immaculate song-writing accompanied by soft guitar melodies that carried so much emotion that his music became almost overpowering. Illinois, his second state concept album, came a year later and showed that Stevens was no fluke; he had the talent and creativity on the guitar to match the most haunting of lyrics and vocals with seamless melodies. Illinois is widely named by critics as one of the top albums of the decade.

In 2010, Stevens proved his creativity again with The Age of Adz, showing that the scope of his ability is ever-expanding and taking both the guitar and himself into a whole new world of experimentation. It is no doubt that Steven’s influence has left its mark on acoustic song-writers.

The Black Keys guitarist and vocalist boasts a near-identical résumé to Jack White. Auerbach fronts a fast-paced blues-rock duo born out of garage rock revival. Both men list the blues greats as inspiration, including Son House and Robert Johnson, and both have achieved enormous success over the past ten years.
Auerbach has come up in a considerably less conspicuous manner than White, earning his fame and credibility slowly through good old-fashioned hard work rather than a media-friendly image and radio-friendly guitar hooks. But that has not stopped The Black Keys from having their music featured in seemingly every commercial, TV show, movie, and even video game produced in the last ten years.
Still less known and possibly a few years away from achieving the recognition that White has, Auerbach has some work to do. But, like White, he will definitely inspire many young guitarists to go out in the garage and turn up their amps.

Better known by his stage name, Iron & Wine, Samuel Beam is this generation’s Paul Simon, featuring technical and focused acoustic melodies that allow him to stand out among the singer/songwriters of today.

When The Creek Drank the Cradle dropped in 2002, Beam’s sound drew comparisons to Nick Drake, Simon and Garfunkel, and Neil Young. His music, though solely acoustic, had a profound depth and intimacy that remained even as Beam went back into studio on subsequent albums and added more band members. Beam’s second release, Our Endless Numbered Days, received huge acclaim and was ranked among the top albums of the decade.

When Heartbreaker was released in 2000, it was clear that Ryan Adams was going to be something special for music and for the guitar. Laden with country-rock riffs and guest vocalists like Emmylou Harris and Gillian Welch, Adams was ready to leave an impact on the alt-country genre.

A year later Gold became a huge success and Adams would continue to produce five more solo albums and five albums with his band, The Cardinals over the following nine years.

His swinging electric sound and somber, drunken lyrics solidified him early on as an influential guitarist and a legendary songwriter for both country and rock music.

Everyone was a bit surprised when Damien Rice came into the music scene with his first album, O, because none of us had heard of him before. For many it was stumbling onto “The Blower’s Daughter” at the movie theatre when the trailer for Closer came on the screen.

Damien Rice might seem more influential as an artist than a guitarist, but while many can match his emotion vocally, few translate it through their instrument. Rice accomplished that feat with O in 2004 and then came back and did it all over again with 9 in 2006.

His quiet intensity and brutally honest songwriting and guitar-playing make Damien Rice one of the most influential; and we’re confident that his arrangements and progressions will turn up as the inspiration for guitarists in years to come.