These are two of the  quintisential prog guitarists of the early movement, hailing from genesis and  Yes. The argument pertaining to which is superior has been going on for years. In your opinion, which is better?

Personally i would have to say that Hackett is superior. Although Steve Howe is superior to him technically, i believe that hackett's phrasing is far more effective and that his style is much more original.

I am not qualified to comment on technique and they are both versatile and very talented.I have heard lots of their work and in my opinion Steve Howe's guitar work is more interesting> in fact he is one of my top 5 favourite guitarists of all time with

Lifeson, Hendrix,Gary Moore and Carlos Santana.

I'm more of a Howe fan- I think his style is more distinctive, even though his usual guitar tone never really impressed me (but I love his fuzz lead and acoustic sounds). Hackett has a much wider (more creative) range of sounds, but he doesn't seem to be as adept as Howe at creating memorable or instantly recognizable  parts. Plus, Hackett tends to sit farther back in the mix most of the time, so sometimes his skill isn't as obvious.

When you get right down to it, I'm more of a Yes fan than a Genesis fan anyway, so maybe my opinion is skewed from the start. Still, put Mood for a Day/ Heart of the Sunrise up against Horizons/ Suppers Ready and I'd be hard pressed to choose.

Talent....equal.....technique.....in parity......coolness factor.....similar....no clear winner...does not compute.....bbzzzzzz.....unable to choose.....fizzzzzzz......overload......overload........BANG !!!!

Kind of rough assessment that Danbo!

Wakeman = giant among keyboard players

Bruford= well he's Bruford aint he? Him and Peart>>>>>> here

the rest >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>here!!!

Chris Squire a bass legend!

So if Yes is better than the sum of its parts they must be "the best band in the world ............ever!" TM

Prefer Hackett all round really. Howe can sound scrappy and un-rehearsed IMO. So did Hendrix and Zappa, but they got away with it because it sounded intentional and added to the excitement of the music.

There are bits on Topographic oceans which I think would have sounded better if a superior guitarist had played them. Hackett for instance

I'm not writing Howe off, I think he is ver talented just sometimes careless. He has had his moments; the Wurm section of Starship Trooper for example is excellent.

Reed Lover wrote: Kind of rough assessment that Danbo! Wakeman = giant among keyboard players Bruford= well he's Bruford aint he? Him and Peart>>>>>> here Chris Squire a bass legend! So if Yes is better than the sum of its parts they must be "the best band in the world ............ever!" TM

You know, I didn't give Bill his well deserved props. Among the Yes troop Bruford is the only one to actually do something above and beyond. As far as Wakeman goes, what he did with Yes clearly outweighs his solo ventures, IMHO. Chris Squire nicked the surface with Fish Out Of Water, but really, Yes defined him as a player. Same with Anderson, Olias was remarkable, but Yes, overall, was of higher quality. White, Kaye, Rabin, Khorshekov, Horn, Downes and even Moraz arguably laid their best efforts down in the name of YES. Same for anyone else I haven't mentioned.

Steve Howe for me, though sometimes he tries to play to precies and that doesn't always result in something good.

The all time greatest guitarplayers IMO are Jimmy Page, Jimmy Hendrix and ritchie Blackmore, followed by the aformentioned Steve howe and Hackett.

I go for Hackett - actually I find his technique far more polished and more articulate than tha of Howe's. When it comes to soloing, Hackett is more restrained in comparison, but that's not due to lack of venture or technique, but due to a peculiar, delicate, subtle sense of melody. Hackett makes textures sound complicated... and they are!, despite the level of pyrotechnics is not so explosive as in Howe's soloing parts. I love Howe, too, as well as Petrucci and Holdsworth, for instance, but personally I prefer the textures and subtleties of Hackett (and those of Oldfield's, too, though Mike's more spectacular than Hackett) and his sense of ensemble - even in his solo albums, Hackett thinks a lot of the band he play with when he lays his riffs, harmonies and leads.

HACKETT TO BITS!!!

Both are brilliant and well out in front of the rest.I admire Hackett for his decison to leave Genesis when they were going 'mega' to go it alone.He then continued to develop and has become more verstaile than Howe in some respects.But both are amazing players as regards prog so it's splitting hairs.

gdub411 wrote: Steve Hackett- because I like Genesis!.. I also like Satan

Aha! I knew it!

Of course, anybody THAT dedicated to "W".....

