Fender Has Lost Their Damn Minds

It feels like every week another fruitless and unnecessary piece of legal news hits my timeline.

I’m not the first, or last, who will share opinions about this online. But I am someone who has worked closely with the brand and *thought* I had a good idea about the company ethos. I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus from gear coverage, it turns out writing 5+ articles a week for 7 years can really take a toll on someone. But the original Fender lawsuit news barely registered more than a sigh from me. I wrote my initial thoughts up for Ultimate-Guitar, which were angry but sort of resigned to the fact that the guitar gear world had just become a corporate hellscape.

In the weeks since then, things haven’t seemingly gotten much better and are basically reaching comical levels of jack-ass-ery from Fender. I wrote so many words criticizing Gibson over the years, might as well be fair to both sides here and give Fender their due.

For years I have overlooked a few of Fender’s questionable decisions because at the end of the day they seemed to really support artists. They gave out a lot of discounted and/or free guitars to up and comers in the music scene, supported a diverse crowd of artists, and invested heavily in more affordable and creative releases across Squier, Mexican, and domestic Fender lineups. But between this Yamaha news, and this guitar store news, what the fuck are we doing here Fender? It’s like every good grace you have is being thrown out the door. You had nearly the whole guitar market and influencer army (including myself) eating out of your hands while Gibson floundered and boutique sales cratered. Gibson, for the record, you’ve cleaned your act up a bit and put out some incredible guitars (particularly of the Epiphone variety).

Shout out this LP, which is basically my main guitar these days:

But back to the big F…who in the time between starting and finishing this draft also has gone after Thomman. Other folks have said it better than I can. Maybe it’s corporate greed, maybe it is a sign of the tough economic circumstances, or maybe it’s long overdue. Either way Fender seems a lot less fun these days and I’m feeling a lot less inclined to cover their newest stuff. Back to cheap mod projects for me, including a new review of a Guitar World Kit that’s on the way!