chris77 wrote:
Its still an impossible task. No matter how you determine the criteria, its still based on personal opinions and subject to the same pitfalls as other such lists. You also get folks voting due to reputation and general popularity. Most people put players like Hendrix and Clapton on their lists because its the Cool thing to do and leave out Edge because the popular opinion is that he's k@k. (ps. I think he's great..)
I think you're highlighting the problem here - namely which criteria do you apply and how do you weight them? If you had no criteria at all it would just get to be subjective and a popularity contest.
The Edge is an interesting example because he's NOT a great player in terms of technical ability. He IS very effective within U2, and in any other band he'd either sound out of place or the band would start to sound like U2.
Technical ability isn't enough though, because if it were then Hendrix would be sliding down the rankings by now. He has surely been surpassed in purely technical terms (despite being a monster player), but his influence was massive, he represented a huge leap forwards in his time and you can still hear echoes of him in other big name players - EG John Mayer. He's nearly 40 years gone now and he's STILL a big influence on so many players. It's hard to begrudge him a high ranking.
As far as getting the stars to nominate the stars goes, unless you have a system that is absolutely and demonstrably transparent you are still getting nowhere because the editorial knife can still be wielded. Also you're working on the assumption that star musicians have better taste or more objectivity than mere mortals - which isn't a safe assumption.
These polls will always be contentious - which is what is required. If they weren't contentious, if they were predictable, then nobody would bother looking at them and certainly nobody would bother discussing them.
