Main reason why Alex Lifeson as a guitarist is not held in high regard as Geddy and Neil?

[laughedatbytime]

I think it's a numbers game with Geddy. There are very few bassists who are as technically proficient as Geddy AND relatively well known. Peart in his day was so "busy" that his playing really stuck out on almost every song. His reputation is well deserved. Alex is a great guitar player, but most rock songs have a guitar solo, so there are more players with an opportunity to shine.

It didn't help that they completely neutered him the entire second half of the 80s.

[goose]

I think it's a numbers game with Geddy. There are very few bassists who are as technically proficient as Geddy AND relatively well known. Peart in his day was so "busy" that his playing really stuck out on almost every song. His reputation is well deserved. Alex is a great guitar player, but most rock songs have a guitar solo, so there are more players with an opportunity to shine.

 

There's also players like him, Chris Squire, even John Entwistle and others who were not satisfied with just playing a simple bass line, but made the bass something to really listen to. Always liked that.

Entwistle

[zappafrank]

Alex is (or rather, can be) an *extremely* sloppy player. Some of his really fast stuff is laden with echo or reverb, and if you penetrate through the effects, you'll see he's just sort of moving his fingers around and double picking a lot which gives the effect of speed but is nowhere as crisp or as on point as say Al Di Meola (listen to the "Casino" album, for example, which for me has always been the hallmark of "holy crap, that's fast as hell while also hitting each note on point"). He definitely has a lot of feeling, but once the 80's hit and he got away from some of the classical/acoustic guitar where mistakes/"looseness" are always amplified, he was able to hide them behind big production and the "atmospheric/big" effects that came with the synth era (though he definitely could be loose in the 70's, as well). Edited March 18, 2018 by zappafrank

[New Digital Man]

While Alex is fantastic, there are simple too many guitarists that are better than him. EVH, RR, Vito Bratta, Steve Vai, Malmsteen, and Zakk Wylde come to mind

 

Lots of drummers are technically better than Peart:

Bruford, Giles, Bozzio, Wackerman, Minnemann, Mangini, T. Lang, among others.

(Although, unlike the others, Lang doesn’t strike me as a musical drummer.)

 

I would’ve thought that Peart/Lifeson would be roughly the same in terms of accolades/being held in high regard.

Both are gifted players and very smart arrangers. And as many have said, Alex is a musical guitarist, more in line with Page/Howe than 80s 6-string wankery. Maybe his guitar solos should have had cowbells in them.

 

I remember reading a letter in an old Modern Drummer mag. Something along the lines of “When I want to listen to a musical drummer, I’ll listen to Ringo (or whoever). If I want to listen to something fast and on time, I’ll listen to a Japanese bullet train.”

 

Simon Phillips and Dave Weckl man!

I wouldn't leave Portnoy off that list.

I would! Not even close!