Essential Connection

This year’s beautiful crop of award-winning instruments in our Gear Of The Year feature (page 60) highlights that, for all the right reasons, it’s harder than ever to decide how to spend your budget when it comes to upgrading your rig. Not only is the range of quality guitar brands wider than ever, but the quality of entry-level gear is frankly astonishing. Guitars such as those in Gretsch’s Streamliner range or Epiphone’s Crestwood Custom really do make you wonder if you need much more to get the job done. And yet, at the top end of the market, there are guitars that offer possibly the best performance and tone from a new guitar there’s ever been, including during the 50s golden era of the big USA makers.

The PRS Paul’s Guitar or Patrick James Eggle’s Macon are instruments that upwardly redefine how good an electric can be – if you get the chance, you should try one. So, where does that leave the ‘quality workhorse’ part of the market that exists between about £500 and 1,500? Well, Reverb.com recently published its list of the best-selling electric guitars of 2021. The top three bestsellers were, in this order, Fender’s Player Telecaster and Player Stratocaster, with third place going to the PRS Silver Sky. While the Players from Fender aren’t premium guitars, they’re not entry-level Squiers, either. The moral of this? First, you can get great instruments at any price-point these days, which places all the more emphasis on identifying guitars that you really connect with. If something ‘clicks’ it’s worth buying – and that includes if it is cheaper than what you thought you might buy. Because it’s that sense of affinity with a guitar that really leads to great music and is, as such, priceless. Enjoy the issue.