Is Kirk Hammett overrated?
For as long as I can remember, I’ve heard guitarists tear down Kirk Hammett. I’ve heard people say that they had friends in school who were better players. His over-reliance on the wah pedal is practically a meme. And since his purchase of the famous Greeny Les Paul, he’s found himself under near-constant scrutiny.
If you’re unfamiliar, Greeny is a 1959 Les Paul owned and used by Peter Green and then Gary Moore. The neck pickup has been reversed, giving it a distinct out-of-phase sound in the middle pickup position.
Why has Kirk’s purchase of this guitar led to more scrutiny? In a word: snobbery. The idea being that Kirk can’t hold a candle to Peter or Gary, so isn’t fit to own such a legendary guitar. And legendary it is; aside from the hugely storied pedigree of the guitar, Kirk supposedly parted with a 7-figure sum to get it.
Before we look into Kirk as a player, I want to point out how excited he is in the above clip — and actually any clip I’ve ever seen of him talking about guitars. It’s evident he didn’t buy it for the status, but for appreciation of it. That doesn’t make him a better player, but it’s nice to see.
That said, let’s analyse Kirk Hammet: is he overrated as a guitar player?
The first question that we need to ask is this: “What does it mean to be overrated?”
Technical ability
Certainly, Kirk isn’t the most technical player in the world. He freely admits that. Nor are his parts the most difficult to learn.
But Kirk isn’t rated highly as a technical player, so he isn’t overrated in this consideration.
This focus on technical ability is magnified in metal, especially as players have pushed the envelope on their techniques, including mind-blowing speed, tempo, accuracy and knowledge of music theory. Yet at the same time, there are other metal guitarists who don’t face the same scrutiny. Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi’s solos are firmly in the rock genre more than metal, but you’ll rarely hear him criticised. The same is true for Motorhead, from Eddie Clarke to Phil Campbell. Perhaps it’s because Metallica is specifically a thrash metal band, but I find it inconsistent regardless.
General ability
Kirk is without doubt a capable player. He’s able to play rhythm and lead comfortably, and he knows what he’s doing. He was a student of Joe Satriani, so we can be pretty sure he knows his way around chords and scales and at least rudimentary music theory.
He’s not going to win a guitar battle with Guthrie Govan, but then again who really would?
Studio and stage: performance & personality
There is a world of difference between nailing a song in the comfort of your own home with no audience, and then having to do it in front of people.
When the red light turns on in the studio to indicate it’s your turn, suddenly fingers turn to jelly and your brain decides it no longer remembers how to play.
Kirk Hammett plays in a band bigger than almost any guitar player in history. We’re talking sold out stadiums of tens of thousands of people, night after night, for decades. A lot of players would freeze in that environment, but not Kirk.
Social media loves to share the clips of him making a mistake, but that’s what social media always does: looks for the areas that can be mocked and ridiculed, amplifying something small and giving the impression it’s much larger. In Kirk’s case, one clip of a fluffed note can be amplified to look as though he doesn’t deserve his spot on the stage.
But this also gives us a chance to see another part of Kirk, and that’s his ego. Or rather, the lack of it. Here’s the viral clip of him botching the intro to Nothing Else Matters. Where other players might get angry or frustrated or pretend it didn’t happen, Kirk makes a joke of it, playfully falling to the floor before walking to the mic and apologising to the crowd:
Influence
As far as I’m concerned, this is where we really get to the heart of the matter. Kirk Hammett has been in Metallica for four decades — one of the most influential, popular, successful, and enduring metal bands of all time. To say he has influenced people is like saying McDonald’s sells the occasional burger.
There is, quite simply, no real way to overstate his influence. Kirk has turned non-players into players, and existing players into more dedicated players. Songs he helped to write in the 80s are covered today by people who weren’t even born when those songs were first released.
As testament to this, it was Metallica that was selected in the modern phenomenon Stranger Things scene when a metal guitar solo was required:
According to Loudwire, Metallica has sold over 163 million albums. That’s more than double the 75 million that Black Sabbath reportedly sold, and a universe away from Pantera’s 20 million.
I’m not one to say that just because something is popular means it must be good. However, we know that Metallica isn’t just big and popular because of marketing power. Even if they’d got big that way to begin with, no career is sustained for 40+ years just on marketing.
No, there’s a reason that it is Metallica who shifted so many albums and continues to headline stadiums around the world. It was’t Anthrax or Megadeth or any of the numerous metal bands with extremely proficient guitar players.
What is that reason?
The music moves people. Music isn’t just about technical skill, it’s about playing something that moves your audience. You don’t get as big as Metallica if you’re not moving people and playing the guitar parts the songs require.
Metallica could have replaced Kirk with any competent guitarist in the world. There are plenty of them out there, players with advanced knowledge of music theory, capable of playing extremely fast, accurate, and proficiently. But then they wouldn’t be Metallica.
They’d lose one of the factors that makes them so distinctive. In metal in particular, it’s refreshing to see a player who’s more concerned with the energy and suiting the song than giving a masturbatory display of their skills to impress other players.
And that’s the thing about Kirk: he’s the right player for the band.
How can Kirk Hammett be considered overrated?
I deliberately opened my assessment with the question, what does it mean to be overrated? Because the question is rarely asked, but essential.
And here’s my conclusion: Kirk Hammet is not an overrated guitar player. He’s not the tightest or most advanced player on the planet, but he’s done something that very few players have done on a larger scale, and that’s be a bonafide inspiration to countless people. He’s an active member of a band that has stayed relevant and popular over two millennia, putting smiles on faces all around the world.
And here’s a secret: every player has limitations. Sometimes they’re harder to spot in players who can bedazzle with speed and proficiency, but often those people aren’t writing killer songs. That’s their limitation — great technical players, less great at writing catchy hooks and memorable songs. Kirk is the opposite: less of a technical player, but with an enviable arsenal of songs.
As a parting note, something else I love about Kirk is that he’s clearly a guitar geek. He talks about the instrument with so much passion and excitement, like he’s still a teenager. At this stage of his career, you could expect him to be more jaded but he’s not. You could listen to him and never know that he’s one of the most successful guitar players of all time, because he speaks with the enthusiasm and passion of someone who just learned how to play their favourite song for the first time.
So no, I don’t believe Kirk Hammett is an overrated guitar player. I think he’s an extremely important player whose contributions to music will continue for a long time, and the myopic focus on technical proficiency is both unfair and immature.
Kirk has built his legacy and earned his respect.