First below is solo guitarist Lucas Imbiriba doing an instrumental cover of "Hotel California". His pyrotechnic techniques and improvisation get so heavy at times that whatever particular song he's rendering can seem to get briefly lost. That's fine for a live performance in front of an audience -- that's what people go to see. But for a studio or demonstration in the living room recording I can't help but feel that he needs to tone it down to mortal status a bit and color within the lines more.
Don't get me wrong -- visually he's an interesting guitarist to watch. He's more flamboyant than
Gabriella Quevedo. He looks like
he's burning it up, like they should just declare him the successor to
Tommy Emmanuel right here and now, not wait for the
master of guitar-pop to croak.
But the difference is that Quevedo creates a rich in tone, finely articulated piece of music that you can listen to in the background. Whereas Imbiriba's seems to lose something when you're not watching him. I realize that part of that is that Quevedo's father has some incredible audio equipment for her to work with. But what
she's been doing over the past year or two in terms of well-crafted arrangements and controlled, surgical precision on the fingerboard is unbelievable. She's only 24 -- where she's going to be in another ten years is frightening.
I ought to mention Sungha Jung, but I don't even recognize anything he's playing anymore, as far as titles go. I don't know whether it's Zoomer stuff or highbrow classics, or his own compositions, or what. Certainly he was a prodigy slash genius
as a kid, and he still is, no doubt about that. All the power to him.
And of course, apparently neglected by Wikipedia, 23 or 24-year-old Alexandr Misko is doing his thing in Russia(?) or wherever he's actually at now. Note here that he's using a stick to produce a bowed instrument effect:
https://youtu.be/oTxuNDYIkhU
Lots of young turks battling for the crown.
The vocal version for a "Hotel California" cover below is done by Milena Keimig, just so she gets an opportunity to be represented in this thread as singing in some other way than
mimicking Mark Knopfler's style.
Lucas Imbiriba - Hotel California cover (Eagles): https://youtu.be/4SQg3hVt44Q
Milena Keimig - Hotel California: https://youtu.be/ewyubormtGo