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Each week we’re featuring a playlist to get your mind going and help you assemble your favorites. This week we take a deep dive into the soft rock hits of the late ’70s and early ’80s, which have come to be known in some circles as Yacht Rock. The term Yacht Rock generally refers to music in the era where yuppies enjoyed sipping champaign on their yachts — a concept explored in the original web series Yacht Rock, which debuted in 2005 and has developed a cult following. Artists most commonly thought of in the Yacht Rock era include Michael McDonald, Ambrosia, 10cc, Toto, Kenny Loggins, Boz Scaggs, and Christopher Cross. Yacht Rock has become the muse of a great number of tribute bands, and is the current subject of a short-run channel on Sirius XM.
Here is a stab at the Top 100 Songs of Yacht Rock — not necessarily in rank order, with a few more added for honorable mention. We welcome your comments. What songs are ranked too high? What songs are ranked too low? What songs are missing? Make your case. Also, please let us know concepts for playlists you’d like to see — or share a favorite list of your own.
Artist | Title | |
---|---|---|
1 | Steely Dan | Hey Nineteen |
2 | Herb Alpert | Route 101 |
3 | Robbie Dupree | Steal Away |
4 | Jan Hammer Group | Don't You Know |
5 | Blues Image | Ride Captain Ride |
6 | Toto/Cheryl Lynn | Georgy Porgy |
7 | Gerry Rafferty | Right Down The Line |
8 | Paul Young | Every Time You Go Away |
9 | Boz Scaggs | Jojo |
10 | Johnny Nash | I Can See Clearly Now |
11 | Daryl Hall/John Oates | Sara Smile |
12 | Orleans | Dance With Me |
13 | Olivia Newton John | Magic |
14 | Seals & Crofts | Summer Breeze |
15 | Lionel Richie | All Night Long |
16 | Fleetwood Mac | You Make Loving Fun |
17 | Steely Dan | Deacon Blues |
18 | Christopher Cross | Ride Like The Wind |
19 | Little River Band | Cool Change |
20 | Jackson Browne | Somebody's Baby |
21 | 10cc | Dreadlock Holiday |
22 | Dr. Hook | When You're In Love With A Beautiful Woman |
23 | Boz Scaggs | Lowdown |
24 | Player | This Time I'm In It For Love |
25 | Fleetwood Mac | Everywhere |
26 | Steely Dan | Peg |
27 | Todd Rundgren | I Saw The Light |
28 | Gerry Rafferty | Baker Street |
29 | Eagles | One Of These Nights |
30 | James Ingram | Yah-Mo Be There |
31 | 10cc | I'm Not In Love |
32 | Ambrosia | Biggest Part Of Me |
33 | Terri Gibbs | Somebody's Knockin' |
34 | Atlanta Rhythm Section | So In To You |
35 | Boz Scaggs | Lido Shuffle |
36 | Steve Miller Band | Wild Mountain Honey |
37 | Michael McDonald | I Gotta Try |
38 | Matthew Wilder | Break My Stride |
39 | England Dan & John Ford Coley | I'd Really Love To See You Tonight |
40 | Player | Baby Come Back |
41 | Kenny Loggins | This Is It |
42 | Michael McDonald | I Keep Forgettin' (Every Time You're Near) |
43 | Toto | Rosanna |
44 | Daryl Hall/John Oates | Kiss On My List |
45 | The Doobie Brothers | What A Fool Believes |
46 | Christopher Cross | Sailing |
47 | Loggins & Messina | Watching The River Run |
48 | Eagles | The Long Run |
49 | Looking Glass | Brandy (You're A Fine Girl) |
50 | Bread | Everything I Own |
51 | Steely Dan | Reelin' in the Years |
52 | Joe Jackson | Steppin' Out |
53 | Jackson Browne | Doctor My Eyes |
54 | Sanford & Townsend | Smoke from a Distant Fire |
55 | Bobby Caldwell | What You Won't Do For Love |
56 | Fleetwood Mac | Rhiannon |
57 | Ace | How Long |
58 | Daryl Hall/John Oates | Rich Girl |
59 | Toto | Africa |
60 | Steely Dan | Do It Again |
61 | Bertie Higgins | Key Largo |
62 | Rupert Holmes | Escape (The Pina Colada Song) |
63 | Little River Band | Reminiscing |
64 | Jimmy Buffett | Margaritaville |
65 | Fleetwood Mac | Dreams |
66 | Firefall | Just Remember I Love You |
67 | Eagles | I Can't Tell You Why |
68 | Eagles | The Best Of My Love |
69 | Eagles | Take It To The Limit |
70 | Eagles | Tequila Sunrise |
71 | Chicago | Saturday In The Park |
72 | Bob Welch | Sentimental Lady |
73 | America | Sister Golden Hair |
74 | America | A Horse With No Name |
75 | Ambrosia | How Much I Feel |
76 | Alan Parsons | Eye In The Sky |
77 | Air Supply | Lost In Love |
78 | Steely Dan | Dirty Work |
79 | Steely Dan | Only A Fool Would Say That |
80 | Orleans | Still The One |
81 | Stephen Bishop | Sinking In An Ocean Of Tears |
82 | 10cc | The Things We Do For Love |
83 | America | Ventura Highway |
84 | Al Stewart | Year Of The Cat |
85 | Bread | Baby I'm A Want You |
86 | Firefall | You Are The Woman |
87 | George Benson | Gimme The Night |
88 | Barbara Streisand/Barry Gibb | Guilty |
89 | Christopher Cross | Arthur's Theme |
90 | Marty Balin | Hearts |
91 | Poco | Barbados |
92 | Daryl Hall/John Oates | I Can't Go For That (No Can Do) |
93 | Al Stewart | Time Passages |
94 | Jay Ferguson | Thunder Island |
95 | Dr. Hook | Sexy Eyes |
96 | Donald Fagen | I.G.Y. |
97 | Michael McDonald | Gotta Try |
98 | Bread | Make It With You |
99 | Pablo Cruise | Whatcha Gonna Do |
100 | Doobie Brothers | Dependin' On You |
101 | Ozark Mountain Daredevils | Jackie Blue |
102 | Pablo Cruise | Love Will Find A Way |
103 | Starbuck | Moonlight Feels Right |
104 | Billy Ocean | Caribbean Queen |
105 | Linda Ronstadt | Ooh Baby Baby |
106 | Hues Corporation | Rock The Boat |
107 | Loggins & Messina | Danny's Song |
108 | Rupert Holmes | Answering Machine |
109 | Stephen Bishop | On And On |
110 | Bread | The Guitar Man |
111 | Seals & Crofts | Diamond Girl |
112 | Air Supply | Even The Nights Are Better |
113 | Ambrosia | You're The Only Woman |
114 | George Benson | Breezin' |
115 | Daryl Hall/John Oates | She's Gone |
116 | Dave Loggins | Please Come To Boston |
117 | Rickie Lee Jones | Chuck E.'s In Love |
118 | Captain/Tennille | Love Will Keep Us Together |
119 | Dr. Hook | Better Love Next Time |
120 | Chilliwack | I Believe |
121 | Crosby, Stills & Nash | Southern Cross |
122 | Climax Blues Band | Couldn't Get It Right |
123 | Gilbert O'Sullivan | Alone Again (Naturally) |
124 | America | Daisy Jane |
125 | Beach Boys | Sail On, Sailor |
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Louis Armstrong said, “If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.” Duke Ellington said, “There are simply two kinds of music: good music and the other kind.” Christopher Cross said, “If you get caught between the moon and New York City, the best that you can do is fall in love.”
What do these pieces of wisdom add up to? Music, like love, doesn’t follow rules. Musicians as diverse as Armstrong, Ellington and Cross don’t want to be boxed in by genre. They want to write, record and perform and not spend time deciding if they play bebop or hard bop, blues or Southern rock, funk or disco.
But as temperatures heat up and people think of sailing away to find serenity, yacht rock playlists start to float in on the breeze. And that means drawing boundaries with enough latitude that artists don’t object to being boxed in and still foster playlists with a sense of meaning, a sense of continuity and depth. Peaks and valleys must be smartly balanced against the total annihilation of a common aesthetic. (Yes, despite a fascination with sailing and pina coladas, yacht rock can be taken seriously!)
And so, much to Armstrong’s chagrin, we have to ask, “What is yacht rock?” If it seems obvious, take a look at Spotify’s recent “Yacht Rock” playlist . Spotify is a global streaming leader with some 350 million monthly users, an army of music experts and cutting edge artificial intelligence, and yet the company filled its playlist with songs such as Tears for Fears ’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me,” Van Morrison ’s “Brown Eyed Girl” and Bruce Hornsby ’s “The Way It Is.”
If somebody wants to create and enjoy a stack of songs that runs from tunes by the J. Geils Band , to the Police , to Bad Company , to Talking Heads (yup, the company has all these artists on its playlist and even included Ray Parker Jr.’s “Ghostbusters”), they should do that with gusto! It sounds like an evening full of classic jams and fun left turns so cheers to the endeavor. But if a major player in the music business wants to do that and call it yacht rock, we need to take a step back and consider what is and isn’t yacht.
We know breezes, islands, keys, capes, cool nights, crazy love and reminiscing help define the yacht aesthetic (see works by Seals & Crofts , Jay Fergeson, Bertie Higgins, Rupert Holmes, Paul Davis, Poco , and Little River Band ). But let’s get beyond the captain’s caps and map the waters of this perfect-for-summer style.
Watch Bertie Higgins' Video for 'Key Largo'
Before 2005, people generally placed Toto ’s “ Africa ” and Holmes’ “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)” in the soft rock genre. Maybe if they were getting fancy, they’d call them AM Gold. But in 2005, the online video series Yacht Rock debuted. It fictionalized the careers of soft rock artists of the late ’70s and early ’80s. The cheeky show capitalized on the building renaissance of artists such as Steely Dan and Michael McDonald , who embraced the silliness of the series.
“When it came on I remember watching it pretty avidly,” McDonald admitted in 2018 . “My kids got a huge kick out of it. We would laugh about the characterizations of the people involved. At this point it’s a genre of its own. You’re either yacht or you're not.”
