The Top 100 Rock Guitar Solos of All Time--9-1

9.) "Texas Flood" (Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble)

 

Along with Jimi Hendrix, Steve Vai, and Eddie Van Halen, Stevie Ray Vaughan has one of the most recognizable, unique guitar sounds out there.  From the very first note he plays, you cannot mistake his absolutely muscular tone and absurdly aggressive attack on the guitar.  In my opinion the greatest blues guitar player of all time, Stevie helped bring a once-obscure genre of music that helped form the foundations of rock and roll into the spotlight with his great string of '80s albums that unfortunately came to an end with his early demise (like many others on this list).  From my own experience with playing the guitar, first, it's very hard to have a distinctive sound all one's own; and second, it's almost impossible to sound as confident and supremely aggressive as Stevie does.  He attacks every single note he plays.  His bends sound like he's wringing every last drop of sweat, come, and tears out of his poor guitar.  I think Stevie puts more passion into his playing than any other guitarist out there, bar none.  This is reflected in his live playing, where he absolutely puts every last inch of his soul into the performances.

And no song quite captures all of the aspects of his playing like his masterpiece, "Texas Flood."  His guitar lines are so stinging in this song.  They feel like they are needles piercing all over your brain.  Following a classic intro solo, Stevie fills every second he's not singing (sublimely) with biting, torrential fills that are finer licks than most guitarists ever solo in their entire careers.  When he hits that extended solo, it's like the dams have burst and the flood waters are washing over the speakers.  What utterly perfect phrasing.  What King Kong attitude.  No one plays with such balls as Stevie does.  That part with the whammy-bar-drooping notes at 3:33 is exquisite.  The way he bends that one note at 3:17 into oblivion symbolizes his relentlessness and the utter heartbreak of the blues--not a romantic heartbreak, but a weary disappointment that the world will never fail to let you down.  I love the way that Stevie depicts the kind of bleak desolation and savageness that Texas can be known for (think Blood Simple or Cormac McCarthy) using the raw attack of his electric axe.  What an earth-shattering solo (in the very best way).

8.) "Free Bird" (Lynyrd Skynyrd)

 

What's a guitar solo list without "Free Bird"?  Nothing.  The most American and stupid of all of the guitar solos on this list, it's still so overpowering and awesome that it swoops well into the top ten.  What started as the rock anthem of the American South has turned into several things: a joke at concerts, where the audience yells at whoever is playing to, "Play 'Free Bird'!"; the awesome finale song in Guitar Hero II that still vexes Bernie Romano to this day; and one of the all-time great songs that symbolizes the restless quest for freedom, independence, and ultimately liberation that defines rock and roll at its very core.  While the first half of the song is pretty great, what really turns the song into a classic is its five-minute outro solo, which is filled with the exciting dueling guitars of Skynyrd's three (is this really necessary? The answer is yes, and the justification is "Free Bird") lead guitarists.  Who doesn't get a rush of adrenaline and goosebumps on their skin when that solo kicks into gear?  Hats off to Skynyrd for actually making a five-minute solo that is consistently interesting and listenable, especially to a pop audience.  This really isn't as easy as it sounds, but Skynyrd has always had a great ear for catchy, clean, and outstanding guitar lines.  They are one of the most guitar-driven bands of their era.  They didn't particularly have a great rhythm section or an interesting vocalist, but their songs were always full of tasty guitar licks and memorable solos.  As Guitar Hero II keenly observed, this is one of the great encore/finale songs of all time.  There is nothing else that quite sums up a listening experience like the steadily mounting rhythms of "Free Bird"'s climax.  There are plenty of Skynyrd live versions out there that are even longer than the studio's nine-minute run-time.  God bless 'em, Lynyrd Skynyrd struck pay-dirt when they penned this immortal ode about the quintessential American loner.

