Worst Guitarists of All Time

The Top Ten
1 Lil Wayne Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr. is an American rapper from New Orleans, Louisiana. He was discovered by Brian "Baby" "Birdman" Williams at a very young age, and was signed to Cash Money Records, where he would be one quarter of the rap group Hot Boys. In the years to follow, he would go on to find his own... read more

He's the worst and fake. I mean, I saw his guitar solos. Are those even real? They are lame jokes. I mean, he taps on the guitar and the sound is something else. If you show me someone picking a note with one finger and calling it economy picking, would you believe it? I wouldn't call him the worst guitarist, even if he can't play guitar. But why pretend to be something you can't do? He tries to become Eddie Van Halen!

At least Kurt Cobain plays guitar, and those were real. It doesn't matter how good, bad, or overrated he is.

Why are all these good guitarists on here? When you have people like Lil Wayne, Taylor Swift, and Nick Jonas on here and you don't vote for them, I have to wonder if you even know the difference between good and bad.

2 Nick Jonas Nicholas Jerry "Nick" Jonas is an American singer, songwriter and actor, best known as one of the Jonas Brothers, a pop rock band he formed with his brothers Kevin and Joe.

Guys, he is technically by far the worst on this list. He is absolutely talentless and has no purpose in anything whatsoever. Worse than Lil Wayne and Fred Durst. Also, what the heck is Kirk Hammett doing on this list?!?!?!?!?!? The guy who made this must have been drunk.

If he's trying to be a bad guitarist, then he's doing good.

His song and his guitar playing are just no...

3 Fred Durst William Frederick "Fred" Durst is an American musician and film director. Durst is best known as the vocalist of the nu metal band Limp Bizkit, formed in 1994, with whom he has released six studio albums.

He is a good rapper, but Wes Borland is the rightful guitarist.

He's not a guitarist, but he tried playing guitar once and he sucked at it.

4 Taylor Swift Taylor Alison Swift is an American singer-songwriter. She was born on December 13, 1989, in Reading, Pennsylvania. Swift is best known for writing personal songs and has won 13 Grammy Awards... read more

I don't understand why a bunch of girls pick up a guitar because of Taylor Swift's "music". All she does (or at least did when she was a country singer) is play four chords over and over and sing about every guy she's gone out with and broken up with. She's not that talented and doesn't even play guitar anymore.

Taylor Swift is beyond talentless. I have never seen a more deplorable vocalist in my life.

New Eddie Van Halen my ass. She sucks.

5 Justin Bieber Justin Drew Bieber (born March 1, 1994) is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and record producer. He currently resides in Ontario, Canada and is Christian. He is the son of author Pattie Mallette... read more

Baby: One chord at the intro, nothing else. This guy is a poser guitarist.

Does he know what a guitar even is?

6 Kurt Cobain Kurt Cobain was born February 20, 1967, in Aberdeen, Washington. In 1987, he started the grunge band Nirvana, which became one of the most successful bands ever. He was a talented yet troubled grunge performer. Kurt Cobain became a rock legend in the 1990s with his band. He committed suicide at his... read more

He never claimed to be the best. That's good because he's far from the best. His talent is clearly tapping into teenage angst and translating it into noise. That's it! Kurt is a nosician!

Kurt wasn't technically a good guitar player. He never did many impressive solos or musically diverse riffs, but his guitar playing perfectly matched the feeling the band was going for. His sloppy, distorted guitar screeches matched Nirvana's style and actually made their music sound more interesting and better. If they had a more technically skilled guitarist like Slash, for example, the band's music wouldn't have been as good or made as much of an impact.

7 Shawn Mendes Shawn Peter Raul Mendes is a Canadian singer-songwriter and model. He attracted a following in 2013, when he began posting song covers on the popular video sharing application Vine.

This guy stinks. He sucks. He only plays acoustic. Have you even seen him on electric guitars before? Hell, I think he writes all those songs just to get chicks.

Any one of his songs can be learned in under 60 seconds.

I think I can play even better than him.

8 Billie Joe Armstrong Billie Joe Armstrong is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and actor who is best known as the lead vocalist, primary songwriter, and guitarist of the punk rock band Green Day, which he co-founded with Mike Dirnt. He's also in side-project groups such as The Network, Foxboro HotTubs, Pinhead Gunpowder,... read more

Maybe if he'd shorten his strap, his pick would actually catch all the intended strings. Quality is sacrificed for image, and his ego kills his talent even more.

Sure, his solos are easy because as a child he didn't focus on being the best guitarist ever. He focused on being the best songwriter ever.

I can't believe his solos are super easy. I played the solo in "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" in maybe under 1 minute!

9 Ed Sheeran Edward Christopher "Ed" Sheeran is an English singer-songwriter and musician. He sang songs such as The A team and Shape of You. He was born in Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire and raised in Framlingham, Suffolk.

Can't play. Can't even make a single good song.

