W
hen people who don’t play
guitar think about guitars,
they usually think about a
Fender Stratocaster or a
Gibson Les Paul. Like Kleenex is to
facial tissues or Band-Aid to adhesive
bandages, these two icons of the sixstring world are practically synonymous
with electric guitar in the minds of
many, and each of them represents a
distinctly different vision of what the
electric guitar is, as well as what early
pioneers of the instrument imagined it
could be. Fender represents a rather
utilitarian, Henry Ford-sort of approach
to guitar design, essentially just two
slabs of wood screwed together and
outfitted with some primitive electronics.
It is a simple, relatively inexpensive and
highly functional formula. The Gibson
Les Paul, on the other hand, has always
represented an approach to guitar
design that is more evocative of Antonio
Stradivari’s work than Henry Ford’s
assembly line efficiency, with a carved,
often highly figured top, fancier woods, a
set, glued-in neck carefully designed for
luxurious playability, and higher-output
humbucking pickups.
With its more refined aesthetic, more
expensive construction materials, and
more labor-intensive manufacturing
processes, the Gibson Les Paul has
generally always been a much more
expensive guitar than the Fender Strat.
This continues to be the case with
vintage models today. For instance, a
genuine vintage 1958 Stratocaster in
three-tone sunburst will run you about
30,000 dollars or so at the time of this
writing, while a vintage 1958 Les Paul
Standard in cherry sunburst will set you
back around 200,000 bucks (or more).
The Strat is no less great and inspiring
an instrument, of course, but a top-shelf
Les Paul is as much a work of art in its
own right as it is a tool for making art.
Not every guitar player needs or even
wants such an instrument, (the bolton neck, working person’s aesthetic of
Fender-style guitars suits many of us just
fine) but for those that feel the call of the
Paul, the price of entry into this rarefied
universe can be steep.
So what can a poor rocker do (‘cept sing
for a rock ‘n’ roll band)? Well, providing
that you don’t absolutely require a real
1958 LP “Burst” to do your thing, you
have an awful lot of good options. The
guitar world abounds with excellent Les
Paul-styled, single-cutaway instruments,
and even many of them at the lower
end of the market are appointed with
deluxe features like figured maple tops,
decorative inlays, and name-brand
pickups, electronics, and hardware. There
are also a number of real vintage Les
Paul-style guitars around that were made
by companies that are not Gibson, but
are constructed at a similar quality level
and cost much less (it’s really a great
time to be buying guitars, isn’t it?). Well
then, without further ado, here is a tidy
list of our favorite Les Paul alternatives
for the guitarist with a day job.
ToneReport.com
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