7.) "Hotel California" (The Eagles)



Like several of the other picks in the top ten, this solo belongs in one of the truly great rock songs of any era.  While "Free Bird" or "November Rain" are renowned as classics because of their spectacular guitar solos, "Hotel California" would be up on that pantheon whether Don Felder and Joe Walsh's solo was included in the song or not.  The song's mysteriously beautiful lyrics and music are simply unsurpassed in pop music.  Just as nothing in the Eagles' catalogue (despite their unmistakable sense of pop craftsmanship and spellbinding vocal harmonies that, believe me, I don't discredit) could have prepared us for the overpowering presence of "Hotel" (like a dazzling gemstone, it is one of rock music's perfect songs), no guitar solos from the Eagles could have prepared us for the mighty coda to "Hotel."  Walsh and Felder manage to sustain the enigmatic nature of the rest of the song in the two-minute closing solo, but most importantly, they grab the listener by changing the course of the song completely.

"Hotel" is about being lost in a world where you feel out of control.  Despite the glamor and glitz and sex appeal on the surface, there is ultimately a sense of unease that pervades the narration of the song.  Eventually, the narrator feels like he cannot escape--that he is trapped by forces out of his control, which he can't even begin to comprehend.  Throughout all of this, the music serves as an soothing background to the singer's plight, drawing him into its dark beauty until he finds himself hopelessly lost.  As the singer finally realizes his fate, this Other that has trapped him takes over in the guise of an overpoweringly magnetic solo.  Ultimately the song isn't about one man losing himself.  It's about the Hotel itself.  It's about all of the undefinable things out there that threaten the very fabric of civilized, morally "good" life.  It's about the allure of evil and sin.  And evil can be very beautiful, as this eternal solo proves.  Good may make you sleep well at night, but it will never have the raw power that this solo has.  This is the most melodically satisfying guitar solo that there is.

6.) "Fade to Black" (Metallica)

 

Even more than "Hotel California," I stand in awe of this song.  The melodic beauty of "Hotel"'s solo is carried over into the entire seven minutes of "Fade."  There is not one moment in this song that doesn't make perfect sense when you look at it from the sense of crafting a truly beautiful song.  As far as I'm concerned, this is metal's finest hour.  It has been topped in epic grandeur and in musicianship, but it has never been topped in emotional affectation.  Like "Hotel," it proves that the truest sense of beauty and depth in art comes more often than not from our negative experiences of the world around us.  To me, there will always be something more powerful about sadness, loss, and despair than there is with mirth, cheer, and glee.  This can be carried onto a grander scale when we look at the existential questions of life and death and the nature of the world we live in, but that isn't something I will go into here, because, really, that isn't what this list is about.  But don't fool yourself that these issues aren't what's at the heart of the hauntingly bare acoustic arpeggios and the ironic clarity of Kirk Hammett's lead guitar lines.

"Fade" isn't so much on here for any one solo (although the end one is indeed mighty).  Rather, I have placed it so high because of every single guitar note in this song, all of which I believe are perfectly placed and played.  I can't listen to this song without being wowed by its perfection, as I mentioned in the first sentence.  The chord progression that Metallica bases this song off of is so desperately sad, yet so mournfully resigned to its eventual fade-out to nothingness, that it is jarring to the soul.  The pure beauty of sadness is the core of the guitar in this song.  As many writers and musicians have no doubt mused over the years, there is no emotion better suited to beauty in art than sadness.  Hammett's slow solos are a picture of restraint and taste, yet an ode to all of the world-weary souls out there who feel that they aren't meant for this old world.  James Hetfield's rhythm guitar work, from the resignation of the acoustic verses, to the bitterness of the wordless choruses, to the building intensity of the pre-coda riff (one of my very favorites), perfectly matches his inspired lyrics of building hopelessness and, finally, death.  Like "Hotel California"'s solo, Hammett's final, blistering attack seems like something greater than this one story of someone alone and in pain.  It seems like he is railing against all of the pain and cruelty in the world, but like the song's subject, even his impassioned cry for the suffering must fade out into blackness.  No one can ultimately win against the odds.

