Almost every artist follows the same path to mastery: extended periods of concentrated effort spent honing the skillset, often followed by a long period of artistic imitation. This mimicry serves as a foundation on which the artist’s contribution of genius to his field of endeavor will be built. So it is with master instrument builders. In the 70s, Ibanez crafted copies with such intensity and diligence that they often surpassed the quality of the originals. Clearly, Ibanez anked among the world’s best. The big question: could Ibanez deliver their own original contribution to the guitar world? It didn’t happen easily. Or overnight. But in 1987, Ibanez created not one, but two guitars that would join the modern musical instrument pantheon. Developed first as the Roadstar, the fully “Ibanezed” pedalto-the-metal RG is known throughout the rock and metal world as a full-bore performer. The thin “Wizard” necks are only one of the many innovations that make the RG, the streamlined, n…

Fender is proud to celebrate five colorful decades of the Jaguar guitar by introducing the 50th Anniversary Jaguar model.The instrument takes players back to 1962, when Fender introduced an unusual new guitar that paired a sleekly modified Jazzmaster body style and elaborate control layout with a shorter scale and smaller, brighter pickups with more output. The resulting Jaguar was the fourth and last of Fender's original lineup of standard electric guitars. Perfectly matched to the early-'60s renaissance in design modernism (as exemplified by everything of the era from autos to aircraft to sunglasses to furniture), the Jaguar gradually acquired a fascinating pedigree quite unlike that of any other Fender guitar. A chromed-out, surf-rock staple of the 1960s, it found new life from the mid-1970s-on as a subversively offbeat alternative axe wielded by punk, post-punk, grunge and alt-indie guitar heroes and anti-heroes alike. The same guitar that originally crested waves of r…