In my youth, I never liked Les Pauls. I tried dozens of them and none of them appealed to me. Now I'm older, am no longer dyeing my hair green and am perfectly okay with not having high output Destructo-buckers in my guitars.
The neck is a comfortable thickness, neither a baseball bat or a wafer. The pickups have the grit you want without turning everything into a chugfest, the separate volume and tone controls for each pickup give you a huge range of sounds. Unless you absolutely NEED a whammy bar, this will play any genre of music you want and look that part while doing it. The figuring of the top is subtle rather than ostentatious and the weight is solid without being an anchor. If you audition with a Les Paul and don't get the gig, it wasn't the guitar.
It's become a trope to gripe about Gibson build quality, but the only fault I could really find with mine was that the nut and frets were too low for me to be truly happy, but that's just personal preference. I had a new bone nut and had some Jester 57110 stainless steel frets installed. Bam! Perfect.
I now get why the Les Paul appeals, and have since added a white Les Paul Custom to my collection to keep this one company. Get one, take a deep whiff of that vanilla-like aroma as you open the case, plug in and rock!
