Gibson's "Norlin era" electric guitars
Gibson electrics produced during the "Norlin era" are units produced from 1970 through 1983; these are considered by many Gibson fans to be the worst guitars Gibson ever made, and for good reason - they were in fact awful.
The main reason why Gibson was churning out turd after turd during the 70s was because of corporate bean counters. During this time the corporate mucky-mucks running the Gibson show were blasting out that they wanted "NEW! NEW! NEW!" guitars. The end result is that Gibson delivered some seriously wacky junk the bean counters loved but guitar players absolutely hated. That's what happens when you let corporate idiots who aren't luthiers (or at least musicians) that know nothing about guitars run things.
After the near-total failure of the Norlin era, Gibson was put up for sale in 1984, and nobody wanted to buy the company for two years. Finally in 1986, the company was sold to Henry Juszkiewicz and David Berryman who bought Gibson for $5 million.
One more thing before continuing: Not all Norlin-era produced Gibsons are bad. Right before Gibson went into complete financial ruin in the early 80s, there were some good Les Pauls made, particularly from '78 to '81. However the vast majority of the rest of the line was just junk.
And now, on to the junk:
Gibson Marauder
Take a Les Paul Junior body shape, stick a pointy Flying V headstock on it, replace the better trapezoid inlays with cheap dots, whack off two knobs, move the output jack stupidly to the front, apply a crappy finish (or no finish resulting in "natural" just to save a buck on manufacturing costs), put in pickups that have a sound that do not sound like a Gibson at all, and you've got yourself a Marauder.
Pointy headstocks just don't go with the Les Paul single-cutaway shape design and never did. This turns an otherwise classic design into something that looks like a children's toy. The whole thing is just cheap looking.
Some Marauders did in fact have the trapezoid neck inlays, but not many. Most of them look like what you see above with the dots. There's also a very "woody" appearance, a weird leaning pickup in the bridge position that doesn't even match the pick guard's curve... it's like this guitar can't decide whether it wants to be a Les Paul or a Telecaster Custom, so it tried both and failed at both.
Depending on which year of Marauder you get, you're either going to get a 3-way toggle switch or a 6-way toggle/blend knob.
Worth owning as a player?
No. Those Bill Lawrence epoxy-sealed pickups are going to throw you for a loop because this guitar was specifically designed to compete with Fender, so the pickups have for lack of a better term have a much more "Fendery" sound to them. You'll never get Les Paul or SG growl out of the Marauder. Not happening. And no, it's not worth it to gut the guitar either because of the lack of controls that a Les Paul or SG would have.
Worth owning as a collector?
Somewhat. From a numbers perspective it's in the collector's favor as less than 1,400 Marauders were ever made. However, even with that low unit production count, these guitars are easy to come by and aren't scarce because even to this day, nobody wants them.
On the low end you can get a Marauder for $500 and on the high end around $1,100. In 10 years the guitar will probably be worth around $2,500 at most. Assuming the pickups aren't stone dead by the time you sell the thing, it's a safe bet you'll get double your money for what you paid for it - but it will take a long time to get there.
It's pretty much mandatory that if picking this guitar up for collector's value, all the electronics will need to be redone to overcome that oh-so-crappy build quality of the 1970s. When the wiring is replaced with modern proper braided wire with proper shielding, and the pots are cleaned out proper, she'll sound like she's supposed to. It's not a good sound mind you because it's that weird "dunno if I wanna be a Fender or a Gibson" tone, but at least it will work correctly.
Gibson S-1
We're doing a little (but not much) better here as the S-1 does look more proper than the Marauder does. On most models the headstock color matches the pick guard, the shape of the pick guard works much better with the all-vertical 3-pickup configuration and things just seem to have more symmetry to them. However, you've still got that Les Paul shape with a dopey pointy Flying V headstock on the other side and the crappy dots on the neck instead of trapezoid inlays on most models.
What makes this guitar a nightmare is what you don't see - the circuitry. Once again, this guitar was Gibson's attempt to compete with Fender by using single-coil pickups to specifically sound like a Fender, but at the same time trying to keep traditional Gibson humbucking tones, and that's where the nightmare circuitry is involved in an attempt to make all that work. Anyone who has to work on the guitar under the pick guard without a schematic is in for a rough time trying to figure out how this thing does what it does.
In this instance, you've got a Gibson that can't decide whether it's a Les Paul or a Stratocaster. The answer is that it's neither - BUT - to my ears it does sound better than the Marauder does. The Bill Lawrence singles in the S-1 at least give the guitar some character, tone-wise. Can't say that about the Marauder, but it can be said about the S-1.
Worth owning as a player?
