The 9 Most Innovative Guitar Players of the 21st Century

I know a list like this is always good for controversy. Don’t take it too seriously. It’s just my opinion. It’s based on listening to and studying guitar music every day for the last 30 years or so. We’ll just ‘agree to disagree’, mkay? Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading this post.

Before we count down to the number one player on this list, let me explain how I came up with this order.

First, I know there are tons of super technical players on YouTube, one better than the other. These undoubtedly very talented guitarists didn’t make the list because they’re not well-known in the guitar community.

I mean, Tosin Abasi IS on this list for his slapping technique (and for other things as well). A lot of other guitarists did it before him. But he revolutionized the technique AND became famous for it. That’s the difference. I guess you can’t be innovative if nobody knows about you.

To create some controversy: Hendrix? He was a beginner compared to these guys (What did I just write… Uh oh…).

Oh, one more thing: If you don’t know a player, you can check him out in this post. For each player, I have embedded a YouTube video that shows the player’s sheer skill.

Let’s dive in!

9. John Petrucci

Shred Overlord, Progmeister, King of Prog. John Petrucci and his band Dream Theater popularized a new style of music: progressive metal. The New York-born shredder inspired thousands of guitarists to take their playing to a new level.

Now, I know there are many super shredders like Petrucci who became famous and influential before him. But Petrucci brought something to the table that wasn’t quite mainstream before he burst onto the scene in the early nineties.

The shred overlord with the mighty beard and the humongous biceps combined all the supercharged eighties techniques like sweep picking, fast alternate picking, and complex riffs with the oddest time signatures. I mean, 17/16, 9/8, 21/16, 5.8, anyone?

8. Steve Vai

Sure, Steve Vai probably reached the peak of his fame and influence in the late nineties. And sure, if you look at his overall shredding technique, it’s not THAT impressive anymore.

I mean, people evolve. Guitarists evolve. They get super good at younger and younger ages. You know, 12-year-old kids playing For The Love Of God like there’s no tomorrow. I’m not even kidding.

If you listen to the albums he has put out this century, most of his music does not involve hyperspeed playing anymore. But there’s this thing about Vai’s guitar playing.

The guy is super creative.

He revolutionized rock guitar back in the eighties when he played for Frank Zappa, Alcatraz, Whitesnake and David Lee Roth. He innovated guitar playing in the nineties when he stunned guitarists with Passion And Warfare, without a doubt one of the most influential instrumental rock albums of all time.

And he’s still innovating today. Not so much with flashy licks, but with his phrasing. First, look (and listen!) to his crazy but beautiful vibrato. Then his slide work. It’s beyond any other guitar player I’ve ever heard. The way he slides in and out of notes, using big intervals. It’s just super cool.

And then there’s his crazy whammy bar antics. Try playing the melody in his song Frank on his 2005 album The Ultra Zone. You can kind of replicate it, but get the timing right AND move the whammy bar up and down to the correct pitch without hesitation… Try it. You’ll probably fail.

And that’s just the technical side of it. Vai actually came up with this kind of weird stuff and made music with it. Or how about Freak Show Excess from his 2005 Real Illusions: Reflections album, inspired by Bulgarian wedding music (seriously!). He continues to push his limits and the boundaries of the guitar. That’s why he’s still relevant and innovative in the 21st century.

7. Buckethead

Hands. Huge hands. Oh yeah, and he wears a KFC Buckethead on his head and a white mask on his face. Brian Carroll, aka Buckethead, remains an enigma to this day.

He’s a musical genius who releases dozens of albums a year (in 2023, he released 119 albums!!). And those hands of his… Well, they can do just about anything. Buckethead is super, super fast, plays super clean, is super articulate, and does two-handed tapping stuff like he’s possessed. The same goes for his slapping, by the way…

It’s hard to pinpoint his specialty on the guitar. He can do pretty much everything at an amazing level. His freaky outfit and extremely virtuosic playing style have earned him a cult following and a deservedly huge status in the guitar world.

