The 22 greatest guitar solos of all time according to ME, Part 2
Sep 16 '02
The Bottom Line Guitars are the way forwards.
Welcome back to all of you. Let me remind you briefly of why we’re here. This is part 2 of the 22 best guitar solos which I happened to come up with the other day. Like I said, no real criteria, just songs that get the old air guitar going.
Two quick points – a reminder first – if I name the wrong guitarist, then please let me know. But if you’re reviewing The Allman Brothers who are a guitar army onto themselves, it’s sometimes hard not to get confused.
Second point, an honorary mention. I recently got hold of The Black Crowes “Live”, and all I can say is that it gets an honorary mention. With the Crowe in general you’re spoilt for choice, and I simply couldn’t bring myself to choose a single guitar solo out of six albums of intense riffing. So, just like they did with Jimmy Page, I give this amazing double CD collection an honorary rating of,
TEN AIR GUITARS
By the way, Lynyrd Skynyrd are pretty good with guitars too.
With no further ado, the last 11 guitar solos…
ANIMAL
from VS.
by PEARL JAM
on guitars MIKE McCREADY
With Pearl Jam you’re spoilt for choice of excellent guitar solos, but I’m going with the screeching masterpiece towards the end of ‘Animal’. I suppose this could be Stone Gossard too, but as far as I’m aware Mike is the lead guitarist. The guitar solo comes in at 1.49 after a muted repetition of the chorus. It also drives the song into the growling finale of the song, and carries on soloing until the very end. There isn’t much more to add about this one, except that it really gives the pounding song that last oomph to the very end.
TEN AIR GUITARS
GRAZE
from SECRET SAMADHI
by LIVE
on guitars CHAD TAYLOR
Why are there so man Chad’s in the music business these days? Well, Live have cornered the Chad market by having two of them, but we only have to worry about Taylor, the guitarist. “Secret Samadhi” is Live’s most underrated release, and definitely their darkest. I do really love it, but I won’t say it matches “Throwing Copper” or “The Distance to Here”. I will say that ‘Graze’ is as good as anything on either album, and the guitar work throughout is impressive. There are two guitar solos, both emerging noisily from two separate choruses. Taylor’s guitar soars to the peaks of noise whilst always having a certain dirty off-kilter feel to it, from the growling fast paced start of the solo to the final hum of feedback that blasts across the speakers. It’s genius rock, and the second guitar solo is allowed to close the song, bringing it to an end at its peak.
TEN AIR GUITARS
BROTHERS IN ARMS
from BROTHERS IN ARMS
by BROTHERS IN AR… I Mean… DIRE STRAITS
on guitars MARK KNOPFLER
I do like Dire Straits, but in general I found “Brother in Arms” the album just a tiny bit too commercial, after the masterful “Love Over Gold”. But since I also watch West Wing (and what a show it is), I caught the finale of Series 2, in which the song ‘Brothers in arms’ plays over the last 5 minutes of the program. It’s amazing how they choreographed it all to slip into place around the music, but it is particularly inspiring music. Essentially, it’s one long guitar solo, so I won’t pretend to pick any particular sections. It’s simply brilliant, nearly perfect, atmospherically sad balladry. The whole song builds and builds, and never once allows you a moment to stop nodding your head sadly along to it. Beautiful.
TWELVE AIR GUITARS
A MURDER OF ONE (LIVE)
from LIVE ACROSS A WIRE
by COUNTING CROWS
on guitars DAN VICKREY
Despite being a relatively weak concert, Duritz and the boys really pulled out all the stops on this hard rocking version of ‘A murder of one’. It sounds wonderful, from atmospheric guitar-led pop to straight ahead rock and roll. Again, the band have three guitarists, and even though Adam credits Dan with it live, it’s entirely possible that David Bryson took some part in it. He starts soloing after about two minutes, regardless of what the song is going, but there is a traditional solo at 4.36, and it’s a great screaming finale to the excellent rock version.
EIGHT AIR GUITARS
THE MUSICAL BOX
from NURSERY CRYME
by GENESIS, THE EARLY GENESIS; THE GOOD GENESIS
on guitars STEVE HACKETT
Steve Hackett is probably one of the most underrated guitarists around, and “Nursery Cryme” showcases him at his best, with an excellent finger-tapping solo on ‘Fountain of Salmacis’, and the excellent guitar work throughout ‘The Musical Box’. His growling guitar bursts launch the song into the two louder segments, and at precisely 4.09, he sends his guitar into a soaring screech, and then plays relentlessly for almost a minute. It’s a breathless solo, but nowhere near as electrifying as the one that starts at 5.48. There’s a brief organ solo, but otherwise it’s solid guitar work until 7.40. And it’s all absolutely astonishing. Without the solo, the louder sections of the song would have nowhere to go. But Steve does it all, finger picking, distorted screaming chords, scales and it all sounds amazing. You just have to give this song a listen, it’s probably early Genesis’ finest hour.
