Venus Zine's Top Female Guitarists

By Marcus Gilmer in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 6, 2008 5:18PM

Way back before she became Avrilized, Chicago musician Liz Phair wowed the indie music scene with her stunning full-length debut, Exile in Guyville, an alleged song-for-song response to the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street. Fifteen years after Exile on Guyville's release, Phair finds herself listed as one of the greatest female guitarists by Venus Zine. The Chicago-based "leading source for coverage of women in music, art, film, fashion, and DIY culture" recently released a list of their top female guitarists of all time, itself a response to Rolling Stone's 2003 list of the top 100 guitarists of all time, a list that only included two females (Joni Mitchell and Joan Jett).

These lists are always fun to review and then complain about. "How could they leave so-and-so off?" This list is no different. We agree with most of the 46 picks Venus made. There are the obvious (Kim Deal) and the pleasantly surprising (Tanya Donelly). Though we do have our own suggestions that didn't make the cut (Julianna Hatfield, anyone?). What say you, readers? Which female guitarists hath Venus scorned?

Liz Phair image via her MySpace page