Me and some friends got into an argument several years ago because I made the claim that this guy (Guthrie Govan) was objectively the best guitarist alive. The argument on their side was that music is a subjective experience, and that because of that, there can’t be a best guitarist. I saw where they were coming from but disagreed. While one’s experience of music is totally subjective, music itself is not. It can be measured. My argument was that by every metric you could measure someone’s ability on guitar, Guthrie Govan was the best: speed, timing, phrasing, competence across genres. Guthrie could play anything, and he could play it as well as the guys who specialized in that genre. Guthrie Govan isn’t and wasn’t my favorite guitarist, but he is, in my opinion, the most competent guitarist who’s ever lived.