He might be right that you’re either yacht or you’re not. But calling it a genre doesn’t quite work (more on that in a minute).
Listen to the Doobie Brothers' 'Minute By Minute'
By the late ’60s, rock ‘n’ roll had become “art.” The Beatles started as simple teen heartthrobs covering early rock ‘n’ roll, but graduated to the supreme weirdness of the White Album . Chuck Berry gave birth to the Rolling Stones who gave birth to Led Zeppelin and the gonzo bombast of “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You.” And all sorts of acts went wild from the Grateful Dead , to Pink Floyd , to Frank Zappa and beyond. The sunshine of ’70s AM Gold came as a reaction to these wonderful excesses. Singer-songwriters aimed to take rock and pop back to the simple pleasures of tight, light tunes such as Beach Boys ’ classics, Motown hits and Brill Building-crafted songs.
Hippies looking for revolution and Gen X-ers on the hunt for rage, irony and sharp edges bristled at the genuine lyrics of tenderness and heartbreak neatly packaged in finely-crafted Top 40. Where the stars and fans of '60s and ’90s rock wanted arty and experimental music, anger and angst, yacht took listeners on a voyage powered by pure earnestness: think of the sincere and intense conviction of Dave Mason’s “We Just Disagree,” Captain & Tennille's "Love Will Keep Us Together," and “Love is the Answer” by England Dan & John Ford Coley.
(Which is why placing the Police or Talking Heads on any yacht mix doesn’t work.)
Yacht rock embodies the final charge of unbridled, heartfelt pop.
“I think these songs remain so popular because they are unabashedly pop,” Nicholas Niespodziani, leader of the hugely successful tribute band Yacht Rock Revue , explains to UCR. “They’re not self conscious. You couldn’t write a song like ‘Africa’ now. What are they even singing about? Who knows? But it’s fun to sing.”
Watch Captain & Tennille's Video for 'Love Will Keep Us Together'
Yacht rock doesn’t just have an earnestness to its lyrics, the sax solos come with the same level of sincerity.
If the style was the last gasp of unadulterated pop, it was also the dying breath of jazz’s influence on rock. Jazz rock started in the ’60s with Zappa, Chicago , Santana and Blood, Sweat & Tears , but slowly simple drums and growling guitars stomped horn lines and rhythmic shifts into the ground. However, yacht rock features echoes of swingin’ saxophones, big band horns and Miles Davis ’ fusion projects.
Yacht rock is very pop, but legitimate musical talents made those hooks. Chuck Mangione logged time in jazz giant Art Blakey’s band then took what he learned and crushed complex harmonic ideas into the pop nugget “Feels So Good,” which is basically a Latin-bebop-disco-classical suite. (If you dig “Feels So Good,” dig deeper and groove to smooth jazz mini-symphony “Give It All You Got.”)
Nearly every classic from the style features either an epic sax solo or dazzling guitar part. For horn glory, go spin Little River Band’s “Reminiscing,” Gino Vannelli’s “I Just Wanna Stop” or Grover Washington Jr. and Bill Withers ’ “Just the Two of Us." For six-string wizardry as astounding as anything Jimmy Page came up with (and much more economical), try Atlantic Rhythm Section’s “So Into You,” Pablo Cruise’s “Love Will Find a Way” and pretty much every Steely Dan cut.
(Which is why placing Tears for Fears’ “ Everybody Wants to Rule the World ” and Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me” on any yacht mix doesn’t work).
Watch the Little River Band's Video for 'Reminiscing'
Being a style, a feeling, an aesthetic, a vibe means that yacht rock can pull a song from a wide variety of genres into its orbit. It also means that it’s not just a catalog of hits from bearded white dudes. Yes, Kenny Loggins , McDonald and both Seals and Crofts helped define yacht rock. But quintessential songs from the style came from the women and artists of color, soul singers, folk heroes and Nashville aces.
For every Loggins' tune in a captain’s hat, there’s a Carly Simon track dressed up as your cruise director. Yes, there's Steely Dan's jazz influence, but also Crosby, Stills & Nash 's folk legacy (“Southern Cross” remains definitively of the style). Yacht rock playlists should also be littered with appropriate R&B gems, such as the Raydio’s “You Can’t Change That” (which features Ray Parker Jr.!), Hall & Oates ’ “Sara Smile” and Kool & the Gang’s “Too Hot.” Likewise, country acts of the era tried to go Top 40 while attempting to retain some twang and managed to make Love Boat music (see Juice Newton’s “Angel of the Morning,” Eddie Rabbit’s “I Love a Rainy Night,” Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers ’ “Islands in the Stream”).
It’s hard to tell if the Commodores’ “Sail On” is pop or R&B, harder still to know if George Benson’s “Give Me the Night” is pop, R&B or jazz. But they both feel yacht.
(Which is why Santana can do psychedelic Latin music and can do yacht on “Hold On,” and why the Pointer Sisters can do new wave disco with “Neutron Dance” and yacht with “Slow Hand.")
Spotify was right to think about diversity when making its playlist, though the company got the type of diversity wrong. Yacht has some pretty specific sonic parameters, but has no demographic restrictions when it comes to the kind of artists contributing to the style’s catalog. That means when you hit the high seas of yacht, you don’t need to be afraid to fight for your favorites to be included, just please don’t have one of those favorites be “Ghostbusters.”
We began talking about drawing boundaries with enough latitude that artists don’t object to being boxed in. The wide latitude yacht rock affords matters because music comes to define eras and outlines cultural trends (remember that yacht came in reaction to art rock and that says a lot about the swing from the late '60s to the early '80s). Calling Christopher Cross soft rock might feel right, but it doesn't tell us much about where he was coming from and what he was trying to accomplish. Calling Cross yacht rock, now that we know it's not a pejorative, illuminates his aesthetic.
Cross came out of the Texas rock scene that produced blues aces the Vaughan Brothers and guitar shredder Eric Johnson (who plays on a lot of his albums). He loves Joni Mitchell and that shows in his craft. He's jazzy but not jazz (see those horns and guitar on "Ride Like the Wind") with a vibe that's completely yacht -- developed from the scene that took '60s pop, updated it and sheltered it from the trends of punk, metal, new wave and hip hop. The same can be said for Loggins, McDonald, Simon, Lionel Ritchie and so many others.
Spotify needs to tweak its algorithm so it gets this right. Or, better yet, connect with the genre-crossing vibe that makes yacht so unique.
More from ultimate classic rock.
By David Browne
Summer’s here and time is right for dancing … on the deck of a large nautical vessel. During the late Seventies and early Eighties, the radio was dominated by silver-tongued white-dude crooners with names like Rupert and Gerry, emoting over balmy R&B beats, swaying saxes, and dishwasher-clean arrangements. Though it didn’t have a name, the genre — soft rock you could dance to — was dismissed by serious rock fans as fluffy and lame. But thanks to a web series in the mid-2000s, the style — belatedly named “ yacht rock ” — has since spawned a satellite-radio channel, tribute bands, and a Weezer cover of Toto’s “Africa.” Is the modern love of the music ironic or sincere? Hard to say, yet there’s no denying yacht rock is a legit sound with a vibe all its own that produced a surprising amount of enduring music perfectly at home in summer. (John Mayer even tips his own sailor’s hat to the genre on his new “Last Train Home” single, and even the aqua-blue cover of his upcoming Sob Rock album.) The resumption of the Doobie Brothers’ 50th anniversary tour, postponed last year due to COVID-19 but scheduled to restart in August, is the cherry atop the Pina colada.
Before yacht rock was an identifiable genre, Scaggs (no fan of the term, as he told Rolling Stone in 2018) set the standard for what was to come: sharp-dressed white soul, burnished ballads that evoked wine with a quiet dinner, and splashes of Me Decade decadence (the narrator of the pumped “Lido Shuffle” is setting up one more score before leaving the country). Add in the Philly Soul homage “What Can I Say,” the burbling life-on-the-streets homage “Lowdown,” and the lush sway of “Georgia,” and Silk Degrees , internationally or not, set a new high bar for Seventies smoothness.
The sophisticated high-water mark of yacht, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker’s masterpiece is the midway point between jazz and pop, with tricky tempo shifts, interlocking horn and keyboard parts, and pristine solos. Not settling for easygoing period clichés, these love songs, so to speak, are populated by a sleazy movie director (the gorgeous rush of “Peg”), a loser who still hopes to be a jazzman even if the odds are against him (the heart-tugging “Deacon Blues”), and a guy whose nodding-out girlfriend is probably a junkie (“Black Cow”). The most subversive cruise you’ll ever take.
The Doobies got their start as a biker-y boogie band, but they smoothed things out for Minute by Minute . Highlighted by “What a Fool Believes,” the unstoppable Michael McDonald-Kenny Loggins co-write, the LP piles on romantic turmoil, falsetto harmonies, and plenty of spongy electric piano. But it also proves how much personality and muscle the Doobies could bring to what could be a generic sound. McDonald’s husky, sensitive-guy delivery shrouds the unexpectedly bitter title song (“You will stay just to watch me, darlin’/Wilt away on lies from you”) and honoring their biker roots, “Don’t Stop to Watch the Wheels” is about taking a lady friend for a ride on your hog.
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Seals & crofts, get closer (1976).
The Dylan-goes-electric moment of yacht, “Get Closer” validated the idea that folkie singer-songwriters could put aside their guitars (and mandolin), tap into their R&B side and cross over in ways they never imagined. In addition to the surprising seductiveness of the title hit, Get Closer has plenty of yacht-rock pleasures. In “Goodbye Old Buddies,” the narrator informs his pals that he can’t hang out anymore now that he’s met “a certain young lady,” but in the next song, “Baby Blue,” another woman is told, “There’s an old friend in me/Tellin’ me I gotta be free.” A good captain follows the tide where it takes him.