To this day, he’s an enigma of a guitarist who continues to push the boundaries of what a guitar can do. When he’s not lolling around in his chicken coop.

6. Matteo Mancuso

This kid came on the scene not too long ago. In 2021, 2022 he became famous. Mancuso is an Italian guitarist who’s been compared to Guthrie Govan (see #5). That’s saying something. The scary thing is that it’s not even an exaggeration.

The fluidity of his playing is simply astounding. He throws down one tasteful lick after another while mixing in some SERIOUS shredding. I mean, look at those picked arpeggios. Super sophisticated jazz ones, too. Speaking of major 7, minor 7 #11, #13 and b5’s here.

And I haven’t even mentioned what makes it stand out by far. Hell, it even makes him stand out on this list of innovative super players. Mr. Mancuso plays without a pick, using a technique that resembles a classical guitarist’s.

You think a pick allows you to play faster tremolo notes than a fingerpicker ever could? Think again. Or just watch the video below.

Mancuso is young (born in 1996), but already a force to be reckoned with. That’s why he’s influencing today’s YouTube generation. Yes, kids are starting to try to play like Mancuso. Yup, WITHOUT a pick.

5. Guthrie Govan

Guthrie Govan is probably the most technically accomplished guitarist of this century. I realized that I knew this guy long before he became famous. Because, well, he worked for a guitar magazine I used to buy.

I will never forget his monotonous “Hi, Guthrie here” when I played the CD that came with Guitar Techniques back in the nineties.

Sure, you could hear that the Brit could play, but since he was just giving you instructions on other players’ songs, you had no idea how ridiculously far his abilities actually stretched.

That all changed when he released his 2006 solo album, Erotic Cakes, and his efforts with the hyper-virtuosic instrumental power trio The Aristocrats.

Listen to those supercharged funk rhythms and how effortlessly he plays jazz, country, blues, and shred. And how he mixes it all together like it’s nothing. To make it even crazier, he does it while improvising in a very musical, interesting and virtuosic way.

Add to that his own style of 2.5-step bends that seem to come out of nowhere, and you have a legendary guitarist on your hands. He’s not even dead yet.

4. Bumblefoot

If you don’t know Bumblefoot, a.k.a. Ron Thal, his most famous guitar will tell you that we are talking about a very unique individual. I mean, a guitar in the shape of a foot, with wings coming out of both sides of the body when you push the whammy bar down… No kidding.

Oh, he also has his Swiss Cheese guitar, which looks like, well, Swiss cheese. And then there’s his Vigier twin-neck guitar. These instruments are mostly relics of yesteryear, but his twin necks are different. Imagine, the upper neck of this beast is a fretless… Yeah, this guy has a thing for weird guitars.

But that’s not all. He can actually play. He can play EXTREMELY well. Try to play a fretless guitar and make it sound good… Bumblefoot can. Says enough already. He’s also extremely virtuosic, a so-called super shredder. He can do everything, rock, metal, jazz, blues. And on a fretless guitar, mind you.

But what I like most about him is his extreme versatility and creativity. I mean, just look at how he uses hybrid picking in his song Real or his two-handed tapping on Abnormal. All of his records showcase that.

Some more good examples, you ask? Just listen to his song Guitars Suck and Guitars Still Suck, or his rendition of Frédéric Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu, one of the most technically challenging piano pieces the Polish composer ever wrote.

Oh, did I mention that he uses a metal thimble on his right pinky to extend his fingerboard?

If you don’t know him, you may have seen him live at a Guns ‘n Roses concert. He was a hired gun for Axl Rose’s band for about eight years.

3. Shawn Lane

Often called the greatest guitarist who ever lived. Shawn Lane was a monster. I mean, the American was so good and so accomplished that most players couldn’t understand his playing. That is why Paul Gilbert called him the ‘scariest guy of all time’. Go figure.

Why, you ask? First of all, because of his incredible speed. It was beyond what others could do. But he mixed that outrageous speed with not just ordinary scales.