No - but only for the reason the circuitry is a nightmare to work on. If you're good with electronics and can grab yourself an S-1 schematic, then you're fine and can work on the guitar should it decide to screw up on you. Otherwise, this guitar is one to avoid because of its underpinnings.
Worth owning as a collector?
Not really. Strangely enough, it doesn't command as good of a price as the Marauder does. You'd think it would but it doesn't. Why? I've no idea.
For the collector, given the choice between the S-1 and the Marauder, the Marauder seems to be the better investment - however I could understand if a collector wanted both the Marauder and the S-1 "just to have the set", so to speak.
Gibson Corvus
I saved the "best" for last - the Corvus.
The first question on your mind is probably, "What in tarnation is up with that body shape?" Oh, there was a reason for it. A bad one, but a reason nonetheless.
Corvus in this instance is Latin for crow, and the guitar's shape is supposed to look like a crow in flight with the head up and the wing down.
Nobody sees the bird in the design unless it's pointed out to them. For everyone else, this guitar is referred to as Gibson's "can opener" design.
What really gets me about the Corvus is that in the way guitars are designed, one guy doesn't make all the decisions for finalized shapes. Body shapes go through many people before they're actually made, meaning an entire committee at Gibson thought a bird-shaped guitar where nobody could see the bird in it was just a wonderful idea.
To add insult to injury, the part of the body at the bottom before the neck begins makes it look like the bird is taking a huge dump.
To add even further insult to injury, the Corvus looks even worse when hanging on a wall, because then it looks like a dead bird.
Now here's the truly ironic part: As awful as this guitar looks, it is the best of the Norlin-era new-design Gibsons as an instrument. It plays the best and sounds the best no matter what configuration you get it in, and does so for several reasons.
First is how the tuners are set up. The strings go straight from the nut to the tuning posts. This helps the guitar stay in tune a whole lot better compared to the pointy headstock where all the strings are at an angle after the nut to the post.
Second, the pickups are "the most normal". There's none of that epoxy see-through crapola here. As a result, Corvuses with singles sound "Stratty" and ones with humbuckers sound "Gibsony". There's no surprises as to the tone you'd expect, and that's good.
Third, and most important, the electronics are simple on just about all Corvus models. On top, the controls are easy to operate and there's no learning curve. When under the pick guard, there's no nightmare to be found, as the layout is the model of functional, well-designed simplicity.
Out of all the Norlin-era new-design Gibsons, the Corvus was truly the only new guitar made and not some rehashed Les Paul or Les Paul Junior made into something that couldn't decide what it wanted to be.
Unfortunately, the Corvus was dead even before the first one got delivered just from that unbelievably ugly body shape. Had Gibson been a little more reserved in the design for the Corvus, it probably would have done quite well.
Worth owning as a player?
If you can get past the body shape, yes. The Corvus is a good "workhorse" guitar. It's built well, can withstand gigging easily, plays easily and sounds proper.
Worth owning as a collector?
Also a yes - depending on color. White/Yellow and brown finish Corvuses command the most money. Basically speaking, the "more natural" colors (meaning not blue or orange) command the bigger bucks. However, pretty much any Corvus in good working order should double in value similar to the Marauder in 10 years. Right now a mint Corvus commands anywhere from $750 to $1,200, so it's probably safe to say it'll be worth the same as a mint Marauder in 10 years at around $2,500 if it's in one of the more desirable colors.
Will any of the Norlin-era guitars ever be worth more than traditional Gibson electric models?
That's an easy answer: No.
Guitar companies have hits and misses when it comes to electrics. All the new-design Norlin era Gibsons are misses. While Gibson tried like hell to get players to take notice of the new designs, nobody bought it. Gibson even had Paul Stanley and Ace Frehley of KISS fame endorse the Marauder in 1975 and that still didn't work. New-design Norlin Gibsons were just doomed from the start.
If you want something different from Gibson that might be worth something in the future, I suggest looking towards their "lower line" Epiphone brand for guitars that are made well and have good, usable features, such as the Epiphone Wilshire PRO. Good finish options available, great features (particularly the coil-tapping), and very affordable.
As far as Gibson-USA models are concerned, they're almost all overpriced to an extreme level, and you won't get back your investment until a significant amount of time has passed.
Note that I said "almost", as there are a few models new right now worth going for which aren't too bad, price-wise. One such model is the Melody Maker Special. For a USA-built, it's priced very well. Hang on to that for 10 years and you'll easily get more than double what you paid for it. It's certainly a better buy than any new-model Norlin era Gibson, that's for sure.
Gibson still has a few good gems that are decent investments, but you have to shop carefully and wisely to find them.