Cross’ debut swept the 1981 Grammys for a reason: It’s that rare yacht-rock album that’s graceful, earnest, and utterly lacking in smarm. Songs like the politely seductive “Say You’ll Be Mine” and the forlorn “Never Be the Same” have an elegant pop classicism, and the yacht anthem “Sailing” could be called a powered-down ballad. Fueled by a McDonald cameo expertly parodied on SCTV , the propulsive “Ride Like the Wind” sneaks raw outlaw lyrics (“Lived nine lives/Gunned down ten”) into its breezy groove, perfecting the short-lived gangster-yacht subgenre.
The album that made Holmes a soft-rock star is known for “Escape (The Piña Colada Song),” which sports a made-for-karaoke chorus and a plot twist worthy of a wide-collar O. Henry. But what distinguishes the album is the Steely Dan-level musicianship and Holmes’ ambitious story songs, each sung with Manilow-esque exuberance. The title track equates a hooker and her john to co-workers at a department store, “Lunch Hour” ventures into afternoon-delight territory, and “Answering Machine” finds a conflicted couple trading messages but continually being cut off by those old-school devices.
The Dan’s last studio album before a lengthy hiatus doesn’t have the consistency of Aja, but Gaucho cleverly matches their most vacuum-sealed music with their most sordid and pathetic cast of characters. A seedy older guy tries to pick up younger women in “Hey Nineteen,” another loser goes in search of a ménage à trois in “Babylon Sisters,” a coke dealer delivers to a basketball star in “Glamour Profession,” and the narrator of “Time Out of Mind” just wants another heroin high. It’s the dark side of the yacht.
Michael mcdonald, if that’s what it takes (1982).
Imagine a Doobie Brothers album entirely comprised of McDonald songs and shorn of pesky guitar solos or Patrick Simmons rockers, and you have a sense of McDonald’s first and best post-Doobs album. If That’s What it Takes builds on the approach he nailed on “What a Fool Believes” but amps up the sullen-R&B side of Mac’s music. His brooding remake of Lieber and Stoller’s “I Keep Forgettin’” is peak McDonald and the title track approaches the propulsion of Christopher Cross’ “Ride Like the Wind.” With his sad-sack intensity, McDonald sounds like guy at a seaside resort chewing over his mistakes and regrets – with, naturally, the aid of an electric piano.
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Loggins’ journey from granola folk rocker to pleasure-boat captain embodies the way rock grew more polished as the Seventies wore on. Anchored by the percolating-coffeemaker rhythms and modestly aggro delivery of “This Is It,” another McDonald collaboration, Keep the Fire sets Loggins’ feathery voice to smooth-jazz saxes and R&B beats, and Michael Jackson harmonies beef up the soul quotient in “Who’s Right, Who’s Wrong.” The secret highlight is “Will It Last,” one of the sneakiest yacht tracks ever, fading to a finish after four minutes, then revving back up with some sweet George Harrison-style slide guitar.
Earlier in the Seventies, these jokesters established themselves with novelty hits like “The Cover of ‘Rolling Stone,’’ but they soon paddled over to unabashed disco-yacht. Sometimes You Win features three of their oiliest ear worms: “Sexy Eyes,” “When You’re in Love with a Beautiful Woman” and “Better Love Next Time,” all oozing suburban pickup bars and the somewhat desperate dudes who hang out there. The album, alas, does not include “Sharing the Night Together,” recently reborn by way of its sardonic use in last year’s Breaking Bad spinoff El Camino .
As a trailblazing female singer-songwriter, Simon was already a star by the time yacht launched. Boys in the Trees features her beguiling contribution to the genre, “You Belong to Me,” a collaboration with the ubiquitous Michael McDonald. The Doobies cut it first, but Simon’s version adds an air of yearning and hushed desperation that makes it definitive. The album also packs in a yacht-soul cover of James Taylor’s “One Man Woman” and a “lullaby for a wide-eyed guy” called “Tranquillo (Melt My Heart),” all proving that men didn’t have a stranglehold on this style.
More smooth hits for your next high-seas adventure.
“BREEZIN’”
George Benson, 1976
The guitarist and Jehovah’s Witness made the leap from midlevel jazz act to crossover pop star with a windswept instrumental that conveys the yacht spirit as much as any vocal performance.
“WHATCHA GONNA DO?”
Pablo Cruise, 1976
Carefree bounce from a San Francisco band with the best name ever for a soft-rock act — named, fittingly, after a chill Colorado buddy.
“BAKER STREET”
Gerry Rafferty, 1978
Rafferty brought a deep sense of lonely-walk-by-the-bay melancholy to this epic retelling of a night on the town, in which Raphael Ravenscroft’s immortal sax awakens Rafferty from his morning-after hangover.
“REMINISCING”
Little River Band, 1978
The Aussie soft rockers delivered a slurpy valentine sung in the voice of an old man looking back on his “lifetime plan” with his wife. Innovative twist: flugelhorn solo instead of sax.
“WHENEVER I CALL YOU ‘FRIEND’ ”
Kenny Loggins and Stevie Nicks, 1978
After its ethereal intro, this rare genre duet grows friskier with each verse, with both Loggins and Nicks getting more audibly caught up in the groove — and the idea of “sweet love showing us a heavenly light.”
“LOTTA LOVE”
Nicolette Larson, 1978
Neil Young’s sad-boy shuffle is transformed into a luscious slice of lounge pop by the late Larson. Adding an extra layer of poignancy, she was in a relationship with Young around that time.
“STEAL AWAY”
Robbie Dupree, 1980
Is it real, or is it McDonald? Actually, it’s the best Doobies knockoff — a rinky-dink (but ingratiating) distant cousin to “What a Fool Believes” that almost inspired McDonald to take legal action.
“TAKE IT EASY”
Archie James Cavanaugh, 1980
Cult rarity by the late Alaskan singer-songwriter that crams in everything you’d want in a yacht song: disco-leaning bass, smooth-jazz guitar, sax, and a lyric that lives up to its title even more than the same-titled Eagles song.
“BIGGEST PART OF ME”
Ambrosia, 1980
Ditching the prog-classical leanings of earlier albums, this trio headed straight for the middle of the waterway with this Doobies-lite smash. Bonus points for lyrics that reference a “lazy river.”
“I CAN’T GO FOR THAT (NO CAN DO)”
Daryl Hall and John Oates, 1981
The once unstoppable blue-eyed soul duo were never pure yacht, but the easy-rolling beats and shiny sax in this Number One hit got close. Hall adds sexual tension by never specifying exactly what he can’t go for.
“COOL NIGHT”
Paul Davis, 1981
The Mississippi crooner-songwriter gives a master class on how to heat up a stalled romance: Pick a brisk evening, invite a female acquaintance over, and suggest . . . lighting a fire.
“KEY LARGO”
Bertie Higgins, 1981
Yacht’s very own novelty hit is corny but deserves props for quoting from not one but two Humphrey Bogart films ( Key Largo and Casablanca ).
“AFRICA”
The same year that members of Toto did session work on Michael Jackson’s Thriller, they released the Mount Kilimanjaro of late-yacht hits.
“SOUTHERN CROSS”
Crosby, Stills, and Nash, 1982
The combustible trio’s gusty contribution to the genre has choppy-water rhythms and enough nautical terminology for a sailing manual.
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Few things defined the genre of rock and roll more than the guitar solo. Sometimes powerful and loud, at other times gentle and orchestrated, the guitar solo changed pop culture and the way rock musicians approach composing songs.
Ranking these solos isn't easy: There are countless solos throughout rock and roll's history that are worthy of recognition. To narrow down the selection process, our ranking only includes studio versions of songs, rather than live performances.
From Carlos Santana's "Europa" to Jimmy Page's "Stairway to Heaven," here are the top 20 guitar solos of all time, ranked.
Dickey Betts' Grammy Award-winning instrumental jam is a showcase of the Southern rocker's virtuosity of the guitar.
Throughout the song, Betts conjures a playfully upbeat melody that fits right in the middle of Chuck Leavell's top harmony on the electric piano and Gregg Allman's bottom harmony on the organ. Although the song is grounded by a dominant riff, Betts' playing constantly wheels through new rhythmic variations to keep the train rocking.
Released in 1973 two years after the death of band leader Duane Allman, Betts shines here as the lead guitarist on the track.
Chuck Berry shaped all future rock and roll songs with the release of his 1958 hit song "Johnny B. Goode." Though it's not the craziest guitar solo ever recorded, it certainly was integral to the development of the instrument and rock and roll because Berry brought elements of the blues and country to electric guitar.
This is apparent from the opening lick when Berry uses a double stop to play two notes at once while sliding down the first two strings. Throughout the rest of the song, he uses bends and slurs in ways that would be copied by everyone from The Rolling Stones to Jerry Garcia.
It's safe to say that most of the other solos on this list wouldn't be here without Berry and this song, and that electric guitar wouldn't have played such a primary role in the success of rock and roll without "Johnny B. Goode."
When "OK Computer" dropped in 1997, it was clear that Radiohead had a masterpiece on its hands. This was ever apparent in the band's lead single "Paranoid Android," which, inspired by The Beatles' "Happiness Is A Warm Gun," can be separated into four distinct parts.
Guitarist Jonny Greenwood has two solos in the song — a short one in the second section and an epic one in the last part of the song that sends it spiraling to its end. As it switches between 4/4 and 7/8 time, Greenwood's solo weaves through distorted sound effects before ending on a descending chromatic riff.
It's a wicked solo that helped establish "Paranoid Android" as one of Radiohead's biggest hits.
Eric Clapton's spin on Robert Johnson's 1936 Delta blues song "Crossroads" is a classic from the guitar legend's catalog. Over the years it has become one of Clapton's most iconic solos and is a fan-favorite to see live, as the guitarist improvises a new solo each time.
On the initial recording from 1966, Ginger Baker lays down a driving beat and Clapton goes to work with a dominant riff that he frequently repeats throughout the song. During his solos, Clapton draws from the blues and dances on the high strings, giving us tasty triplets and bends.
What might make the solo most impressive is that Clapton is actually playing on the off beat. He told Guitar World , "Most of that solo is on the wrong beat. Instead of playing on the two and the four, I'm playing on the one and the three and thinking, 'That's the off beat.' No wonder people think it's so good — because it's f---ing wrong."