He played bebop-style licks, used syncopation at high speeds, played odd note groupings, and used ridiculously wide intervals. Watching his guitar playing, you could only scratch your head. “How is he doing that? What is he playing? What is that?”

Shawn Lane became a professional guitarist at the tender age of 14 when he toured with Black Oak Arkansas. But he really began to make a name for himself in guitar circles with the release of Mike Varney’s Centrifugal Funk, followed shortly thereafter by his incredible debut album, Powers of Ten. On ‘Powers’, Lane showed that he was more than just the shredder he was after Centrifugal Funk.

His debut album featured intriguing compositions and a strong sense of melody. What’s more, he had amazing phrasing and was able to enhance haunting, slow melodies with beautiful and subtle playing.

Later in the nineties, Lane broadened his musical horizons by exploring Indian music with Swedish bassist Jonas Hellborg and incorporating it into his playing. This made his playing even more intricate and breathtaking.

Sadly, Lane died in 2003 at the age of forty after years of health problems.

2. Alan Holdsworth

Alan Holdsworth already became a famous axe-slinger when he joined the progressive rock band UK in the seventies. The band was no match for him. He was simply too good, his playing too sophisticated.

Because, let’s be honest, his jazz and fusion playing was so extremely advanced that most players simply couldn’t comprehend what he was doing. He coupled playing over the most complicated chord changes with an astounding technique. He mainly used legato techniques to churn out the most ridiculous licks.

By the way, those chords had such difficult fingerings they’re nearly impossible to play.

If you, as a guitar player, are listening to Holdsworth, it’ll probably go like this: You’ll first wonder how the hell he came up with that lick. Second, you will realize it’s nearly impossible to play. And then you need to realize Holdsworth did it while improvising, totally impromptu.

The man himself knew what he was doing was totally unique. That’s why he made his REH instructional video (yes, it was still the time of VHS video cassette tapes) called Just for the Curious.

I remember watching it. He explained how he thought about scales and chords. I was curious, but after that video, I still didn’t understand much of what he had explained.

To finish it off, here’s a bold statement: Holdsworth is probably the most unique guitar player who has ever risen to fame. NO ONE sounds like him. Or plays like him. Or thinks like him. He’s a pure legend.

Holdsworth died in 2017 of heart disease. He left a legacy that will puzzle guitarists for many generations to come.

1. Tosin Abasi

Tosin Abasi tops this list for several reasons. The most important one is that the American pushed the envelope of guitar playing and guitar technique at a moment when it seemed all possibilities on the instrument had been explored.

He burst onto the music scene with his band Animals as Leaders – originally a solo project – in 2007. His band makes instrumental progressive metal that makes Dream Theater’s music seem like child’s play. Just to give you an idea.

The American super virtuoso invented intriguing and complex new playing techniques. But he’s probably best known for his kick-ass slapping technique.

Yes, he wasn’t the first to explore this technique on guitar – like Eddie van Halen didn’t invent tapping. But the way Abasi uses his thumb on a guitar opened up a whole lot of possibilities on the guitar. Not only for lead playing, but also for rhythm playing.

And then there’s also this technique he calls cascading arpeggios. While muting the strings with his right hand, he does left-hand tapping (hammer-ons from nowhere) followed by occasional plucking, resulting in a ‘cascade’ of notes. It’s something previously unheard on a guitar.

In 2023, he did a YouTube interview with Rick Beato on his YouTube channel, together with John Petrucci and Devin Townsend where he explains and demonstrates this technique.

Oh, and then there’s the 8-string guitars he uses. He is single-handedly responsible for popularizing this extended-range guitar among mainly metal guitarists. Yes, other big bands and players use 8-strings, too, like Meshuggah, but it’s safe to say that Abasi’s djent style riffing on the low F# has been the most influential in the international guitar community.

Alright, there you have it, the list of the nine most innovative guitarists of the 21st century! Who did I miss, omit, forget? I would love to hear from you. Leave a comment in the comment section below!