Neil Young is overrated if judge soley by chops...there's a million unknowns in LA alone who could blaze circles around Neil Technically.
But where it counts, conceptually and in his ability to communicate through his instrument, he's hardly limited at all, a B+ talent at worse who every once in a while hits an A+ stretch.
As Miles Davis said, the difference between a fair musician and a good musician is a good musician is a good musician can play anything he thinks. The difference between a good musician and a Great musician is what he thinks.
I'd call Neil Young a Fair musician who thinks like a great one. Or maybe, along with Ray Davies and a handful of others, the Best Bad Guitarist out there.
In the end, it's about communication and ideas, not pure musicianship, otherwise artists like Springsteen, REM, CCR, the Beatles, The Velvets and many others would never have attracted the broad fan bases that they have.
It's also why guys like Malmsteen and Joe Satriana and Eddie Van Halen will never be more than minor footnotes in rock and roll history. Great Talent, Pathetic Ideas.
I think the traditional 'guitar heroes' get too much bad press.
Steve Vai - a bad guitarist? Hardly! He's an incredible player with a varied and interesting career. He's played with everyone from Pil (with John Lydon) to Frank Zappa, to Nelly Furtado and David Lee Roth. I think people love supporting the underdog, which is why these guys get so muck. Some of Vai's music does not appeal to me, but if I said he couldn't play I'd be lying.
Tom Morello - His playing has to be put in context. When he did all those experimental solos at the beginning of the 90s, fret-widdling had been done to death. Morello pushed the boundaries on where a guitar solo could go. He is the guitar equivalent of a human beatbox. Clever stuff.
Neil Young - different category. Neil is an expressive player. I've heard him play solos that only use 2 notes - they fit the song perfectly. He doesn't use the guitar as a show-piece. It's a tool for song-writing.
Eddie Van Halen - Of course he played arena rock/hair metal! It was the 80s! Eddie Van Halen was a pioneer in a new form of guitar which has always been unfairly dismissed as 'irrelavent'. Is it possible that music journalists have convinced us that technical ability is a bad thing?
Which brings me to the point of this discussion...
The mid 90s and beyond, brought us some of the worst guitarists the world has ever seen as a backlash against 'fret widdlers'. Most Over-rated guitarist? That's easy -
Noel Gallagher (Oasis) - This guy is an absolute farce on guitar. He wires his pedals in the wrong way round on the first album. Not because it's 'inventive', because he's incompetent. Quote from Gallagher 'Scales are for f#&^ing fish!'. Noel only uses one scale (pentatonic), which goes backwards and forwards slowly on every song. Atrocious. He has no sense of feel, no music theory and no technical ability beyond 'bad busking'. It's not even 'punk'. He's redundant in every sense.
Oasis are one of the most successful bands in the UK. Media hype. You can convince people to buy anything these days.
just my 2 cents
....you are musically wise beyond your years!
Hybrid Mode
