Why is Eric Clapton so roundly disliked among guitarists?

All artists reach a point where it’s no longer their moment in the sun, when they’re just an old lion resting its tired bones in the sun. And that’s when the jackals come for you.

When you’re as famous as Gilmour, or Clapton, people defer to you. As an artist who works within a certain ecosystem, I’m sure it’s exhausting to always have people following your lead. And after a while it doesn’t matter what shite you come up with; people are like “Brilliant!”. Fans are the same. How many artists have you heard put out substandard shite, only to have the public be like, “Take my money!” That’s because most people follow the pack, and if the pack agrees that this person or that person is an icon and a genius, these folks go along with the pack. At that point it’s a product being marketed, because what you’re selling is a brand more so that good music. The music is almost secondary at that point, because you can literally release almost anything and it’ll sell. At least for a while.

Anyway, I guess the only point I was trying to make is that success changes people. Your perception is your reality, and what is your reality when people all but worship you everywhere you go? Who are you once you’ve achieved all your dreams, have millions of dollars, the adulation of millions, and you’re flying around in private jets, being driving around in limousines, and staying in 5 star hotels where you’re brushing elbows with other famous people who all adore you? You’re not going to making the same music you did when you were young and hungry. How could a millionaire do that?

Hi everybody! I have been looking at posts on narcs and narc abuse on here and if has really helped me out a lot. I am currently struggling with my situation and need some advice/support. I met a narc last year, everything seemed to good to be true. Love bombing, always texting calling and taking me on dates. Everything changed when someone warned me about him out in public in front of him and who he is. This caused a conflict with us and the love bombing seized. he would tell me that everything is okay and i can come and talk. He would set a time limit on me and kick me out after that. he would then text me like everything was fine and we hung out again and after that he completely ghosted me for one week. He came back and texted me a week later laughing about the ghosting and acting like nothing had happened. he continued to text me ( not like in the beginning) make plans with me, then on the day of the plans he would just ghost me. One day he would act interested the next silence. i contacted him a month later and he acted like nothing happened. He was on a vacation and sent me a picture of another woman ( someone he allegedly met on the trip) to strike a reaction but i never gave him one. After the trip he came to my place and was extremely rude, accusing me of going on dates with a bunch of men. The next day he accused me of being an alcoholic and that he wanted nothing to do with me but said well maybe we can be "friends" then ghosted me i assumed at this point it was over and i would never hear from him again. He contacted me on the holiday a month later acting like everything was great. We ended up hanging out a month or so later and when we hung out it went well, i thought things were going in the right direction. after we hung out.. silence. I would try to text him and if he replied it would be very short then he just stopped replying. He ghosted me for almost three months. I thought he was done this time and of course he popped up again like nothing happened. At this point i was getting sick of if so i questioned him as to why he dissapeared and always does this. Of course he had some sob story about a injury and family member dying of cancer. I felt pity for him and he gave me an apology.. so i took him back stupidly. things seemed to be going smooth for a couple months, of course until his family member died and his injury got better he never contacted me and was distant. Menawhile, i was there for him during the difficult time for him. He lied to me about the funeral and never wanted to chat. I was chasing him and he would always claim nothing was wrong but when i said i thought he used me when he was down he could not handle it and would always tell me he didnt care and to go away. I would get so upset i would try texting him to work it out he would barelt respond and if he did he would not be nice about it. we did hang out a couple times after that, he would ignore me after. One day i was like hey i think you are seeing someone else, and i was like well ixam seeing someone so no problem if you are he said " buy bye good luck with your new guy stop contacting me" i was devastated and tried to get into contact with him for weeks then i just gave up and accepted it was over. He ended up contacting me a month later acting like everything was fine. He wanted to go out and have drinks i told him i would. He and i both seemed to have a great time. He ends up ignoring me again. I kept texting him trying to figure out what was wrong. He kept saying everything was fine and i said ok can we hang out again? He said maybe i was like why? He just kept saying maybe … our last conversation we had… i said what is wrong ? He said nothing is wrong everything is fine. I asked him why he keeps saying maybe. He said " maybe but i dont want to see you right now" i said why? He saix " im just not feeling it, if i wanted to date i would" i said why did you contact me less then a week ago wanting to go out? He said i didnt.. even though he did. So i said should i just move on or what? He said whatever you want to do. So i said that he was really confusing me and asked him if he had anything more to say before i move on? My messages were turning green so i panicked he blocked me and reacted irrationally. I said " omg did you block me? My messages are not going through. Even texted him on my work phone asking what was up. And called him twice ( please dont judge me i know it is pathetic i never was this type of girl before him) so he replied and said " Ok I'll block you now" then immedietly blocked me. He has never blocked me before since I have met him he will just ghost. Is this ths final discard aka " grand finale? Did i just push him too far? this has upset me so much its hard to even function.

Which bring us back to Clapton. Eric Clapton had that arc. He reached that point where no one was telling him “no”. He was so famous and iconic that all he had to was walk out on a stage and people were grateful for the experience. So I think he stopped trying. I mean, if people get excited over every little note you play, does it really matter after a while what notes you play? I remember hearing this one live recording of Clapton in the 1990s or, and he had played this really cool Bluesy lead that had some of the fire of his younger days, and then he played this one note which he sort of bent into a sustained it with just some vibrato. You know, just sort of shaking the note and the beat of the band. And THAT was when the crowd went wild. When Clapton played the most simple thing he’d played in the entire solo. One sustained note with vibrato.

We often forget that these iconic artists are people. Eric Clapton is a person. When you go around for years (or decades) with people fawning over your influence and your genius, and you’re rich and successful, you simply don’t have to try as hard. Not to mention, you essentially have no one to bounce ideas off of anymore because everybody has become a “yes man” and no one says “no” to you anymore.

David Gilmour, of Pink Floyd, recently announced a new album, and one of the things he’s talked about was the producer he’s working with, Charlie Andrew. Of Andrew, Gilmour said, “He has a wonderful lack of knowledge or respect for this past of mine. He’s very direct and not in any way overawed, and I love that. That is just so good for me because the last thing you want is people just deferring to you.”

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And as with everything, once you start losing your mojo, creatively or culturally, there are plenty of people eager to just tear you down. Younger generations come along, and at some point you’re just seen as a dinosaur, a relic of an age that has passed. That’s when the demonstrative, participatory hate comes in, when people begin to prove their edgy independent bona fides by flinging invectives at the dinosaurs that the pack has now defined as irrelevant. Clapton isn’t the only artist to suffer this fate. Most massively successful artists do eventually. The run out of gas creatively, and then they get trashed by popular culture for running out of gas. It doesn’t matter what your past work was, you’re defined as a has-been who can no longer “bring it”, even if on your worst day you could easily run circles around your detractors.

Simple. It’s fashionable to hate on Clapton. Just like there’s a performative “me too” on hating on bands like Nickelback, a lot of folks try to prove their discerning bona fides by following popular narratives, and one popular narrative is “Clapton sucks”, or however that’s expressed. But really, all that happened to Clapton was, essentially, that he ran out of fire. It happens to most creative people. I mean, think about it (no one ever does, though). Think of all the artists who’ve put out great music for years, and then suddenly that have that one runaway smash success that is essentially a high-water mark in their career. That changes who you are as an artist, because there’s before, and there’s after.