5.) "For the Love of God" (Steve Vai)

 

A composition like "For the Love of God" is really what sets Steve Vai apart as the greatest of all guitarists in my opinion.  Sure, lots of guitarists have been more popular, more influential, or better technically (I'm thinking of Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and, say, Buckethead, respectively, although you could say that no one combines all of the various levels of technical proficiency in all of the different kinds of music and styles like Vai does), but can anyone use their guitar prowess to express the complexity of the human soul like Vai can?  I truly don't believe that any guitarist other than Vai could write entire pieces like this and my next pick from him three slots above this.  Sure, others can play them, but really, the composition is what sets him apart.  His style is so very unique.  Vai uses all of his technical mastery to bring real emotion and complexity to his solos, instead of just showing off.  Perhaps Hendrix played with as much raw spiritual energy as Vai, but Vai's abilities have better allowed him to focus this tremendous locus of power into the music itself.  When listening to Hendrix, I always feel as if his guitar is attempting in vain to reproduce the intensity of his soul.  When I listen to Vai, the lucidity of his playing--his dazzling amount of technical abilities allowing him to play whatever he hears in his head and his heart--perfectly expresses the maelstrom of emotional undercurrents and bombastic ideas that define human existence.  I feel that he is the true heir to Hendrix's explosive creativity and originality.  A more refined heir, if you will.

"For the Love of God" is easily his most famous composition.  Like the metaphor of "Tender Surrender" as a seduction and consummation ritual, "FtLoG" is perfectly structured.  Its opening notes jump out of the speaker, the tone so very confident and clear.  This is a call to the Great Beyond, towards God.  What Vai believes in is not the personalized God of the West, but the pantheism that defines the ancient East.  The Divine is all around us, permeating the very fabric of the cosmos, and we can find It if only we know how to look for It.  The solo slowly builds in intensity, before unleashing in a blistering fury, like the religious frenzy of the Sufis or other mystics.  As I've read elsewhere, what makes "FtLoG"'s shredding different than the other mindless noodling of the time period was that here it feels earned.  Vai doesn't use his boundless technique to masturbate, but to reach his soul beyond his body towards the Other.  The note at 2:58 is the most perfect I have ever heard on a guitar.  This is a fragment of something bigger than us.  The spiritual depth of this solo is unparalleled.

4.) "Mr. Crowley" (Ozzy Osbourne)

 

Damn, they seem to have gotten rid of the studio versions of Ozzy's solo career songs from YouTube, just like I ran into with "Crazy Train."  But here's a great live version featuring Randy at his peak.  Here's a great video of someone covering Randy's guitar part: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTpOk1dLvyM.

I could never decide which of the two solos I like more in "Mr. Crowley," Randy's masterpiece.  Ultimately, I think they will always be tied for me.  He is the rare metal guitarist that brings a stately, almost European sense of melancholy and sadness to his guitar solos.  No matter their structural perfection, one cannot help but feel this sense of Virgilian loss in Randy's playing, which unhappily foreshadowed his early passing.  This mood is especially clear in the outro solo of "Crowley," but also evident in the more aggressive first solo.  The first solo always dazzles me with its rare sense of confidence, as well as its melodic expressiveness.  Randy's technique is blistering, yet even at his fastest and most difficult, he's able to create phrases that are both immensely memorable and harmonically correct.  As always, everything fits neatly into place in the solos of "Mr. Crowley," again showing the influence of Randy's classical training.  The second solo seems almost like a suicide note, because it is so sad yet so stark in its clarity and simplicity.  "Mr. Crowley" is the ultimate example of using guitar solos to build on the tonal theme of a song, which in this case is the misunderstood loneliness of a deeply charismatic, unhappy man.

