If you were going to build a guitarist in a lab, you would try to build Eddie Van Halen. No one sounds like that guy, period. I was born in 1980, I can certainly remember hearing plenty of VH songs growing up. It's hard to compare guitarists from different genres and ages, but I would imagine if you lined up every guitarist you could think of on a stage and they battled it out, who in their right mind is going to call out EVH? (Going through the Rolling Stone top 100 guitarists maybe SRV) If nothing else, he might be the guitar hero of every artist that was my hero growing up. From the songs, the technical ability, to the fact that I don't know if anyone had more fun on stage than that guy. 2020, it's just the worst.