Monday, March 27, 2006

What are the best Guitar Solos of all time?

The list posted today on Blabbermouth was total bullshit. I'll start a REAL poll later today, but please make sure I do not overlook any of the best solos. Enter your choices under the comments section.

31 comments:

BlackLabelAxe said...

The best of all time must include the following (not necessarily in order):

-Zakk Wylde on Ozzy's "No More Tears"

-Eddie Van Halen, "Eruption" (I pick this as the best of all time)

John Petrucci on Dream Theater's "Under a Glass Moon"

David Gilmour on Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb"

Jeff Loomis on Nevermore's "Final Product" (best of the past 10 years)

Duane Allman on The Allman Brothers "Whipping Post" (live at Filmore East version)

Chris Poland/Dave Mustaine on Megadeth's "Peace Sells..."

Somebody else please nominate Hendrix, Ritchie Blackmore, Tony Iommi, and KK Downing/Glen Tipton. I can't pick a favorite from them right now.

Anonymous said...

painkiller-judas priest

BigNewsDay said...

Here is my short list

1. Randy Rhoads - Revelation Mother Earth or even Dee

2. Jimmy Page - White Summer/Black Mountain Side

3. Eric Clapton - Layla

4. Yngwie - Hot on Your Heels or Blackstar

5. EVH - Eruption

6. Eagles - Hotel California

7. Dimebag - Cemetary Gates

There are dozens I could name, but these are some of my favorites.

BigNewsDay said...

Mr. Bundy, Did you receive the invitation e-mail?

Anonymous said...

Duane Allman on the Duane Allman Anthology Album - On the Boz Skaggs track "Loan Me a Dime"

Anonymous said...

ill check my email

BigNewsDay said...

Mr. Bundy,
Feel free to create your own posts. If you have any problems creating posts, let me know.

Lefty Metalhead said...

The best guitar solos are found in any album by the following: Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and Yngwie Malmsteen. But then again, these guys are fucking virtuosos!

Anyway, here are the ones I personally love:

Kirk Hammett on "Fade to Black" and "One"

Dimebag Darrell on "Cemetery Gates"

Andy LaRocque (King Diamond) on "A Mansion in Darkness"

Alexi Laiho (Children of Bodom) on "Downfall". The dual guitar/keyboard solo is fucking sweet!

Anything by Jeff Loomis and Randy Rhoads!

Alex Skolnick (Testament) on "Raging Waters"

BigNewsDay said...

I forgot about Skolnick. Just about anything of The New Order or Practice What You Preach. I got to see Testament on the Practice What You Preach tour with Savatage at The Ritz on 6th street in Austin.

Very impressive!

Darkness Descends said...

i liked euronymous's guitar solo for burzum's war.

BlackLabelAxe said...

I've never heard any music from Burzum.

Another one of my favorites is Peter Lindgren on Opeth's "Leper Affinity".

BigNewsDay said...

Man, there are so many great guitar solos out there that are better than most of the crap on the Blabbermouth list, I don't even know where stat with creating poll. I would probably need to create a series of polls and do it bracket style. That is going to get complicated. Anyone have any ideas how we can formulate a list?

Darkness Descends said...

^
yeah that sould be a good idea
and black label axe
burzum is a great band check em out. its good.

Darkness Descends said...

and bignewsday, i got an idea after you make a seris of polls, take all the winners of the polls then make a make a new poll with the winners of the previos polls.

BigNewsDay said...

Should we group the polls in any certain manner?

Best classic rock solo
Best thrash metal solo
Best hair metal so.....(i can't even type that without laughing)

Darkness Descends said...

that or group various songs in one poll

BlackLabelAxe said...

Do it bracket-style, like the NCAA basketball tournament. Each bracket can represent a genre. Basically, just like they have the March Metal Madness tournament set up at the Treehouse.

BigNewsDay said...

OK..So four brackets with about ten songs/solos each?

Classic Rock ('50s - 70's)
Hard Rock
Metal ?
Thrash Metal ?

I would include nu-metal, but none of that crap has any guitar solos. Let me know what you think.

BlackLabelAxe said...

Classic rock and hard rock will be difficult to seperate.

Make a "Progressive" category to include Vai, Satriani, Yngwie, Dream Theater, etc.

"Classic Rock" could include Zeppelin, Hendrix, Floyd, Clapton.

"Metal/Death Metal" to include Opeth, Meshuggah, Nevermore, Pantera, Metallica, etc.

"Thrash" would obviously include Testament, Slayer, Sepultura, Megadeth, Exodus, etc.

BigNewsDay said...

more brackets

alternative / punk
country / rockabilly / folk
(there are some great guitarists in these catagories)

And instead of doing solos, we can just do guitarists or bands.

BigNewsDay said...

Blues
classical guitar

BlackLabelAxe said...

The scope of this is officially spiralling out of control.

BigNewsDay said...

I agree! Lets go with the four categories you liste with an adition of "All Others" which can include blues, jazz, country, and whatever else you can think of.

I still say we need to do it by artist instead of per song, because which metallica song do you choose? Which Pantera? Which Zep?

BlackLabelAxe said...

That sounds good, BND.

You can just throw thrash into the "Metal" category to make it 4 categories.

I like the idea of making the choice between bands. It would be basically impossible otherwise.

BigNewsDay said...

And the progressive category can include people like Jeff Beck, Pat Metheny, Al DiMeola, etc...

Lefty Metalhead said...

Sounds good. It's hard to pick anyone other than the G3 guys! They're so fucking awesome! I will say, however, that flashy playing doesn't necessarily make a solo memorable. I think we should really define what the "best solo" actually is. So what is the best solo? What do we mean when we ask this? Is it the most memorable solo? The most technical? The most audibly pleasing?

BigNewsDay said...

Personally, I don't give a rat's ass how "technical" anyone is. If it doesn't sound good, it ain't good. That is one reason I try not to get into this whole "that band sucks" thing, because it is all a matter of taste. You've got to remember, I listen to alot of old punk rock, and we know how technical punk rock is (not).

But once again, I think it is going to be hard to narrow this down by songs or solos, because some bands have tons of killer solos. I can't pick Randy Rhoads' best solo, because they are all great in different ways.

Johnny Cash's lead guitar player was once asked why he didn't play as fast as other guitar players, and his answer was that these other guitarists are just searching for what he's already found. I thought that was pretty cool.

Darkness Descends said...

i know this is off topic. bignewsday do you want an official cd review column like you have ken hawk's blog as your blog's official advise column? cause my blog is a metal cd and dvd review page. heres my blog
http://albundy2.blogspot.com/

BlackLabelAxe said...

To me, a guitar solo should add something distinct to the music. If that requires technical wizardry, then so be it.

Notice I nominated Gilmour's solo in "Comfortably Numb". There's nothing difficult about it, but it's a song within a song. It's so beautiful you can humm along with it.

I've also picked Jeff Loomis' stellar axework on "Final Product". That is probably the most technical solo one could ever hope to pull off, however it also adds a flavor to the song that is distinctly Nevermore. Loomis' rythym riffs are already so technical that most players would be proud as hell to play one measure, so he has to crank it up into the ionosphere for his solos.

BigNewsDay said...

Classic rock:

George Harrison
Eric Clapton
Jimi Hendrix
Jimmy Page
Chuck Berry
David Gilmour
Carlos Santana
Stevie Ray Vaughn

Please add any that I forgot.

Darkness Descends said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.