Johnny Marr and his hatred of sexist, macho guitar playing
Despite his significance to the indie genre, Johnny Marr has always been a punk at heart. While indie music has since evolved into various sounds not always linked to punk, it originally emerged from a blend of post-punk innovation and proto-punk energy. This fusion was embodied by Marr’s first notable band, The Smiths.
Marr was always the group’s driving force. His engaged approach weaponising arpeggios and open tunings was unlike anything listeners had heard when they burst onto the scene with their second single, ‘This Charming Man’, in 1983, the track that laid the foundations for the nascent indie genre. Following that zeitgeist-capturing moment, Marr continued refining his approach, and by the time The Smiths broke up in 1987, he had long been deemed one of Britain’s finest and most influential guitar players. Ironically, this would only be the start, and he had a long, creative road ahead, with many successes in store.
Critical to Marr’s style and success was the philosophy that underpinned it. Despite being a fan of folk, funk and older statesmen such as Neil Young and Marc Bolan, his approach was primarily motivated by the influence of punk guitarists such as James Williamson of The Stooges and John McGeoch of Magazine and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Committed to creating a tangible atmosphere like all of those he deemed fretboard greats – regardless of their discrepancies in genre – like many of his generation, Marr was also sick of the notion of the bloated guitar hero.
From the outset, he knew he wanted to conceive “interesting” hooks by blending his influences and, more importantly, in light of his punk attitude, avoid worn rock clichés. Banning power chords, distortion, lengthy solos and cheesy key changes, his chiming minimalist sound emerged from this tact, and so did the potency of The Smiths. While others before him had rejected classic rock bombast, Marr’s success in doing so took this idea to the masses and played a crucial role in a new approach to the guitar being popularised and alternative culture developing over the rest of the decade. No Marr, no The Wedding Present, Ride or Oasis.
As an outspoken Mancunian, Marr has never been afraid to discuss those he dubbed a blight on the realm of guitar playing. When speaking to Guitar Player in 1990, he surprisingly maintained that he has a “healthy respect” for the learned virtuosity of Joe Satriani and Eddie Van Halen, but stated that neoclassical players “like Yngwie Malmsteen should be forgotten as soon as possible”, due to what he believed was nothing more than peacocking. Due to this common perception, Malmsteen has long been one of the most divisive players in rock. Even he has admitted that his work is not for everybody.
Marr said: “I don’t know about America, but here [in the UK], no one has any respect for someone who can play a million notes per minute but can’t put together a decent tune that someone can sing to or feel some sort of emotion from.”
He added: “I have a healthy respect for guitarists like Joe Satriani and Eddie Van Halen, disciplined players who really know what they’re doing – if you’re going to be a virtuoso, you can’t be hit-and-miss. But I think people like Yngwie Malmsteen should be forgotten as soon as possible, I really do. It’s got very little to do with music, and the ‘I’m the fastest gun in town’ idea is almost like homosexual panic. Nothing against gays, but when players perpetrate this incredibly sexist image of being so macho, I find it suspicious. Plus, I can’t do all that stuff, so that’s why I say it’s stupid”.
Malmsteen’s form of guitar playing has very little to do with music, Marr asserted. He described it as a means of showing off with a hint of underlying sexism, so there’s no surprise he felt it antithetical to his punk trappings. Luckily for Marr, though, by 1990, a new wave of players emerged in Britain, and none of them paid any mind to the likes of the Swedish virtuoso. For the most part, guitar playing had changed for the better.