Top 5 guitar finishes companies always get right or always get wrong
What makes or breaks wanting a guitar or not for many is the finish. Now bear in mind "finish" does not mean the same as "paint". For example a "natural finish" obviously isn't a paint. It could be clearcoat to bring out the guitar wood's natural color, or maybe a stain to slightly darken a wood's natural color. So when I say "finish", I'm referring to paints, clearcoats, stains, semi-stains, "burst" style and so on.
Finish #1: Sunburst
Guitar makers always get this RIGHT.
There are probably at least 1,000 different sunburst finishes for guitars. Some are dark, some are light, some use traditional wood color + black while others use silver + blue and a whole host of other combinations.
To the best of my memory, I have never seen a badly-done sunburst finish even on the cheapest of electric guitars. Guitar makers seem to always get this right no matter who the guitar maker is. Even on the Squier Bullet Strat, which is a guitar that sells new for under $125, the sunburst color option is for all intents and purposes a perfect finish.
Finish #2: Green
Guitar makers always get this WRONG.
Green is a very, very difficult color to make look good on an electric. And when I say green and mean a real green like a Stratocaster in Candy Green, seen above. A green guitar is seen to most players as a disgustingly ugly thing because very few guitar makers actually get it right. It doesn't matter if the green is solid, flamed, sparkled, bursted or what-have-you, because most players think it's freakin' ugly.
There are very few greens that players consider to look good. Two examples of good-looking greens are Fender's Surf Green and Gretsch's Cadillac Green.
Just about all other greens suck.
3. Gloss Black
Guitar makers always get this RIGHT.
There is absolutely no way to screw up gloss black. Even with the crappiest quality control when building a guitar, gloss black finishes just about always come out looking right for the simple reason that any missed spot will stick out like a sore thumb because it will be very obvious.
While a gloss black guitar may be a bit on the boring side (unless it's something on the fancier side like the Squier Black and Chrome Strat), you can be rest assured that most of the time the paint will be absolutely correct. In fact, usually the only thing people ever find wrong with gloss black finishes are coating scratches - but never the actual paint itself.
Why do I say gloss black in particular? Because flat black, flamed black and other blacks can be messed up pretty badly - but not gloss black.
4. Blue
Guitar makers always get this WRONG.
Well, mostly.
Every guitar player at some point makes the mistake of buying a blue guitar. And yes, I've done it too.
Before I get into that, one kind of blue for an electric that doesn't suck is the pastel-like Fender's Daphne Blue. And the only reason Fender (and Squier) can get away with that color is because Fender electric guitar shapes kind of have those curvy car shapes from the 1950s. Yes, I am saying the shape of Fender guitars is what allows Daphne Blue and the similar Sonic Blue to work.
Is there a blue that works on Gibson guitar shapes? Yes. Pelham Blue is decent. Epiphone also has Pelham Blue guitars as well. Pelham is a mid-hue blue. Not too dark, not too light.
The blue hues that don't work are the darker kind as seen in the photo above. As I said a moment ago, every guitar player at some point makes the mistake of buying a blue electric guitar. The reason for buying the blue axe is always the same in that the player is "trying to be different". Well, different you will be, but the problem is that blue makes a guitar look really cheap no matter how ritzy the electric may be.
Can you name any guitar player off the top of your head that plays a blue guitar? I can't.
Well, there is one good thing about blue. If you ever become a famous guitar player, you can "claim" that color as yours. :)
5. Yellow
Guitar makers always get this RIGHT.
The funny thing about yellow electrics is that they suit all genres of music. Metal guys, country guys, blues guys, jazz guys... pretty much all of them play yellow guitars.
And you know what else? Yellow works on any electric. Fender Strats look awesome in yellow. Gibson Les Pauls, while I don't care for them, look awesome in gold (also a yellow). Yellow simply works on any electric. It doesn't matter if it's a bright yellow, a "burnt" yellow, a "faded" yellow (like the Arctic White on my Squier Bullet Strat) or whatever-yellow-it-is because players really dig that color, and so do I.
As for why so many players love the yellow, I couldn't tell you because I don't know. But I do know this: If you've never owned a yellow guitar before, yes it does take a set of balls to buy one because you're not exactly sure if you'll like it or not. Something in your head says "yeah, do it" while another says, "hmm... I don't know what others will think if they see me with that yellow thing".
This is what I can say about yellow guitars from a personal perspective. Finish color matters on a guitar no matter what anyone says otherwise. When playing a yellow guitar, my brain gets "sent" the message to feel relaxed, so I feel more relaxed when playing a guitar with a yellow or yellow-ish finish. With a sunburst finish I get a similar message "sent" to me by the color, but the yellow is always the clear winner as far as what makes me feel the most comfortable when playing.