3.) "Comfortably Numb" (Pink Floyd)

 

David Gilmour's expressionistic guitar reaches its utmost heights in the masterpiece that is "Comfortably Numb."  He perfectly uses his two solo breaks to illustrate and further flesh out the narrative and theme of the song, which is the dark and incredibly meaningful tale of lost childhood innocence and dreams.  The uplifting first solo reflects the hopes and naivete of youth, when all the world seemed like the far side of the rainbow waiting just over the horizon. 

Yet it is the second, howling solo that makes us return to "Comfortably Numb" again and again.  The happiness and charm of childhood (or the imagined happiness and charm of childhood) is long gone--"The child is grown/The dream is gone."  To numb ourselves from the disillusionment and pain of reality, we must take drugs ("Just a little pinprick.../But you may feel a little sick") or engage in other vices to forget about that part of our soul that is missing.  Gilmour's solo perfectly expresses all of the anger and bitterness that ultimately our search for meaning in life ends always with nothing to show but maggots eating out dead bodies.  This isn't the punk anger of the time, railing at the Establishment.  This is anger at mankind's place in the universe.  Anger at our hopeless lot.  And anger that we have been lied to our whole lives about these eternal realities.  That is really what The Wall is all about.  It's about the walls that forever are keeping ourselves from the truth out there.  And really, it seems that the truth is that everything is a big lie--a vacuous hole full of nothing.

From a musical standpoint, what really elevates this solo to another level is the tremendous backing instrumentation that Gilmour launches his playing into.  The build-up into the solo is fabulous.  There is such a sense of expectation before Gilmour unleashes that first harmonic squeal into the symphony of hell.  Really, that background guitar could be the funereal requiem for the death of a war god or something.  It's some really heavy shit.

2.) "Windows to the Soul" (Steve Vai)



There is no more emotionally expressive guitar solo than Vai's in "Windows to the Soul."  He pulls out every stop to make his guitar cry and sing on this tour de force.  He is the only guitarist with two solos in my top ten (and my favorite guitarist) for a reason.  His feel--that immeasurable, indispensable capacity for rendering human experiences, thoughts, and feelings through his instrument and into the listener's ears--is unsurpassed in the history of rock music.  Others have been able to express individual styles or emotions more adeptly (SRV and others with the blues, Jimi Hendrix with the psychedelic mindset, and Tony Iommi's ability to single-handedly spell doom with the sludge of his immortal riffs), but in my experience none has ever put all of these unique styles together, along with the breadth and depth of human emotional experience, better than the virtuoso Steve Vai.  Quibble over which of his solos is the best all you want, but my pick is most certainly "Windows."

More than any of his other solos this one is able to fuse together melodic grace with his immense technique.  There are many moments of sublimity in this paean to eternal beauty, from that gorgeous whammy-teardrop at 2:45 (while Joe Satriani comes close, no one has ever been able to use the whammy bar with such effortless style as Steve Vai--he can capture the full scale of emotions just from using his bar, from laughing to crying to talking) to the almost overpowering moments of overflowing passion at 3:40 to the way he bends and picks those notes at 4:13...Jesus, that's fucking perfect.  I really can't find too many more words here to describe the way Vai plays beautifully here.  I'm just not as good of a writer as he is a guitar player.  Every single fucking note in this is somehow subtly (or not-so-subtly) finessed to fit the theme of spiritual and physical exquisiteness that drives not only this song, but Steve Vai's entire musical career.  From a gracefully bent and vibrato-ed note to a run of astounding precision, skill, and placement, Vai's unnatural communion with his guitar is an inspiration for me to one day pick one up again and try to be the best I can be on it.  I think it would do a work of art like this a disservice if we only let it discourage us from ever trying.