The bright side of Bush's re-election: New counterculture movement, civil unrest, and eventually switch of power to more "progressive" parties.

Downside: Can anybody say "Apocalypse"?  How about "World War 3"?  Or maybe just INGSOC.

Anyway, uh, Hackett's better at symphonic prog than Howe. Howe is better at, you know, what Yes does. So they're about equal. However, in Genesis' music, I don't really notice the guitar as much as I notice it in Yes' music. Therefore I think Howe is slightly better and definitely more distinguishable.

Difficult, but I'd have to choose Steve Hackett. As much as I admire Steve Howe, I have yet to hear his "Spectral Mornings".

I have to agree with Cesar Inca for this reasons (IMO):

1.- Steve Hackett has a more delicate and elaborate sound than Howe (who is great also). His solos are more virtuoso than Howe's. Howe has an excellent Rock technique, but Hackett is the closest you can get in the world of Prog' Rock to classical masters as Paco de Lucía.

Somebody said that Howe's solo's in Yes are boring, and that is true, he played two good songs (But not great ones either) like The Clap and Mood for a Day ad nauseam, Hackett always had something special to offer in side the Genesis tracks, because Genesis was never a solo band like Yes.

2.- As a composer Hackett has done everything and did it well, excellent prog' albums (VOTA, Spectral Mornings, To Watch the Storms, etc.) great Genesis and other bands renditions (Genesis Revisited and Tokyo Tapes) and a fabulous classical work as Midsummer Night Dream. Howe's solo are good, but not in the level of what he has done in Yes.

3.- Yes without Howe was second class in composition, but they still sounded great when Rabin played old songs, Genesis after Hackett was simply crap.

Peguin12 wrote:

However, in Genesis' music, I don't really notice the guitar as much as I notice it in Yes' music.

That's precisely the greatness of Hackett, he never played for him, he played for the band, he accepted to blend his guitar with Tony Banks keyboards to create the dark atmospheric sound that was Genesis trademark. In Yes everyone tries to be the star, in Genesis except for Peter Gabriel (Who did his frontman job with great style). everybody worked in and for Genesis.

Sometimes the non fan can think he's listening a keyboard solo like in Firth of Fifth or Watcher of the Skies when in fact he's listening a guitar solo, this is a sound that only a few artists after Steve achieved.

Iván

I'd go for Hackett. His playing seems to be to be more emotional than Howe's. Howe seems to be to be a very "technical" guitarist, playing precisly the right notes, but with little feeling.

I love the msuic of both Yes and Genesis, and both guitarists are perfect for their bands, but I find Hackett's solos more satisfying.

Has Howe ever matched "Firth of fifth" for a sheer spine tingling moment?

Whoever said that Howe is the better "technical" guitarist may be right, but don't forget - it was Hackett who invented the tapping-technique.

I like Yes, but I'm a Steve Hackett-FAN. He plays in such a romantc way Howe never reached, and this is what counts.

Hacket's solos sounds on the Genesis albums are bland compared to his solo albums like Spectral mornings and Defector: the goal of his solos on SEPTP were to give melody to the sound of his guitar. On the 2 mentioned albums above, Hackett uses all the room available in order to create extreme guitar sounds: at last, one can really see how Hackett is capable of in terms of sounding like a hero!

Regarding Howe, his solos are, like I've said before, amazingly bland. He is faster than Hackett, but he never sounded 1/10 of what Hackett did.

Regarding little Bob Fripp, his solos are subtle, but desperately sissy, soundless and complaining. His solos are perfect for Crimson, but he tried too many experimental things that he forgot to work on a richer sound. (Or maybe he never has't really care). On the other hand, his rythmic may consist in an irritating grunge sound, or a pathetic punk style like on sailor's tale. I think he is a bit crazy! Things become interesting on "Bringing down the light" (Fripp/Sylvian's The First Day), but, again, he uses some volume pedal to create almost keyboards sounds.

I find that Howe's most accomplished emotional moments are played on pedal steel and Spanish: of course, I don't intend to disregard the final lead on 'Turn of the Century', for example, but I thick that he's a damn good explorer on pedal steel textures. This aspect of his CV should be mentioned more often, I think.

On the other hand, many times Hackett manages to make his regular electric guitar sound as an eerie pedal steel. Just a thought...

Regards.

P.S.: Now that I'm listening to HTM's latest effort, let me tell you that Stanley Whitaker is a great guitarist, vastly overrated. His artistic creativity should be praised more often.