All he does is play three chords over and over while singing boring and generic love songs.

10 Joe Jonas Joseph Adam "Joe" Jonas (born August 15, 1989) is an American singer and actor. Jonas first rose to fame as a member of the pop-rock band Jonas Brothers, along with his brothers Kevin and Nick... read more
The Contenders
11 Chad Kroeger Chad Robert Kroeger is a Canadian musician and producer, best known as the lead vocalist and guitarist for the Canadian rock band, Nickelback.

All he does is play basic chords that you would learn in the first month of guitar lessons (Photograph is a perfect example). He doesn't even have good note selection either: Burn It to the Ground would have sounded better if he hadn't gone from plucking the open E straight to plucking that string on the 15th fret.

Why is Kurt Cobain above him? I'm not even a Nirvana fan, but it's not hard for me to realize they're nowhere near the worst! But Chad Kroeger sucks!

Take a look at this trash guitar.
Every time I play it I become a star.
Oh wait, that was stolen!

12 Marilyn Manson Brian Hugh Warner, better known by his stage name Marilyn Manson, is an American musician, songwriter, actor, painter, multimedia artist, author, and former music journalist.
13 Noel Gallagher Noel Thomas David Gallagher is an English musician, singer, songwriter and guitarist. He served as the lead guitarist, co-lead vocalist and principal songwriter of the rock band Oasis.

Since 30 years ago, he sounds like he has only a few days of practice and never improved a little bit. The worst guitarist ever, worst solos ever, boring, simple in the worst sense of the word... very low-quality music made for the masses... Oasis is the McDonald's of music...

Graham Coxon, Jonny Greenwood, Keith Richards, and Pete Townshend are way better guitarists than Noel Gallagher. Also, he is an absolute idiot and treats everyone like garbage. Why anyone would like or support this person is beyond me.

14 Johnny Depp John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II (born June 9, 1963) is an American actor, producer, and musician. He has won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor... read more
15 Kirk Hammett Kirk Lee Hammett is the lead guitarist and songwriter for the heavy metal band Metallica and has been a member of the band since 1983. Before joining Metallica he formed and named the band Exodus.

Whammett demonstrates what happens when you're taught by one of the best and don't practice your material. Kids, please learn from this!

Seriously? This guy's solos are awesome!

16 Graham Coxon
17 Jimmy Page James Patrick Page is an English musician, songwriter, and record producer who achieved international success as the guitarist and founder of the rock band Led Zeppelin.
18 Richard Benson

He used to be good. Now, he seems to have lost all knowledge of music theory. As a guitarist, Richard Benson's guitar playing sounds like he's just slamming a bunch of random notes from different arpeggios, scales, and keys together, and playing them at lightning speed with no regard for musicality.

A bad guitarist with no skills. All he knows is how to tap and make a guitar suffer. He sucks!

19 Hide Hideto Matsumoto, better known by his stage name Hide, was a Japanese musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. He is primarily known for his work as lead guitarist of the heavy metal band X Japan.
20 Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977) was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century. His energized interpretations of songs and sexually provocative performance style, combined... read more

I highly agree - he couldn't play guitar very well and just strummed along with the band. But he posed with a double-neck electric guitar, LOL. There are pictures on the net.

21 Ross Lynch Ross Shor Lynch is an American singer, songwriter, actor, and musician. He is one of the founding members of the pop rock band R5. As an actor, he is known for his debut role as Austin Moon on the Disney Channel original series Austin & Ally, and for his role as Brady in Disney Channel's Teen Beach... read more
22 Brad Delson Bradford Phillip Delson is an American musician, best known as the lead guitarist and one of the founding members of the Grammy Award winning rock band Linkin Park.

Not that bad, but very overrated. Just plays a few simple power chords and that's all.

23 Yngwie J. Malmsteen Yngwie Johan Malmsteen is a Swedish guitarist, songwriter and bandleader who was born on June 30th, 1963, in Stockholm, Sweden. He was known for his neoclassical metal playing style back in the 1980s.

Doesn't play with enough feel, but he does do some impressive feats.

24 Kerry King Kerry Ray King is an American musician, best known as a guitarist for the American thrash metal band Slayer.

I'm getting sick of people hating on Kerry King for his guitar playing. The guy played rhythm guitar. That may not seem like much, but rhythm guitar is what builds a song where the guitar work is the main focus. Hanneman may have played the more complex parts of the solos, but Kerry King built the songs. To take Kerry King away from Slayer is like taking Black Sabbath away from metal.

Maybe he wasn't as good as Jeff. But he's far from the worst there is. Kerry King definitely does not deserve to be on the list.

25 The Edge David Howell Evans, better known by his stage name the Edge, is an Irish musician and songwriter best known as the lead guitarist, keyboardist and backing vocalist of the rock band U2.

Just buy a delay pedal and you're already on his level.

He's just ok, in a very generic and derivative way. I wouldn't really say he even plays solos.

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