I've been meaning to delve into his work myself.

Prince is a good guitarist, but I have no clue what would make him worthy of this list.

This post was originally me being my smartass self, but instead I want to get serious.

Can we please stop pretending that rock guitar revolves entirely around blues rock, metal, shitty 80s arena rock bands that only your dad could possibly still care about and session guitarists who played for a bunch of lame forgotten pop acts who are only here for the vast quantity of their material? Pretty please? If only for just one day?

Sure, can we please get some contributions from people who want to discuss something other than what we always discuss? You mostly just pop by every once in a while to complain about these things, then run away again. Some contribution. I am very open to any suggestions if only people can support these suggestions with real arguments. Echoes is a great example of someone making suggestions without ever supporting them with good, reasonable arguments.

I'm not a Prince fan but I've seen him live and I can tell you that he is one hell of a lead player.

i'm a prince fan myself. used to be a huge fan... i place him up there with ray charles and stevie wonder as the holy trinity of american pop geniuses. and yes, he is an EXCELLENT guitarist!!!!! but an all-time great he is not... two totally different things. we've been over this many times in the years past. maybe someone less lazy than me could recapitulate those arguments...
anyway, look at the names below him and tell me with a straight face is he a greatest guitarist than them... use whatever criteria you wish...

And yet Joe Bonawhogivesafuck is worthy of the list?

Wow. Young white guy who can play a blues solo. Color me amazed.

You jump all over people when they say the same thing about Jack White.

This is more a comment on the difficulties of a list than a commentary on Prince, because I know there are SO many great guitarists that all seem to deserve some mention somewhere, but the problem is because rock has so many different stylistic variations that once you get past 50 or a 100 names then it simply becomes more a matter of 6 of one, half dozen of another. As a fan of Pearl Jam I appreciate Gossard and McCready's work immensely but I'd be thrilled to see either one of them replaced for a tour by Prince. I would be there every single night to see what he'd add and guarantee I'd be impressed in ways the others couldn't do for me. But on the flip side if you stuck them behind the purple one for a Prince show I'd be equally interested in what they'd bring to the table that would differenciate it from his normal approach. Therein lies the problem, for instance, I do not think the Davies brothers from the Kinks are necessarily more talented players than Prince (influence being their calling card, though there's still conjecture over who played the most iconic riff they had), but if you put Prince in their spot someone else could legitimately say that it was wrong. The lower down on a list you get, there's less separation within the criteria and people can jump fifty or more spots and still have it justified.

Except Jack White isn't really a blues guitarist.

White's music and thus guitar style has always been a hybrid of blues, garage rock/punk and power pop. He isn't purely one thing in particular.

Bonawhogivesafuck is just one of those guys who plays the same kind of generic blues rock you hear in every bar in America. Smooths it up so it's just pleasant background music to which no serious attention needs to be paid. Guys like him are to the blues what Kenny G is to Jazz.

Sampson, what is your opinion regarding the position of “newer” rock guitarists like Cobain, White, McCready/Gossard, Greenwood/O´Brian and Frusciante?

I have always though that they belong a lot higher and by the criteria I feel they could be placed right next to someone like Slash.

Yet you've never presented any good arguments, even after all these years.

I like them all but I think Frusciante is the best out of those for his versatility. Cobain's a polarizing figure so his guitarwork gets obscured by his overall persona. White can be really good but his reputation began to outsize him in a way, which is always a detriment to how you're perceived. I'm on record as liking PJ and Radiohead's guys are pretty well accomplished, just maybe not as iconic as players by non-fans of the group. As for moving them up though it comes down to who gets moved down and that's where the trouble arises (I would swap Frusciante and Cantrell however in a heartbeat, but that's just one spot apart, so it's not a big deal). Slash though is the epitome of the classic guitar slinger, his riffs are so central to GnR's work that I'd still have him highest of those guys.

Of "newer" guitarists, the guy I'm surprised to not see on the list, or mentioned here (unless I missed it) is Captain Kirk Douglas of The Roots. Obviously people don't think of guitarists in hip-hop, but since they became Jimmy Fallon's house band on TV that's enabled more people to see what those of us who were raised in hip-hop have long known, the guy is really damn good. The show specifically highlights Douglas's chops and versatility, as they obviously need to back a wide array of acts who appear on their stage. He is so classy on the instrument, he really needs to be brought up and championed some.

But being a polarizing figure should not affect his legacy as a guitarist. Cobain should be judged by the criteria and the facts are undisputed: his influence as a guitarist is off the charts and you can hear it from Radiohead´s early records to Gary Clark Jr. In fact I think he is the most influential guitarists of the last 20+ years. By contrast, Slash influence is almost none.

I also think that he scores really high in terms of creativity. As you said, Slash´s riffs are central to GNR, but so are Cobain´s riffs and solos to Nirvana. In fact, I don´t know a greater riff maker from the last 20+ years.

I also feel Cobain is iconic as hell, he will always be the face of the “grunge” era of rock guitar and a key element in the evolution of guitar driven rock.

If Slash is the epitome of classic rock guitar, Cobain is the epitome of alternative rock, and as you have said before, no style of guitar playing should be above another.