1.) "Crushing Day" (Joe Satriani)



I'm sure you guys have had it up to here (motioning towards my irregularly high-up and broad shoulders) with all of this spiritual mumbo jumbo I've been spouting off about.  Aren't guitar solos really just about rocking out?  Well, never fear--Joe Satriani is here.  From what he's said, this is one of the only solos he composed before recording, since his usual method was to go into the studio and improvise various solos over the backing tracks of each of his songs.  As great as his career is (great enough to be my second favorite guitarist!), I wish he had learned from the ridiculous results of this solo and kept plotting out his solos beforehand!  God, the jaw-dropping technique, the elegant sense of structural composition, and the sheer audacity of this solo is enough to make the hairs stand up on my arms every single time I hear this one.  Even though it's the third track on this classic album (Surfing with the Alien, my pick for the best guitar album out there), coming after the magnificent solos of "Surfing with the Alien" (see #38) and "Ice #9," nothing could have ever prepared me for the exhilaration of listening to this one for the first time.  I was already impressed by the strong melody of the tune, and the way in the second verse Satch uses his whammy bar so expressively to add exquisite phrases to complement that melody.  Then there is a brief pause before the storm.  Those blinding legato licks fly out of nowhere, calling and responding with just the right harmonic squeals at the end.  You think this is the end.  That's a pretty fucking good solo right there, Joe.

But no, it's only the beginning.  Joe begins slowly with some blues licks before delivering sweeping lines of such virtuosity that he has never equaled them again.  Each scalar run in this solo is so perfectly placed and played.  Every single note falls into its place as if fate itself had destined it so.  This is the greatest technical solo Joe has ever played, but it's the undeniable listenability that ranks it above all other solos on this list.  I want to fall over every time I listen to it because it's so meticulously phrased.  The aggressive confidence of this belies Joe's modest and humble nature.  But one cannot help but feel the fire burning deep in his soul when we listen to this, the finest of all rock guitar solos.


So there it is, guys!  Hope you have enjoyed your time reading and listening to this list.  I know I've had a lot of fun writing it (although it took much longer than I expected...sorry about that).  I mostly hope that my write-ups have lived up to the lofty summits of the guitar solos themselves, and that you don't find my picks too disagreeable.  Please, if anyone feels that solos have been left out (chances are they only are because I haven't heard them yet), or that my ranking is inaccurate, express yourself in the comments!  I love hearing feedback.

For the purposes of ease and accessibility, I have provided links here for all of the other parts of this list:

Introduction (with Honorable Mention)
Solos 100-90
Solos 89-80
Solos 79-70
Solos 69-60
Solos 59-50
Solos 49-40
Solos 39-30
Solos 29-20
Solos 19-10

And here is the entire top 100 in order so you can see the list as a whole (but please still read the write-ups, because that is what makes this list mine!):

