Comments from other musicians

Some artists have expressed their admiration for Belew or have cited him as an influence, including Adam Jones of Tool,^[20] St. Vincent,^[21] Anneke van Giersbergen of The Gathering,^[22] Garry Roberts of The Boomtown Rats,^[23] William Rees of Mystery Jets,^[24] Nick Reinhart of Tera Melos,^[25] Josh Christian of Toxik^[26] and Sean Worrell of Nero di Marte.^[27] In an interview with Guitar Player magazine in 1994, Trent Reznor would describe Adrian Belew as "the most awesome musician in the world."^[28]

Session credits and other work

Belew is well regarded for his contributions, particularly on guitar, to various other artists' recordings.
In the 1980s, following his work with Talking Heads, he became a much in-demand session player. Among the albums he contributed to during this period were Ryuichi Sakamoto's Left-handed Dream (1981), Joan Armatrading's The Key (1983), Peter Wolf's Lights Out and Jean Michel Jarre's Zoolook (both 1984), Cyndi Lauper's True Colors (1986), Mike Oldfield's Earth Moving (1989) and Paul Simon's landmark Graceland (1986). During the mid-1980s he frequently worked with Laurie Anderson, appearing on 1983's Mister Heartbreak album and her subsequent concert film Home of the Brave (in which, among other things, he mimed playing on a specially constructed rubber-neck guitar and wore a paper bag over his head). In his 1984 instructional video Electronic Guitar, Belew explained and demonstrated the technology and techniques used to create some of his signature music.^[29]
In 1993, Belew played "synthesized guitar" on the song "God Shuffled His Feet" by Crash Test Dummies and also contributed to Sara Hickman's Necessary Angels album. In 1994 he first established himself as Trent Reznor's guest guitarist of choice, contributing to four Nine Inch Nails albums over the next nineteen years (The Downward Spiral, The Fragile, Ghosts I-IV, and Hesitation Marks). He worked again with Laurie Anderson on her 1994 album Bright Red. During the 2000s (decade), Belew was prominently featured on Tori Amos's 2001 album of cover versions, Strange Little Girls, and played on William Shatner's second musical album Has Been in 2004. In 2005, he featured as "primary guitarist" on the album Habitat by progressive rock band Man on Fire and contributed a solo to Porcupine Tree's Deadwing (2005). In 2006 and 2007 Belew contributed to two Pink Floyd tribute albums produced by Billy Sherwood: Back Against The Wall, and Return to the Dark Side of the Moon.
In 2016, Belew scored the Pixar short, Piper, which is shown before Finding Dory.^[30] And he featured on the album The News by Italian progressive/eclectic rock band N.y.X.^[31]