Top 10 Greatest Guitarists List Omits Eddie Van Halen

“Best Of” lists are subjective no matter the topic, but nothing gets rock and metal fans quite as riled up as when a magazine, website or other media outlet publishes one with some glaring omissions.

A list done by The Mirror last year has begun making the rounds again on social media drawing plenty of negative reaction. Social media posts show the publication’s Top 10 Greatest Guitarists Of All Time, shortened from their original list of 20. The top 10 is Brian May, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Slash, Jimmy Page, Carlos Santana, David Gilmour, Keith Richards and Dave Grohl.

Missing from the Top 10 — Eddie Van Halen, Angus Young and Tony Iommi, to name just a few. To be fair, The Mirror did list Angus at No. 12, EVH at No. 14 and Iommi at No. 15, but most hard rock and metal fans would likely have all three rated much higher. Randy Rhodes didn’t make the Top 20. Neither did Steve Vai, Richie Blackmore, Dimebag Darrell and several others.

SiriusXM DJ Eddie Trunk re-tweeted a post  by Rock History (@historyrock_) listing the Top 10, adding: “All lists like this are simply popularity contests. Not saying there aren’t some great players on here. But it just comes down to being popular and who people know. Because there are a TON of players that aren’t household names never in these discussions because they didn’t have hits or become mainstream names.”

The original article can be viewed here .