In my opinion, Alex Lifeson is one of the most criminally underrated guitarists in progressive and classic rock, largely because he was overshadowed on recordings by Neil Peart's virtuosic drumming and Geddy Lee's imaginative bass playing. But on "La Villa Strangiato" Lifeson showcased his abilities with two insanely crisp solos.
The first is a Spanish classical guitar solo that starts out slow to ease us in before gradually building to an impressive winding flamenco riff.
The second solo is the vehicle that lets the band build up to the song's climactic breakdown. It starts out ambient and grooves along until Lifeson is screeching through slides and landing mind-bending licks. What stands out here is Lifeson's use of silence; it makes the delivery of each new phrase that much more impactful.
Known for Hendrix-esque stage antics and effortless blues solos, Stevie Ray Vaughan had a certain magic to his playing, as well as soloing that is unrivaled. When he was in a groove it was like he and the guitar were one entity, and listeners could feel the emotion being portrayed through his playing.
Arguably his best solo is on the track "Texas Flood." He seamlessly weaves stanky blues licks in between each of the song's verses and relies heavily on vibrato and string bends to achieve his signature sound.
An underrated part of these solos is the warm and tender tone of Stevie's guitar, which delivers the idea of devastating floodwaters to listeners' ears with ease.
"Sympathy for the Devil" is amazing in many aspects: It's one of popular music's best songs ever recorded, it's an amazing dance song, and it also features Keith Richards' best guitar solo.
As Mick Jagger sings from the perspective of the devil in each verse, he's building up for Richards to take over with his solo. Against the background of the samba rhythm coming from the percussion, Richards lets loose a howling solo.
He isn't constantly shredding throughout the entire last three minutes of the song. Instead, the empty space in between each of his crunchy licks emphasizes the power of his solo and keeps the listener on edge waiting for the next run to grace their ears.
Over the years this quintessential Laurel Canyon jam has turned into somewhat of a yacht rock classic, but "Hotel California" features one of the best solos in rock history. While others on this list earned a spot for their technicality, what Felder and Walsh prove here is that sliding into the pocket and grooving a more laid back solo can also prove to be just as successful.
As the two duel back and forth it's like they're communicating through their guitars. The solo features dramatic slides and iconic triplets that have become a favorite for air-guitaring over the years.
On this beautiful instrumental, Carlos Santana's guitar isn't just translating the guitar legend's beautiful playing, it's singing.
From the beginning of the song, the power of Santana's tone is apparent, driving the sorrowful nature of the track home. With about a minute-and-a-half left in the song, Santana's playing begins to seem frenetic. Energized by the clash of the drums, Santana speeds up and begins to shred, sustaining bends on the high strings and spitting out licks effortlessly.
Santana's solo has made "Europa" a signature track from the band and is what many consider its best instrumental.
Not counting session musicians, The Beatles almost never featured other artists on their records. On the rare occasion when George Harrison tapped his friend Eric Clapton to play guitar on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," he surprisingly didn't want to record the track because "nobody ever plays on The Beatles' records." But after some convincing and a promise that it would sound "Beatles-y," he laid down one of the rock world's most legendary solos.
What makes this solo so poignant is the meaning behind the song. Harrison wrote it as a social commentary about the abundance of hate in the world and humanity's inability to love one another. The song is summed up perfectly in the lyric "the love there that's sleeping."
Clapton captured the emotion of the song perfectly; it's as if with each sorrowful string bend he is pouring out his heart through his guitar. Unsurprisingly the meaning still holds up well today. Despite the fact that a non-Beatle recorded it, I'd argue this is the best guitar solo in the band's catalog.
Upon hearing the first few notes of "Voodoo Child," even a non-guitar player can tell that there's something about the way Jimi's playing the guitar that's special. It's a disorienting pattern of oscillating wah sounds created by the wah-wah pedal.
While Frank Zappa originally put the wah-wah pedal to use before introducing it to Hendrix and Eric Clapton , Hendrix would ultimately popularize the effect. Throughout the song, Jimi's guitar also features his signature feedback screech — something else he helped popularize — which he created by bringing his guitar in close range to his amps.
The solo is a masterclass in shredding and showcases Jimi's toolbox of effects that helped leave his mark in rock guitar history.
"Brighton Rock" is a song often overshadowed by Queen's other hits, partly because the energetic soloing on the track is out of character compared to the theatrical solos found on more grandiose tracks like "Bohemian Rhapsody."
But May's solo on this track is arguably his best. About two minutes into the song, May begins small with some tasteful triplet runs, with lots of echo and delay. A minute later, he picks up the pace and shreds some blues riffs.
But one of the best parts is May's energy with drummer Roger Taylor, who comes in with syncopated hits and uses the hi-hats to build on the suspense and power of May's playing.
Kirk Hammett's epic solos throughout Metallica's hit song are nothing short of breathtaking.
He begins the song slow and clean by soloing over some Spanish-influenced chords. Hammett returns to that motif in his second solo but elevates it with some slick triplets. On his final, critically acclaimed solo, Hammett dials into the militaristic sounds of gunfire and war that James Hetfield is producing. Later, he switches to some blisteringly fast triplets and throws in a few bends.
The song, and surely Hammett's solo, would go on to earn the band its first Grammy for Best Metal Performance.
Before "Purple Rain," the world knew that Prince was more than capable of creating pop hits like "Little Red Corvette" or "I Wanna Be Your Lover." But after the 1984 album and song of the same name dropped, it became clear that Prince could shred.
The emotion at the center of "Purple Rain's" guitar solo is a big reason why it's so memorable. It's at once evocative of the pain haunting Prince yet hopeful that the rain will cleanse him of his sorrow. The rock world has been better off ever since Prince's fiery blues licks graced the airwaves.
Would a best guitar solos list even be complete without "Free Bird"? While I may think the song is a bit overhyped, there's no denying the latter half is a riotous feat of guitar soloing. When played live it often turned into an extended jam session that showcased just how explosive the Skynyrd boys could be while improvising.
As guitarists Gary Rossington and Allen Collins duel solos back and forth, they use bends and hammer-ons and have an absolute shredfest. As the solo goes on it's almost impossible to stop yourself from dancing along to this Southern rock anthem.
The "Free Bird" solo left an indelible mark on the guitar world and whenever live shows happen again, you can bet you'll hear someone shout "Play 'Free Bird'!"
"November Rain" could have been like any other hair rock-era power ballad, but thanks to Slash's guitar solos, it lives on as one of the best guitar songs to date.
The song starts out sentimental and Slash's first two solos mirror that, producing mournful melodies that affect the listener. Slash's final solo during the last two minutes of the song, however, is a triumphant juxtaposition compared to the wails of sorrow pouring out of his guitar during the main portion of the song.
His epic, driving conclusion is a reminder that no matter how bad the heartbreak, better times are on the horizon.
David Gilmour's solos in "Comfortably Numb" are acts of genius. They portray the exact feelings the song is trying to convey — loss, melancholy, survival — and are so emotionally powerful they hit you right in the soul and make your hairs stand up. It's hard to do anything but close your eyes and nod along in amazement at the sounds produced by Gilmour's playing.
What's important is that Gilmour's solos are melodious — they are a continuation of the ideas in the song's verses and choruses and help push the narrative arc of the song toward its climactic end.
When Van Halen dropped its self-titled debut album 1978, people freaked out when they heard "Eruption" for the first time. No one had ever made melodies by tapping the way Eddie Van Halen did.
As I previously wrote after Eddie's death: The "Eruption" solo is "full of chromatic tapping, hammer-ons, and dive bombs yet there's nothing about it that seems superfluous, every single note helps hook the listener in. Even more impressive – or perhaps frustrating to other guitarists – is that the solo started off as a riff Eddie would jam with Alex while warming up for a gig or before the 'Van Halen' recording session until producer Ted Templeman encouraged him to record it."
The solo forever changed the landscape and vocabulary of rock guitar playing and it instantly became a measure of success whether or not you could play the "Eruption" solo.
Jimi Hendrix loved Bob Dylan's body of work and played many of his songs throughout his career but his rendition of "All Along the Watchtower" is among his best playing. It also gifted the world one of the best guitar solos ever.
The fact of the matter is that in 1968 when the song released, guitarists just weren't doing the things Jimi was doing. Through the song's four solos his distinct psychedelic tone mixed with his innovative playing style — in the third solo he used a cigarette lighter for the slides and his trademark wah-wah pedal is most present in the fourth solo — give "Watchtower" its frenzied spirit. It's no wonder the song became the anthem of the Vietnam War.
According to Rolling Stone , Bob Dylan told the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel in 1995 that he thought Hendrix improved his song. "He had such talent, he could find things inside a song and vigorously develop them. He found things that other people wouldn't think of finding in there. He probably improved upon it by the spaces he was using."
Since its release in 1971, "Stairway to Heaven" has topped numerous lists as the best rock song and best guitar solo of all time, and it's primarily thanks to the masterful architecture of Jimmy Page's guitar solo.
Page begins his solo on a 12-string acoustic guitar and keeps things slow and mellifluous, the pastoral lilt of his playing fitting in perfectly with Robert Plant's smooth vocals. About halfway through the song, John Bonham's driving drums come in and Page begins building the speed and power of his playing, preparing listeners for the song's epic crescendo. With about 2:07 left in the tune, Page switches to electric guitar and starts his gnarly solo filled with the bends, hammer-ons, and pull-offs that have made it a classic — all before crashing to the song's dramatic resolution.
"Stairway" immediately became the defining track on "Led Zeppelin IV" and cemented itself as one of the greatest guitar songs of the classic rock era.
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From rip-roaring metal bends to soul-stirring vibrato, the best guitar solos push guitarists to the edge with earth-shattering consequences.
The history of rock’n’roll has been defined by the virtuosity of countless legendary guitarists, all of whom have pushed their musicianship to the brink of near-impossibility. With dextrous skill, the best guitar solos remind us why rock music remains a life-affirming art form that continues to astonish us with the force of a hurricane and the power of an earthquake. Here, then, is our run-down of the 40 finest examples of face-melting fretwork fireworks…
40: the darkness: i believe in a thing called love (from ‘permission to land’, 2003; guitarists: justin hawkins, dan hawkins).