Yeah, I know, that's weird, but true.
But it's not so weird when you consider the vast majority of acoustic guitars are natural-finish, which of course is a shade of yellow. :)
Whether a natural or painted, every guitar player should own at least one yellow-finish electric. Who knows? That yellow guitar might be your absolute favorite once you get one.
Rich Recommends: Epiphone Wilshire PRO
People know me as a Fender guy (a Squier guy more specifically), so why am I recommending a Gibson brand Epiphone Wilshire PRO?
Because it's the best thing Epiphone is making right now at the best possible price.
A quick rundown of the Wilshire PRO
I'm going to call this guitar what it is: It's a Gibson SG in a Strat-like body with extra added features.
As for what this guitar sounds like it, it sounds like an SG - but also can sound like a Fender Telecaster and I'll cover that in a moment.
As for what the guitar feels like, the body feels like a Strat and the neck feels like Gibson. And yes, the neck has the same glued-in neck joint, just like a Les Paul does. While I personally prefer the bolt-on, some like the glued-in design, and if that's what you prefer, the Wilshire's got it. Concerning the body, there's a nice large scarf cut in the back (similar to a Strat's "contour cut"), and trust me, that's a good thing.
As for how the guitar is controlled, it has four knobs just like an SG or a Les Paul would. They're in "non-standard" positions, but seriously, who cares? You'll get used to it quickly and easily. Also note the pickup selector is at the bottom, which is proper for a Strat-like shape.
Now here comes the reason why you should buy one of these (other than the amazing price): It has coil-tapping. Yes, you can coil-tap both pickups with the push/pull knobs to easily get Telecaster-like single-coil sounds out of this thing. You can get this feature on very-expensive Les Pauls or SGs, but on the Wilshire it can be had for so cheap it's ridiculous.
The Wilshire PRO is what I consider the "Strat guy's SG", or a "Gibson player's Strat". This guitar has everything where it counts. No, it does not have a vibrato system, but then again neither do stock Les Paul or SG models.
Wilshire PRO is a great guitar, and why these things are hardly selling is a complete mystery to me, because they truly do have it all. Strat body feel, Les Paul neck feel and SG + Telecaster tone. What more could you want?
It should be selling for $750+, but it's nowhere near that. Get one.
Play a girl's guitar and get YouTube-famous instantly?
This is something I wrote on social media, but it's worth a mention here because it makes a good point:
I have seen metal players with enough balls to tear up a Hello Kitty Squier. But I have *never* seen any metal player with the balls to tear it up on a Daisy Rock Debutante. If you want to become YouTube instant-metal-famous, do a drop-B riff on a Daisy Rock Debutante "Peppermint" or "Butterfly" and oh yes, you'll get noticed. Remember, there's no such thing as bad publicity. If you want to get famous on YouTube fast, play a "girl's guitar". Always works. :)
In all seriousness, the YouTube audience does like stupid videos. If you as a guitar player take the most "girly" guitar you can find, like a Squier Hello Kitty or like instrument that's decidedly "girly" and post YouTube videos of you playing it, you're basically guaranteeing yourself views just based on how "unmanly" the guitar you're playing is.
The crazy part is that yes, this does work. If you want fast exposure for yourself on YouTube as a guitar player, get a "girl's guitar" and play some metal on it. It will get you some views. Probably a lot of them.
Was the music of Eric Clapton any good in the 1980s?
1980s era Eric Clapton music gets kind of a bad reputation because many say that the 80s was when he released his worst music.
Well, I disagree with that. Clapton did in fact release some good stuff during the 1980s decade, it sold well for the most part and the fact of the matter is that the hit songs he had back then weren't "bad" at all.
Yeah, I will admit that you do hear a lot of synthesizer stuff from 80s Clapton, but bear in mind everyone was doing that at the time. Synths were huge in the 80s, having replaced the rock organs of the 70s. That was "the sound" back then, and at the time it was new and fresh, so you heard it a lot.
Clapton was very busy in the 1980s and the guy's music was everywhere. It was even in the movie Back to the Future from 1985 with the song Heaven is One Step Away; you can hear this on the Back to the Future Soundtrack CD.
In the 1980s, Clapton released five albums (I told you the guy was busy!), Another Ticket, Money and Cigarettes, Behind the Sun, August and Journeyman. The worst of the 5 was Money and Cigarettes, as it didn't even go silver, never mind gold. The best of the 5 is Journeyman.
I'm not saying all of Clapton's stuff during the 80s was great, but there were several great songs he released during that time. Songs like Forever Man, It's in the Way That You Use It, Pretending, and so on. That's all good stuff.