Digital harshness and fitting the mix

While I do agree with the writer that the guitar has to bring the mids, not the boom and the sizzle, I think it was a little too opinionated for my taste. (All the non master volume amps rule vs Mesa makes everyone sound somewhat similar etc).

I'll take it as just that. An opinion I can somewhat agree with.

Yes, thanks for sharing it's an interesting article, I'm not sure that I totally buy the idea that the amps alone account for the homogenization of music and tone. I just think that in all fields over time a consensus begins to form (or you could say congeal) until something new comes along that totally shatters that, in music this has become increasingly hard as the industry has played it safer and safer trying to construct the perfect money making machine (despite the loss of sales this is now causing).

The guitarists he mentioned weren't that close together, they were each trailblazers but they weren't the only ones, there are so many and not all of them were known for simple amp tones even back then, Gilmour, Santana and so on. The 80's and 90's threw up it's own crop of distinguished guitarists who sounded like themselves through FX laden tracks, John Squire, Bernard Butler, Eric Johnson, Slash, John Frusciante, Paul Gilbert, Joey Santiago and so on. I just think the author unfairly picked one genre that's known for a very similar and narrow soundscape i.e. nu-metal, it's like saying all dance music artists since 2000 sound identical because dubstep and wobble bass.