On a mission to bring the Lycra-clad stage antics of 70s hard-rock back into the mainstream, The Darkness saw their debut album, Permission To Land go truly stratospheric with the 2003 single I Believe In A Thing Called Love is more than just a novelty throwback. Though frontman Justin Hawkins tackles a couple of solos himself, it’s his brother, Dan, who takes on the biggest challenge by launching into a sensational contender among the best guitar solos.
Straddling the line between over-the-top flamboyance and pitch-perfect phrasing, Hawkins’ solo is completely worthy of his brother’s epic introduction (“GUITAR!” Justin yells, giving Dan the nod to uncage his inner rock god). “Right from the start, this song stuck out like a sore thumb,” Dan later said of I Believe In A Thing Called Love. “It’s at the Def Leppard/Queen end of what we did, whereas 90 per cent of our stuff was inspired by 70s AC/DC. And Aerosmith. And Thin Lizzy. Oh, I could go on!”
Underpinned by myriad unusual chords inspired by the jazz backgrounds of Steely Dan founders Walter Becker and Don Fagen, Peg was released as a single in November 1977, and stood out largely thanks to session wizard Jay Graydon’s virtuosic guitar solo. Sliding up and down the fretboard like a mysterious medicine man, Graydon never fails to cast his spell from the moment he double-bends listeners into awe-struck catatonia.
As notoriously hard taskmasters, Becker and Fagen hunted high and low to find the best guitarist to perfectly nail Peg, lucking out when Graydon entered the studio. “Every studio guitar player wanted to be on a Steely Dan record,” Graydon told Inside MusiCast. “I was just hoping my solo would make it on the record. All the time I hear: ‘Man, that’s one of the best guitar solos of all time!’ I’m not saying that – that’s what I hear.”
Hitting the US Top 10 in 1982, Toto’s yacht-rock classic Rosanna sails along to a half-time shuffle before blindsiding listeners with guitarist Steve Lukather’s scorching guitar solo during the song’s jazzy denouement. “I tend not to be so flashy,” Lukather told Guitar Player . “It just doesn’t come across most of the time. On something like Rosanna, I played a solo at the end which was never rehearsed.”
In other words, what’s since been hailed as one of the best guitar solo of all time was totally improvised on the spot. Utilising some delectable tone bending to summon his most tasty licks, Lukather’s impromptu performance lifts Rosanna into metaphysical realms.
Telling the story of Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and the fall of the Aztec Empire, Neil Young ’s Cortez The Killer uses a discordant, fuzz-laden effect on his long-serving “Old Black” Les Paul to paint a grim sonic picture with his guitar solo. Savage and yet intricately melodic, it’s a masterful performance that sits among the best Neil Young songs , and it perfectly complements the real-life historic story Young vividly evokes in his lyrics.
Twenty years after the song was released, Lou Reed admitted to being one of Neil Young’s biggest admirers – particularly after hearing Young’s 1975 album Zuma – and positively gushed about the Canadian rocker’s spine-tingling guitar work. “The guy is a spectacular guitarist,” Reed said. “Those melodies are so marvellous, so calculated, constructed note to note… he must have killed to get those notes. It puts my hairs on end!”
While it may be easy to take Terry Kath’s guitar solo on Chicago’s 25 Or 6 To 4 for granted nowadays, it’s important to remember just how groundbreaking it was at the time. Released in 1970, not only was it one of the longest guitar solos on a pop song up to that point, but Kath’s use of feedback and sustain was particularly innovative.
A dynamic example of how a guitar solo can elevate a song to new heights, 25 Or 6 To 4 remains a fitting testament to Terry Kath’s incredible skill as a player. Tragically, Kath died in 1978, at the age of 31, after accidentally shooting himself, but his legacy lives on thanks to the indelible influence he had on the many guitarists who followed him.
Full of complex runs and licks, John Petrucci’s fast-paced solo on Constant Motion, from Dream Theater’s 2007 album, Systematic Chaos , is a wondrously ambitious prog-metal marvel. Clocking in at over eight minutes long, it’s clear Petrucci put a lot of time and effort into perfecting this solo, navigating the song’s many different time-signature changes and tempo shifts.
Despite the song’s difficulty, Petrucci makes it look easy with his flawless guitar playing: the perfect showcase for his jaw-dropping technical proficiency and sheer bloody-minded musicality, Petrucci’s solo is a challenge for even the most seasoned musicians to play. It’s astonishing how Dream Theater ever got the ball rolling on Constant Motion, but we should be thankful they did.
Delivering a fine guitar solo that sends chills down the listener’s spine, Brent Hinds’ performance on Mastodon’s 2009 single Oblivion is the audio equivalent of watching a knight joust with a fire-breathing dragon. Bearing its fangs on the band’s fourth studio album, Crack The Skye , it’s a fiery blast of progressive metal that burns its way into the memory as one of the best guitar solos of all time.
Beginning with a slow build up, Hinds’ solo starts at around the song’s 3.32 mark and lasts around a minute, increasing in intensity as it goes on. It’s just one example of why Hinds is considered to be one of the best metal guitarists in the world.
Tucked away on Muse’s seventh album, Drones , Matt Bellamy’s superlunary solo on Reapers is one of the guitarist’s greatest. Overseen by iconic AC/DC and Def Leppard producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange, there’s a touch of glam metal to Reapers, whose savage takedown of drone warfare boasts an Eddie Van Halen -esque guitar performance that returned Bellamy to his rock roots.
Spidery and convoluted, Bellamy’s hyperactive fretwork tangles around treadle-controlled pitch-shifting aided by the magical squealing of his DigiTech Whammy pedal. As one of Muse’s finest rock moments, Reapers was released as the sixth single from Drones , and fans continue to fawn over Bellamy’s captivating solo, hailing it as one of his greatest performances.
By the time The Smashing Pumpkins released their second album, Siamese Dream , in 1993, their guitarist James Iha was already a force to be reckoned with. The album’s lead single, Cherub Rock, bore the unmistakable shriek of Iha’s guitar and contained a searing solo that is equal parts melody and noise.
Built around a simple three-note motif, Iha uses his solo to distil the band’s signature sound: alternately beautiful and abrasive, with an underlying sense of melancholy. His use of vibrato and note bends gives the solo a pleading quality, as if he’s begging the listener to understand. Don’t worry, James, we understand perfectly.
Coming straight out of the heart of Texas with their long-flowing beards, blues-rock powerhouse ZZ Top scored a No.41 hit on the US Hot 100 with La Grange, a propulsive two-chord rocker about a Southern brothel. With pure-power tube distortion and a fuzz-laden shuffle, guitarist Billy Gibbons feeds his deeply-felt love of the blues into a Marshall amp and delivers a barnstorming solo that kick-started ZZ Top’s lengthy career in the spotlight.
Inspired by a John Lee Hooker song called Boogie Chillen’, what makes Gibbons’ performance on La Grange one of the best guitar solos of all time is how vampishly it rides along to the song’s relentless backbeat. “We did three takes of the solo, and I just went off into the ozone,” Gibbons told Guitar Player magazine. It proved to be a star-making performance that remains a fan favourite among the best ZZ Top songs .
When it comes to iconic guitar solos, nothing quite compares to Peter Green ’s performance on Fleetwood Mac ’s Albatross. The understated and elegant solo – a laidback instrumental of reverb-addled tones with a beguiling surf-rock twang – makes the most of the song’s sparse arrangement and allows Green to lull listeners into a daydream.
With vibrato and bending techniques that give Green’s performance a feeling of yearning and nostalgia, Albatross became a huge hit in the UK and peaked at No.1, even inspiring The Beatles to emulate it on the Abbey Road track Sun King. It’s no wonder that Albatross endures as one of the best Fleetwood Mac songs – it’s a true classic in every sense of the word.
Demonstrating his mastery of the Gibson Les Paul, Tom Scholz’s barnstorming guitar solo on Boston’s most famous single, More Than A Feeling, helped the track become one of the best rock songs in history when it peaked at No.5 on the US Hot 100 in September 1976.
“It’s a piece of music that really takes me to someplace else when I listen to it,” Scholz told Entertainment Weekly . Combining bluesy licks with complex melodic runs, the guitarist’s star-making turn is well and truly captivating, earning its place among the best guitar solos by sheer force of will.
Though there are ample instances of Alex Lifeson’s fast and frenetic playing throughout Rush’s catalogue, the guitarist has cited his work on Limelight as his own personal favourite. “The sound itself is quite pure, and, with all of the dives and the falling repeats, it feels very, very fluid to me,” Lifeson told Guitar magazine in 1996.
As always, Lifeson’s playing is full of technical wizardry, showcasing his fondness for suspended chords and arpeggios, but it never sounds forced. Instead, Limelight’s solo flows naturally and enhances an already great song. It’s no wonder it occupies a special place in Lifeson’s heart.
Released as a single in 1990, Judas Priest’s Painkiller sees guitarists KK Downing and Glenn Tipton trade licks back and forth, creating a sense of urgency and excitement that is simply unbeatable. For one thing, the song pioneered a unique soloing technique called sweep picking. From goosebumps-inducing tapping and slick legato licks through to whammy-bar high jinks, Painkiller has it all.
Downing’s playing is particularly noteworthy, employing harmonics and vibrato to effectively convey the intensity of the song’s subject matter. However, Tipton’s melodic and catchy solo is no less impressive, acting as the yin to Downing’s yang. Truly ahead of its time, Painkiller more than earns its place among the best guitar solos of all time.
One of the most memorable songs of the 70s, it’s not difficult to appreciate why Ram Jam’s whip-cracking hit, Black Betty, became a classic-rock favourite. A fast-paced and energetic take on a blues standard, the song’s galloping solo sees guitarist Bill Bartlett deliver a thoroughbred performance.