Honorable Mention: "The Blood and Tears" (Stevie Vai)
100.) "Lotus Feet" (Steve Vai)
99.) "Head-Cuttin' Duel" (Steve Vai/Ry Cooder)
98.) "Walk This Way" (Aerosmith)
97.) "Layla" (Derek and the Dominos)
96.) "Orion" (Metallica)
95.) "Sympathy for the Devil" (The Rolling Stones)
94.) "Junkie" (Steve Vai)
93.) "Purple Haze" (The Jimi Hendrix Experience)
92.) "Spanish Fly" (Van Halen)
91.) "Dazed and Confused" (Led Zeppelin)
90.) "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" (The Beatles)
89.) "That Smell" (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
88.) "War Pigs" (Black Sabbath)
87.) "Moonage Daydream" (David Bowie)
86.) "Mean Street" (Van Halen)
85.) "You Really Got Me" (The Kinks)
84.) "Something" (The Beatles)
83.) "Light My Fire" (The Doors)
82.) "In Bloom" (Nirvana)
81.) "I Believe" (Joe Satriani)
80.) "Desert Island" (Cacophony)
79.) "Cult of Personality" (Living Colour)
78.) "Reelin' in the Years" (Steely Dan)
77.) "Hot Dog and a Shake" (David Lee Roth)
76.) "Killing in the Name" (Rage Against the Machine)
75.) "Cemetery Gates" (Pantera)
74.) "Whispering a Prayer" (Steve Vai)
73.) "Ice Cream Man" (Van Halen)
72.) "Ride the Lightning" (Metallica)
71.) "Altitudes" (Jason Becker)
70.) "Master of Puppets" (Metallica)
69.) "Circles" (Joe Satriani)
68.) "Feathers" (Steve Vai)
67.) "Cliffs of Dover" (Eric Johnson)
66.) "Stranglehold" (Ted Nugent)
65.) "Race with the Devil on a Spanish Highway" (Al DiMeola)
64.) "Hot for Teacher" (Van Halen)
63.) "Slow and Easy" (Joe Satriani)
62.) "25 or 6 to 4" (Chicago)
61.) "Call It Sleep" (Steve Vai)
60.) "Rainbow in the Dark" (Dio)
59.) "Yellow Ledbetter" (Pearl Jam)
58.) "Black Dog" (Led Zeppelin)
57.) "Goodbye to Romance" (Ozzy Osbourne)
56.) "Bohemian Rhapsody" (Queen)
55.) "Clouds Race Across the Sky" (Joe Satriani)
54.) "You Don't Remember, I'll Never Forget" (Yngwie Malmsteen)
53.) "Time" (Pink Floyd)
52.) "Warm Regards" (Steve Vai)
51.) "War" (Joe Satriani)
50.) "Heartbreaker" (Led Zeppelin)
49.) "Midnight" (Joe Satriani)
48.) "Santeria" (Sublime)
47.) "Memories" (Joe Satriani)
46.) "Over the Mountain" (Ozzy Osbourne)
45.) "Rubina" (Joe Satriani)
44.) "Misirlou" (Dick Dale)
43.) "The Forgotten, Pt. II" (Joe Satriani)
42.) "Floods" (Pantera)
41.) "Always with Me, Always with You" (Joe Satriani)
40.) "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (Chris Impellitteri)
39.) "Brothers in Arms" (Dire Straits)
38.) "Surfing with the Alien" (Joe Satriani)
37.) "Black Star" (Yngwie Malmsteen)
36.) "Ladies Nite in Buffalo" (David Lee Roth)
35.) "Whole Lotta Love" (Led Zeppelin)
34.) "White Room" (Cream)
33.) "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (The Beatles)
32.) "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" (The Jimi Hendrix Experience)
31.) "Binge and Grab" (Buckethead)
30.) "Is There Love in Space" (Joe Satriani)
29.) "Burning Rain" (Steve Vai)
28.) "Paradise City" (Guns N' Roses)
27.) "Beat It" (Michael Jackson)
26.) "Satch Boogie" (Joe Satriani)
25.) "Kid Charlemagne" (Steely Dan)
24.) "Stairway to Heaven" (Led Zeppelin)
23.) "Sultans of Swing" (Dire Straits)
22.) "Highway Star" (Deep Purple)
21.) "Cause We've Ended as Lovers" (Jeff Beck)
20.) "Crazy Train" (Ozzy Osbourne)
19.) "Since I've Been Loving You" (Led Zeppelin)
18.) "Beyond the Realms of Death" (Judas Priest)
17.) "Sweet Child o' Mine" (Guns N' Roses)
16.) "One" (Metallica)
15.) "Eruption" (Van Halen)
14.) "Tender Surrender" (Steve Vai)
13.) "All Along the Watchtower" (The Jimi Hendrix Experience)
12.) "Far Beyond the Sun" (Yngwie Malmsteen)
11.) "November Rain" (Guns N' Roses)
10.) "Machine Gun" (Jimi Hendrix and the Band of Gypsys)
9.) "Texas Flood" (Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble)
8.) "Free Bird" (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
7.) "Hotel California" (The Eagles)
6.) "Fade to Black" (Metallica)
5.) "For the Love of God" (Steve Vai)
4.) "Mr. Crowley" (Ozzy Osbourne)
3.) "Comfortably Numb" (Pink Floyd)
2.) "Windows to the Soul" (Steve Vai)
1.) "Crushing Day" (Joe Satriani)

Enjoy!

--Edward