We know that without the pointy guitar, there would be no such thing as an identifiable "Guitar Player Magazine" guitar product type. If the pointy guitar suddenly became unpopular, the entire industry devoted to the sales and promotion of same would become severely deflated, leading to widespread economic ruin. So there's a lot riding on the sharp angle of the headstock of the Phil Collen model Charvel/Jackson guitar, as promoted in the pages of Guitar Player magazine in February, 1986. Remember that for every Jackson, there's at least fifty me-too pointy guitars that make the mainstream guitar retailing business world go 'round and 'round. So much is at risk here that to make fun of pointy guitars is to mock the very foundations of the Guitar Magazine Culture and all it entails. In the face of this, we are given pause. For about three seconds.

Rob Warmowski: It had to have been at some point in the late 1970s that the pointy guitar made its first appearance. Discounting the body and headstock design experiments of Gibson, the rock and roll genre survived for decades without popularizing the headstock that looks like a scythe or the accompanying obligatory triangular fingerboard inlays. So exactly who is to blame for propagating this corny, unending trend? I don't know, but Def Leppard's Phil Collen is obviously not guiltless. Shirtless, but not guiltless.