Sliding his fingers up and down the strings, Bartlett uses vibrato and picks the strings as if coursing along a race track, flying towards the finish line like a prize-winning stallion. It all ensures Black Betty as a safe bet among the best guitar solos in rock.
Widely considered to be one of the best 90s musicians , guitarist John Frusciante, of Red Hot Chili Peppers , has created numerous solos worthy of legendary status. However, on Dani California, the lead single from the Chili Peppers’ 2006 album, Stadium Arcadium , he cut loose with arguably his most wild and primal solo yet.
Feverish and complex, Frusciante’s fretwork expertly conjures depth of feeling and palpable emotion. Varying his volume and tone like a master, it’s a bravura performance that proves why the guitarist is so respected by his peers.
Inspired by the gonzo spirit of Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas author, Hunter S Thompson, Bat Country is not only one of best Avenged Sevenfold songs , it also features an incredible guitar duel between Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance.
Both highly talented musicians, Gates and Vengeance’s instrumental stand-off brilliantly draws upon their incredible skills to capture the dark, brooding mood of the song’s lyrics. High-powered and fast-moving, Bat Country boasts the best guitar solo of the 2000s, and it remains a trippy and mind-altering listening experience.
Guitarists Mick Thomson and Jim Root both lay down some serious shredding on Slipknot’s 2008 single Psychosocial, one of the most memorable songs on the nu-metal group’s fourth album, All Hope Is Gone . Containing not one but two riotous guitar solos, the song finds the masked duo on blazingly good form throughout.
Thomson’s solo is up first, tearing through the riff with ease before unleashing a flurry of fast runs and tapping licks. Root’s solo follows, taking a more melodic approach, full of emotion and feeling, while still packing plenty of punch. It makes for a wild ride from start to finish.
After receiving a surprise invite from producer Quincy Jones, guitarist Eddie Van Halen visited Michael Jackson’s recording studio to lay down a soon-to-be iconic solo for the singer’s 1983 single Beat It. Amazingly, Eddie came up with the goods in around 20 minutes, dutifully wringing the neck of his guitar to make it screech and wail with howls of sublime distortion.
As one of the best guitar solos in pop history, Van Halen’s work on the track helped Beat It win Record Of The Year at the 1984 Grammy Awards, and the song quickly became an MTV-era classic. Amazingly, the guitarist recorded the solo entirely for free. “I did it as a favour,” he said. “I was not used. I knew what I was doing – I don’t do something unless I want to do it.”
With lyrics sung from the perspective of the Prince Of Darkness, The Rolling Stones’ devilish slice of samba-flavoured rock proved the perfect showcase for guitarist Keith Richards’ exemplary soloing. With twangy fervour, Sympathy For The Devil sees Richards cast a voodoo-like spell over the listener with a master class of vicious vibrato and fiendish feel.
Richards has rarely topped the deliciously diabolical feats he achieves here. Easily one of the best guitar solos he ever delivered, it is the sonic embodiment of wickedness and the perfect foil to Jagger’s poetic posturing. Though the Stones’ studio version is, naturally, spectacular, the live version of Sympathy For The Devil on Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! is perhaps the finest demonstration of Keith Richards’ improvisatory talents, capturing him at the peak of his powers during a show at Madison Square Gardens, New York City, in 1969.
When it comes to the pioneers of heavy metal, there are few guitar players more influential than Tony Iommi. Forced to rely on bending, vibrato and power chords to compensate for losing his fingers in an industrial accident, Iommi delivered a solo on Black Sabbath’s Paranoid that moves at breakneck speed without sacrificing any of his bluesy feel.
Pummelling the listener with quick, roots-based licks over a dark and portentous drum groove, Iommi’s jackhammering solo quickly saw the song gain widespread recognition as a proto-metal anthem. Helping to define the sound of heavy metal in the 70s, it remains a master class in hard-rock alchemy.
A true legend beloved by metalheads, Adrian Smith’s work for Iron Maiden has inspired generations of guitarists. The band’s 1983 single The Trooper, taken from their fourth album, Piece Of Mind , places his fast and melodic guitar style centre stage, stealing the show with a memorable and catchy solo.
Using a variety of techniques, among them vibrato, palm muting, and tone bending, Smith’s solo walked the harmonic tightrope between tension and release, and quickly came to be regarded as one of the best guitar solos heavy metal had to offer. Cementing the sound of a burgeoning genre, it leaves little doubt over the impact the best Iron Maiden songs have had on the world.
One of the most iconic and recognisable solos of all time, Angus Young’s performance on AC/DC’s Back In Black not only showcases some of the Australian axeman’s most legendary licks but also his all-round prowess. His use of space and silence, combined with his technical ability, easily makes it one of the best guitar solos in hard rock. Having already won listeners over with the song’s riffs, Young builds up to a series of fast runs that show off his incredible proficiency, leading to a spectacular solo that culminates in a huge bend that sustains for several seconds.
Though Highway Star is far from being the first rock’n’roll song written about a fast car, this Deep Purple cut, which opens the group’s sixth album, Machine Head , deserves credit for pioneering what would later be called “speed metal”. Ritchie Blackmore’s solo is a diesel-powered marvel, unashamedly breaking speed limits with a whiplash-inducing fusion of driving hard-rock and – of all things – classical music.
“I played those very rigid arpeggios across that very familiar Bach progression,” Blackmore revealed to Guitar World magazine. Grooving along to Jon Lord’s organ, Blackmore bestowed us with one of the best guitar solos and established Deep Purple as a pioneering force in the development of heavy metal. Without it, the likes of Motörhead and Metallica may never have existed.
With typically biblical bombast, Pantera’s Floods sees guitarist Dimebag Darrell ride a sonic wave like Noah fighting the seas on his ark. With frontman Phil Anselmo’s lyrics mining the book of Genesis, the song was clearly the start of something new for the band. Building to ambitiously catchy arpeggios, Dimebag starts off slowly but, by the time his solo reaches its squealing conclusion, it’s clear he’s single-handedly made Floods one of the best Pantera songs.
Doubling up on his bars in a similar manner to Ozzy Osbourne’s guitarist Randy Rhoads, Dimebag’s solo is a blistering highlight on the band’s eighth album, The Great Southern Trendkill , and it brought Pantera into metal’s upper echelons. In 2004, Dimebag Darrell, aged just 38, was fatally shot by a crazed fan at an Ohio nightclub. His legacy as one of metal’s greatest guitarists lives on.
Auditions rarely get better than this. Guitarist Marty Friedman joined former Metallica member Dave Mustaine’s thrash metal group, Megadeth, for their fourth album, Rust In Peace , and immediately blew the group away with his high-speed solo for Tornado Of Souls. Fast and aggressive, the six-minute wonder is riff-heavy and laser-focused, erupting thanks to Friedman’s otherworldly intuition for grandiloquent soloing.
Even more remarkable is the fact that Friedman’s solo was entirely improvised in the studio. “I just remember thinking that it was a lot of space to fill with a guitar solo,” he said in a fan Q&A on his website. Upon hearing Friedman’s ear-splitting exploits for the first time, a speechless Mustaine shook the guitarist’s hand in silent admiration.
Introducing music theory to Metallica’s game-changing thrash-metal sound, the band’s second album, Ride The Lightning , became what many consider to be the group’s mainstream breakthrough. New guitarist Kirk Hammett was clearly out to prove himself, if his career-defining performance on the six-minute epic Fade To Black is anything to go by. As if his sweeping introductory riffs weren’t enough, the improvised solo Hammett launches into towards the end of the song astounded listeners with its lightning-fast arpeggiated picking and breakneck legato licks.
Offering a window onto the Ennio Morricone-inspired landscape Metallica would roam on their self-titled 1991 album (aka “The Black Album”), Fade To Black stands out as an unfurling emotional journey from its melodic verses to its fast-moving metal breakdown. Not only does it contain one of Hammett’s best guitar solos, it’s quite possibly Metallica’s greatest musical achievement.
After fronting one of the best rock bands in history, Ozzy Osbourne’s post-Black Sabbath renaissance owed a lot to the genius of guitarist Randy Rhoads. Rhoads’ performance on Mr Crowley, the second single taken from Ozzy’s debut solo album, Blizzard Of Ozz , boasts not one but two hot-fingered guitar solos, wowing listeners with his innate virtuosity. From chromatic wizardry to pentatonic pull-offs, his work on Mr Crowley emulates the tapping style Eddie Van Halen perfected, while also adding lashings of fluid legato licks with ultra-speedy gusto.
A defining element one of the greatest metal songs of all time, the guitarist’s magic was captured during an After Hours TV appearance in 1981. Right up until his tragic death, in a plane crash at age 25, Rhoads inspired millions of metalheads with his incredible prodigiousness and mind-boggling guitar chops. Metal would never be the same again.
By recording a cover version of Robert Johnson’s Down To The Crossroads for their hybrid studio/live album, Wheels Of Fire , Eric Clapton was more than prepared to flaunt his mastery of the blues. Already a legend in his own time, Clapton’s performance on Crossroads is a freewheeling and ramshackle affair, his solo veering perilously close to losing tempo but ultimately emerging victorious and earning “Slowhand” his place among the world’s best guitarists .
With scalding bluesy phrasings and white-hot disjointedness, Crossroads is tempestuous and evocative, with Clapton’s solo throwing fuel on the fire of the rootsy original and forging a new path for high-energy blues-rock. The best guitar solos always push things forward to furtive territory, and this one is no exception. It ignited the cinder path that bands such as Led Zeppelin would later follow.
There’s no denying Prince ’s multifarious talents, but on the Purple Rain album ’s title track he proved that an MTV-era pop star could rank among the rock’n’roll elite. A power ballad boasting an epic guitar solo that etched magenta on a million hearts, Prince’s regal performance is by turns impassioned and bombastic.
Beyond all doubt, Purple Rain stands as one of the best Prince songs and shows its creator at the top of his game. Making guitarists green with envy at The Purple One’s sheer virtuosity, the live performance he unleashed at the close of his March 1985 concert at Syracuse, New York, was truly out of this world. Placing him at the heart of the cultural lexicon in a hooded sequined cloak fit for royalty, it was a moving and career-defining turn from a bona fide musical genius.