TWENTY AIR GUITARS
BABE I’M GONNA LEAVE YOU
from LED ZEPPELIN
by YOU GUESSED IT, LED ZEPPELIN
on guitars JIMMY PAGE. He played with Led Zep didn’t he?
Staying in the seventies, but briefly switching instruments. This one is an acoustic guitar solo. Well, actually there’s quite a few solos on this track, all of them leading explosively into the loud chorus chanting. Essentially they’re staccato solos on Spanish guitar, high-pitched and fragile against Bonham’s solid drum rhythm and Plant’s powerful vocals. It really starts at 4.53 as a second acoustic guitar overlays itself onto the basic riff, and the solo is played intensely, a kind of nervous delivery that matches the desperate energy of the song and the stabbing stop-start structure of the song.
NINE ACOUSTIC AIR GUITARS
NO SURFACE ALL FEELING
from EVERYTHING MUST GO
by MANIC STREET PREACHERS
on guitars JAMES DEAN BRADFIELD, That last name is such a come-down, dontcha think?
This is quite a song, the closer for “Everything Must Go”. It starts with a beautiful little electric solo, which turns out to be the main riff throughout the song, one that repeats noisily on the chorus. The solo that really interests me is coincidentally also the finale to the song. At 3.31 the song-proper ends, and there is a brief drum roll as the solo comes crashing in, hitting chords and high-pitched notes and scales. It’s an extremely powerful effect, backed up with slightly processed drums and a very very noisy bass backing. It’s surprisingly affecting though, laden with desperation and raw emotion.
ELEVEN AIR GUITARS
I think the number of air guitars is starting to get out of hand. Not that it was ever meant to be a very serious form of measurement.
I LOVE YOUR BRAIN
from PISTOLERO
by FRANK BLACK AND THE CATHOLICS
on guitars RICH GILBERT
It’s a shame that Frank Black’s most powerful rocker appeared on his least interesting album, but this song makes the CD it’s printed on worth it. It starts as a guitar solo, turns into a different guitar solo, and then there is a new guitar solo every time that Rich Gilbert can get away with throwing one in. It’s purely visceral noise this track, but it’s oh so satisfying on that air guitar. The whole song just barrels onward unstoppably, all led by the virtuoso performance on lead guitar.
NINE AIR GUITARS
LUCKY
from OK COMPUTER
by RADIOHEAD
on guitars ED O’BRIEN
More atmospheric rock for a while. The grungy guitar feel of Ed O’Brien’s guitar hints at its explosive power which only really comes to the foreground properly for the solo starting at 3.12. It starts out very quietly and minimalist, and gets progressively noisy, eventually leading into the very end of the song on high-pitched soaring notes. ‘Lucky’ is one of the forgotten gems on “OK Computer”, and it’s certainly one of the best in terms of guitar power and performance. It invokes a threatening atmosphere, one which bursts into all-out rocking white noise, finally coming out of the other end back with the main melody of the song. A true classic.
TEN AIR GUITARS
SCAR TISSUE
from CALIFORNICATION
by RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS
on guitars JOHN FRUSCIANTE
John Frusciante is another of those guitarists who doesn’t really know when to stop soloing, so as often as there is a vocal pause, in comes that wonderful sliding guitar solo, a beautifully light sound that matches the poppy bouncy feel of the whole song. The guitars becomes a crucial part in maintaining the tone and allowing the song to stay simple and light-hearted. The sliding notes go with the relaxed laid-back lazy mood of the song, as the song meanders forward. The band really sound like they love making music on this one, and is just a celebration of their collective talents as a band.
NINE AIR GUITARS
HAMMER TO FALL
from QUEEN GREATEST HITS II
by QUEEN, but not THE Queen. Obviously.
on guitars BRIAN MAY
So, from one guitarist who doesn’t seem to want to stop to another who really can’t stop. Brian May seemed to love the hair-metal tradition of squeezing as many notes as possible into a bar – why play two if you can play twenty in the same time? ‘Hammer to fall’ isn’t quite as insanely self-indulgent as ‘I want it all’ (you can imagine the smoke rising from his fingers on that one), but the guitar solo is typical Brian May. It kicks in at 1.57, characteristically processed and very much evoking the Queen style. It’s a good solo on a great rocker though, and you’ve gotta love all those notes.
EIGHT AIR GUITARS
There, that’s me done. Back to reviewing albums for me, I think.
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Member: Simon
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