Nobody expected a pub-rocker to become a rock superstar, but Mark Knopfler dreamt big. Dire Straits’ debut single, Sultans Of Swing caught notice thanks to the scintillating sounds of Knopfler’s guitar solo, which stuck out from like a sore thumb in an era dominated by disco and punk. Smooth and easygoing, it ranks among the best guitar solos for the way in which Knopfler’s clean-as-a-whistle tone builds into a flurry of frantically played arpeggios.
As the song peaked at No.4 in the US and No.8 in the UK, it immediately thrust Dire Straits into the mainstream – a position they would hold well into the 80s. Just like that, Knopfler proved you could go from riffing in dreary pubs to selling out stadiums.
It says something of Eric Clapton’s generosity that he gifted The Beatles with one of his best guitar solos of all time. Invited to Abbey Road Studios (then EMI Studios) by his friend George Harrison, Clapton’s guest performance on While My Guitar Gently Weeps remains one for the ages. Almost literally making a Gibson Les Paul cry, he wrings every ounce of emotion from Harrison’s sorrowful melody.
Bringing life to the sentiment behind Harrison’s song, Clapton’s performance remains a signature moment for any guitar lover. It’s also the only time The Beatles invited a different lead guitarist to play a solo on their record. No wonder they didn’t do so again – this one is impossible to beat.
Known for pioneering a unique style of guitar tapping that was soon added to heavy metal’s growing box of tricks, Eddie Van Halen redefined the electric guitar for the 80s. Nowhere is this piloted more successfully than on 1978’s hard rock instrumental Eruption. Like a volcano bubbling with lava, the tune explodes with classical-inspired cadence, its tricksy triads demonstrating the guitarist’s unconventional approach to rock’n’roll.
Showy and excessive, Eruption was a highlight from Van Halen’s debut album and emboldened rock guitarists to try something completely new. Soon enough, tapping was all over the commercial radio stations, as Eddie’s performance set the blueprint for any aspiring metalhead to wrap their fingers around. From hyperactive fretwork to squalling distortion, Eruption was released as the B-side to Van Halen’s second single, Runnin’ With The Devil, but that didn’t stop radio stations playing it. It still sounds like nothing else.
Nobody could have predicted that Guns N’ Roses would find a home on MTV. Too rough to be glam but too musically accomplished to remain part of Los Angeles’ hard rock underground, the band’s breakout single, Sweet Child O’ Mine, was a breath of fresh air from a rock scene overrun with hair-metal bands. Undoubtedly, this was partly thanks to Slash’s coruscating guitar solo, which amounted to a Gibson-aided assault on the senses. Deafeningly loud and life-changing, it reignited the wider world’s then-dormant passion for rock’n’roll.
Plugging into a wah-wah pedal and dangling a cigarette from his mouth, Slash moodily winds his industrious fingers around Sweet Child O’ Mine’s magnificent solo with an attitude that verges on nonchalance. Making him a rock icon overnight, his solo also helped Guns N’ Roses’ debut album, Appetite For Destruction , sell over 30 million copies worldwide to date.
In a simple case of double or quits, the twin guitar solos on Eagles ’ panoramic soft-rock ballad Hotel California showcases a duelling battle of one-upmanship between Don Felder and Joe Walsh. It’s Felder who primarily holds the fort, kicking against the song’s six-string groove like a bellhop demanding a pay rise from an incalcitrant boss.
Having said that, there’s clearly something elemental going on here. “Every once in a while it seems like the cosmos part and something great plops into your lap,” Don Felder later told Guitar World. As if making music out of stardust, Felder and Walsh end up taking turns at soloing with undeniable panache, blessing the Hotel California album ’s title track with one of the best guitar solos ever. As one of the best Eagles songs , too, it’s not only an FM radio classic – it’s a modern standard.
Sometimes jokingly considered an albatross around the neck of rock’n’roll, the solo on Free Bird became short-hand for guitar overkill, no doubt thanks to guitarist Allen Collins’ blistering four-and-a-half-minute performance. Astonishingly, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s live show often stretched the solo even longer, brilliantly displaying the Southern rock group’s extraordinary jamming prowess.
Collins’ fretwork is, however, nothing short of majestic, soaring well beyond the song’s flighty chord arrangement to go down in history as one of the best guitar solos. Tragically, in 1977, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s plane crashed in Mississippi, killing some of the band’s members, but Collins miraculously survived. Refusing to have his seriously damaged arm amputated, he was later paralysed in a car accident and died of chronic pneumonia in 1990. Needless to say, his music still flies as high as ever.
Though Queen’s six-minute rock opera Bohemian Rhapsody was originally written on piano by frontman Freddie Mercury, Brian May added a touch of guitar-laced grace to proceedings. With a whirling solo that makes this ode to a wayward son infinitely more dramatic, May extravagantly crams in lashings of leaping harmonics and high frequencies without compromising the song’s eccentric genius.
His incendiary soloing acts as a prelude to Bohemian Rhapsody’s operatic section, dazzling the listener with busy-fingered brilliance before bemusing us with the song’s unexpected U-turn. With endless replay value, May’s performance never gets old and fully deserves its place among the best guitar solos. The guitarist would go on to create increasingly ambitious solos in Queen’s later years, but this one captures a magic that would rarely be replicated again.
Jimi Hendrix ’s breathtaking solo on his cover of Bob Dylan’s All Along The Watchtower is a true work of art. “It overwhelmed me, really,” Dylan said of Hendrix’s work. “He had such talent, he could find things inside a song and vigorously develop them.” Taken from The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s third album, Electric Ladyland , Hendrix’s soloing initially starts off with mellow tones before his innovative use of delay pedals eventually lifts the song to unassailable heights.
Masterful and mesmerising, it left little doubt in anyone’s mind about Jimi Hendrix’s superlative talents. Still regarded as one of the greatest guitarists of all time, Hendrix’s high-octane All Along The Watchtower performance proves his genius and stands tall among the best guitar solos for completely reinventing Bob Dylan’s original folky tune. It’s arguably the definitive cut.
Unmoored from Led Zeppelin’s bluesy bedrock and more attuned to the free-floating melancholy of English folk, Stairway To Heaven found guitarist Jimmy Page flaunting his innate skill on his Gibson EDS-1275 like a stage-bound angel stretching his wings. Of all the moments that make up the best Led Zeppelin songs , Page’s solo has acquired almost mythic status.
“It was a milestone for us,” the guitarist told Rolling Stone in 1975, four years after the song had appeared on Led Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album. “Every musician wants to do something of lasting quality, something which will hold up for a long time, and I guess we did it with Stairway.” Page was preaching to the converted. His solo on Stairway To Heaven takes a song about fate into the celestial realm, the guitarist hurling himself skyward with a divine performance that continues to inspire quasi-religious awe.
Topping our list of the best guitar solos, David Gilmour’s fretwork on Comfortably Numb provides a high point on Pink Floyd’s 1980 album, The Wall . A rousing rock ballad, the song is elevated by Gilmour’s goosebumps-inducing solo – a hugely emotive and undeniably vital performance which ebbs and flows with woozy finesse.
Incontestably, Comfortably Numb is musically inventive and truly rapturous to behold. As Gilmour touches the clouds, his fingers moving like blissful tendrils stretching to the heavens, there can be no doubt that this, one of his best guitar solos, more than earns its place among Pink Floyd’s grandest accomplishments. Only the uncomfortably numb would argue with that.
Original article: 2 November 2021
Updated: 29 October 2022
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The solos that have elevated Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett to ‘legend’ status
Metallica are the biggest metal band on the planet, which means that more people have listened to Kirk Hammett play than other guitarist from the genre. Since jumping ship from thrash pioneers Exodus back in the early 80s – taking the riff for future classic Creeping Death with him – he’s helped shape Metallica’s sound for more than 40 years. When new metal guitarists break through, you can guarantee Kirk was an influence without needing to ask. These 10 classic Hammett solos prove why.
All Hammett’s solos are structured into distinct phrases which answer each other musically. That’s most obvious here, when the sections are broken up by bouts of riffing. Right from the beginning there was more method than madness, and Kirk’s balance of composition and spontaneity gave his solos huge appeal. In keeping with Kill ‘Em All ’s aesthetic, many of the licks here are classic metal ideas, just delivered harder and faster.
When he joined Metallica, Kirk was taking lessons from the legendary Joe Satriani , a man who knows a thing or two about guitar melodies. The initial break on this …And Justice For All cornerstone shows Kirk had been paying attention, as he develops a simple theme into a masterful lead break. He then comes back for a second bite, this time supplying eerie lines that raise the technical bar without compromising the melody.
Having made his name soloing at frenetic tempos, Kirk took the chance on the black album to show what he could do over a grinding, Sabbathy metal groove. Always more of a blues player than most of his peers, here Kirk sounds like a jet-fuelled Jimmy Page. Where early Kirk sounded like a teenage joyrider speeding through a city, here he sounds like Godzilla eating one.
Kirk had obviously been listening to Swedish shred pioneer Yngwie Malmsteen when he came up with this (in his defence, a lot of guitarists thought this was acceptable in 1984). But where Yngwie couldn’t write a song if his Ferrari collection depended on it, Kirk was armed with a fistful of instant metal classics. His pyrotechnic solo puts this one over the top.
One of Kirk’s most important contributions is popularising phrygian scales in metal. They were more associated with flamenco than thrash before Kirk spotted their metallic potential. Wherever I May Roam is a prime example of Kirk exploiting exotic sounds for his own twisted ends.
How do you produce a solo intense enough to match these riffs? With omnipresent wah and this perfectly-judged freakout. This break is relentless without being monotonous, with Kirk’s wild string bending breaking up the shred barrage. The second half is more melodic, a euphoric release from the preceding chaos. No guitarist can deliver a shot of adrenalin like Kirk.
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For the epic outro to this, Kirk shows a brilliant awareness of how to build excitement. His entrance is restrained, a melodic theme that builds anticipation for the fireworks to come. He pays homage to the 70s masters of the outro solo, channelling first UFO ’s Michael Schenker and then Thin Lizzy ’s Scott Gorham.
Amid the talk of his fast playing, Kirk’s melodic phrasing is consistently undervalued. The gorgeous break at 4:11 makes everything sound even more brutal when the band starts breathing fire again. The shred blitz that follows is among Kirk’s best executed. The 80s weren’t exactly short on whammy bar action, but the spectacular harmonic at 5:50 is as good as it ever got.
More people have air guitared to Enter Sandman than any other Kirk classic, and this is clearly a solo that was written to be played in stadiums. Hammett peels off a sequence of infectious phrases that are as memorable as the song’s chorus. This was a new side to Kirk: the solo you could sing. If George Harrison had played metal, he’d have done it like this.
The solos over the clean sections early on are moments of beauty amidst unrelenting bleakness. When Kirk unleashes at 5:46, it’s catharsis for all the trauma up to that point, a virtuoso primal scream. Guitarists consistently vote this Kirk’s best solo, but it appeals far beyond guitar nerds. One made Metallica MTV stars in no small part because of the raw fury of its guitar climax. When Kirk and Lars sync up for the stabs at the end, fist pumping is compulsory.
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Prince's famous solo from the 2004 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony was performed a year after Rolling Stone omitted him from its 100 Greatest Guitarists list
A documentary that may never be released has shed new light on Prince’s famous While My Guitar Gently Weeps guitar solo from the 2004 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, which was reportedly performed in part to spite Rolling Stone magazine.
Prince’s legendary career was filled with plenty of iconic onstage electric guitar moments, but the night he was finally inducted into the Hall of Fame is especially notable.
On that night, Prince joined Tom Petty, Steve Winwood, Jeff Lynne and Dhani Harrison for a cover of While My Guitar Gently Weeps , during which he ripped through a powerfully moving solo.
It was long seen as an exemplary display of Prince’s guitar prowess, and while that still holds true, it seems there is slightly more to the solo. In a feature recently published by The New York Times Magazine , which focuses on Ezra Edelman's new nine-hour Prince documentary, that night is cast in a new light.
As the documentary reports, Prince’s solo was “an act of revenge” designed to spite Rolling Stone , who had left the musician off its 100 Greatest Guitar Players Of All Time list the year before his RRHOF induction.
His response to being omitted from the list? Unleash a guitar solo so epic that it would forever live on in the memory of music fans, and cap it off by launching his guitar in the air. It would become one of Prince’s enduring guitar legacies.
As The New York Times Magazine reports, “On its face, it’s a supreme expression of Prince’s superiority and bravura. But the film gives it a new context. Questlove, on the screen, talks about his disbelief, the previous year, when Rolling Stone made a list of the 100 greatest guitar players of all time, and Prince was left off it.
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“Prince nursed these kinds of slights, and his commandeering of the stage – at an event associated with [founder] Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone – was, in part, an act of revenge. There’s spite and aggression in the performance. But there’s also pain – in his wincing face, his apartness: a small, soigné Black man onstage with these rumpled white rockers.”
Those who shared the stage with Prince that night knew they were witnessing history.
In 2016, following Prince’s death, Petty told The New York Times, “You see me nodding at him, to say, ‘Go on, go on.’ He just burned it up. You could feel the electricity of ‘something really big’s going down here.'”
Prince’s solo clearly made quite the impression, and Rolling Stone avoided making the same mistake when it came to assembling its recently updated list of the 250 Greatest Guitarists Of All Time .
Published last year, that list put Prince in 14th place – a huge improvement after being completely left off the lineup two decades ago. That new list wasn’t without its own controversies , though, and was called out for having omitted a number of indisputable game-changers.
The release of Edelman's nine-hour Prince documentary is currently in doubt. As The New York Times Magazine reports, the artist's estate is attempting to block it, worried it will tarnish Paisley Park's reputation.
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Matt is a Senior Staff Writer, writing for Guitar World , Guitarist and Total Guitar . He has a Masters in the guitar, a degree in history, and has spent the last 16 years playing everything from blues and jazz to indie and pop. When he’s not combining his passion for writing and music during his day job, Matt records for a number of UK-based bands and songwriters as a session musician.
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Most people don't realize that Joe Walsh played the guitar solo on the greatest "Yacht Rock" song ever written: "Thunder Island" by Jay Ferguson. This is a c...
20. "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)," Looking Glass (1972) Like "Summer Breeze" (found later in our list of Top 50 Yacht Rock Songs), Looking Glass' tale of an alluring barmaid in a busy harbor town ...
"Out of the Main" is a yacht rock podcast celebrating and exploring the past, presence—and, yes!—the future of one of the most proficient and accomplished eras John and Tom scour the sea charts to find yacht rock's best guitar solos of all time.
Seals & Crofts - 'Summer Breeze'. Summer Breeze - Seals & Croft #1 Hit (1972) Before The Isley Brothers recorded a slick cover, 'Summer Breeze' was an irresistible folk pop song by Seals & Crofts. While mostly a folk song, its summer vibes and gorgeous melody make for a perfect yacht rock number.
5. Escape (The Piña Colada Song) - Rupert Holmes. The second tune in our top ten that found its way onto one of the three Guardians of the Galaxy soundtracks—as well as its original LP release—comes from yacht rock icon Rupert Holmes. Escape (The Piña Colada Song) tells a story that feels more comical today than it might have in the ...
Putting aside its self-aware inauthenticity, "Africa" is an infectious, 8x platinum AOR monster. 5. "Reminiscing" by Little River Band. Released in the summer of 1978 and reaching up to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, "Reminiscing" was guitarist Graeham Goble 's nostalgic take on the swing band era.
John and Tom scour the sea charts to find yacht rock's best guitar solos of all time. Who made the cut? Who are the true guitar heroes? How many times does Steve Lukather appear on the list? And does Tom really sing "O Sole Mio?" Listen to 22 of the rockin'-est guitar leads of all time. Have a favorite yacht rock guitar solo? Give us your rips on our Facebook page! facebook.com ...
Brandy (You're a Fine Girl) - Looking Glass. Written by the band's lead guitarist Elliot Lurie, pop-rock band Looking Glass is a one-hit wonder thanks to their popular single 'Brandy (You're a Fine Girl).'. The song tells the story of a young "barmaid" in a bustling seaport who brushes off endless propositions as she longs for ...
Listen to Episode 21.6: Yacht Rock's Best Guitar Solos of All Time, an episode of Out of the Main, easily on Podbay - the best podcast player on the web.
John and Tom scour the sea charts to find yacht rock's best guitar solos of all time. Who made the cut? Who are the true guitar heroes? How many times does Steve Lukather appear on the list? And does Tom really sing "O Sole Mio?" Listen to 22 of the rockin'-est guitar leads of all time. Have a favorite yacht rock guitar solo? Give us your rips on our Facebook page! facebook.com ...
Yacht Rock was created for George Benson's jazzy-guitar, cool-funk sensibilities. Although "Give Me the Night" may border on disco, it's not quite there and rests firmly in our beloved Yacht Rock ...
This week we take a deep dive into the soft rock hits of the late '70s and early '80s, which have come to be known in some circles as Yacht Rock. The term Yacht Rock generally refers to music in the era where yuppies enjoyed sipping champaign on their yachts — a concept explored in the original web series Yacht Rock, which debuted in 2005 ...
Yacht rock doesn't just have an earnestness to its lyrics, the sax solos come with the same level of sincerity. If the style was the last gasp of unadulterated pop, it was also the dying breath ...
Before yacht rock was an identifiable ... comprised of McDonald songs and shorn of pesky guitar solos or Patrick Simmons rockers, and you have a sense of McDonald's first and best post-Doobs ...
An ever-expanding, official list of Yacht Rock songs, deemed Yacht Rock by the creators of the Yacht Rock web show. They coined and defined the term! For mor...
Sailing: The Best Of Yacht Rock is the ultimate #YachtRock playlist of the smoothest classic rock songs ever written.
We ranked the 20 best guitar solos ever, and Jimmy Page's "Stairway to Heaven" solo took the top spot. ... Laurel Canyon jam has turned into somewhat of a yacht rock classic, but "Hotel California ...
43. Shock Me - KISS (Guitarist: Ace Frehley, 1977) Not so much a solo as a greatest hits compilation for the pentatonic scale, Shock Me sees Ace Frehley wheeling out his entire lick arsenal. He neatly distils the first 25 years of American rock guitar into 50 seconds, ready to be plagiarised for the next 25 years.
33: Muse: Reapers (from 'Drones', 2015; guitarist: Matt Bellamy) Tucked away on Muse's seventh album, Drones, Matt Bellamy's superlunary solo on Reapers is one of the guitarist's greatest. Overseen by iconic AC/DC and Def Leppard producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange, there's a touch of glam metal to Reapers, whose savage takedown ...
2. Enter Sandman. More people have air guitared to Enter Sandman than any other Kirk classic, and this is clearly a solo that was written to be played in stadiums. Hammett peels off a sequence of infectious phrases that are as memorable as the song's chorus. This was a new side to Kirk: the solo you could sing.
9. (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (1965) The riff that broke the Stones globally was 'dreamt' by Keith who captured it on his cassette recorder before going back to sleep. In the studio he used a Gibson maestro fuzz pedal to emulate horns, as initially he wanted to replace the guitar figure later.
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Prince's famous solo from the 2004 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony was performed a year after Rolling Stone omitted him from its 100 Greatest Guitarists list ... the previous year, when Rolling Stone made a list of the 100 greatest guitar players of all time, and Prince was left off it. Get The Pick Newsletter. All the latest guitar ...
You're in love-Ratt Thunderstruck (iconic) Enter sandman Angus Young Back in black-Moscow Monsters of rock 1991 I was made for lovin you-Kiss Sweet…
The riff in Far from the Fame is great. But also Inmate 4859 and 7734 have great riffs (Yes heroes is my fav album) The one before the last chorus in Primo Victoria. The attack of the dead men has easily the best guitar solo in any sabaton song. Fields of Verdun will always have my favourite guitar riff.