Entertainment For Lively Minds
What is the greatest ever rock guitar riff?
Posted by Uncle Wheaty on 27 July 2009 - 4:05pm.
45 years on this still takes some beating:
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That was exactly
the one I thought of when I saw the title of the thread.
Could be any number of others from the great Keef though.
Start Me Up is one of my favourite Keefisms
Houses of the Holy
the actual track off Physical Graffiti - it's hefty and the same goes for Livin' Lovin' Maid - Pagey is the riff king!
Though John Paul Jones was...
...responsible for Good Times, Bad Times and Black Dog at least...
You Really Got Me
Does it for me, it just sounds so primal and thrilling. Aside from that, the opening riff the Pistols' Pretty Vacant still sounds exciting.
Well I would
say one of the most underrated is "Burlesque" by Family.
A fine choice
Incidentally, are you Bingham of the Bang 'Em In variety? A fine nom de blog.
thanks Twang
yes I made the mistake of being Two bottles of red to the good and thinking I was hilarious changed my name to the rather unwieldly "the piss artist formerly known as bang em in bingham". Thankfully Fraser did the right thing for me and changed it to the well shortened Bingham. Incidently Bang em in Bingham was a tribute to a hopeless Stockport County winger named John Bingham from the early 70's who could not score for toffee, resulting in the sarky crowd constantly calling out "Come on then give us a goal Bang Em In Bingham.".
Stockport
I grew up in Hazel Grove! I was swimming in Stockport Baths aged about 9 when that plane crashed in the waste ground across the road! Amazingly a gang of us 9 year olds used to get the bus all the way to Stockport, go swimming and back again all on our own. Incredible we survived really.
Hazel Grove
Then you will probably know the famous Bamboo Club!!
Nope
Moved from there when I was 11. I do remember RS McColl newsagents at the Fiveways - they had H&E! A fine periodical.
There are so many different types of Riffs
Bludgeoning simple riffs, funky riffs, complex riffs: -
If it is the complex/funky then 'Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick' takes some beating
Funky - Chic's 'Good Times'
Simple but memorable - 'Paranoid' or Boston's 'More Than A Feeling' (trouble is, the meter of the latter also makes think of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' - great riff!)
Hit me..
...with your rhythm stick - seconded!
As a callow teen when it came out I thought of it purely as a novelty record, but more recently I hear it anew - awesome musicianship.
sweet child o mine
made me think we were getting something different - soon realised we weren't.
There are so many....
Try this one for size.....................
As usual the answer is David Bowie
And this time it's Stay from Station to Station
Great call
It's a bit long but it's a great vid of The thin white duke rehersing for the Station to Station tour.
Could've picked Ziggy Stardust/Jean Jeanie/Fame......
Stevie Ray Vaughan?
I know he played with the Duke around this time
Stacey Heydon
...I think
Yes it is.
I didn't really know of him until I saw this youtube clip.
Memo from Turner
From the film Performance. It was rumoured that Ry Cooder was asked to replace Brian Jones. Here's a hint of what might have been.
AC/DC ?
It's go to be up there.
And you can play it with one finger from each hand. Well I can.
iPod Shuffle
London Calling = The Clash
I Will Follow - U2
Jumping Jack Flash = the Rolling Stones (my favourite Stones riff personally)
Pinball Wizard - The Who
Daytripper = The Beatles
Echo & The Bunnymen
Back Of Love is a firm favourite, was always my inbetween songs in rehearsals muck around...
if not David Bowie,it's often David Byrne
Talking Heads - Crosseyed and Painless
My favourite Talking Heads track
has a great hook kicking in about 1:30 - and its not a guitar riff
Glamtastic
T. Rex
'Get It On'
'20th Century Boy'
Bowie
'Jean Genie'
I'm going with
THe Faces "You can make me Dance, you can make me sing..."
Dragon - April Sun In Cuba
Probably not known in the northern hemisphere but one of the great New Zealand bands of the seventies
No, I'm sorry, there can only be one winner here...
...and it's this:
That said, this one's good fun too...
And, finally, one shouldn't neglect the greatest...
...of all Southern Hemiosphere riffathons...
Just to mention...
Peter Hammill's written lots of great riffs over the years - Primo on the Parapet, Sleepwalkers, Now Lover, Here Come the Talkies...
Shame there's only a few acoustic fragments on YouTube.
Oh, and...
John McLaughlin, too. Like Eternity's Breath...
Especially the bit starting at about 3:20 in the clip et seq...
Look
everybody knows when it comes to riffs its The Zep you turn to - almost any album has loads of them casually lying about the place.
Zep II is a veritable Alps of mountainous riffs - the Matterhorn of which is "Heartbreaker".
You're all wrong
Caroline - Status Quo
7" single on Vertigo - with crackles and pops - bliss.
sweet jane
simple and perfect
Try and ruin this one
Ur Riffs
Surely Louie Louie by the Kingsmen and the god-like wonderfulness that is Bobby Parker's Watch Your Step deserve to be up there?
School's Out..
nuff said..
Great riffs are not all belters you know..
Just in case any of you don't know this one..
Contenders
The "Oh Well" Riff..
It was the theme tune to a Radio 1 series - a rock 'n' roll years sort of thing, by Pete Frame I think. The riff made me want to learn to play the guitar. As did the riff from Don't Fear The Reaper which I heard a hairy bloke play in a music shop one day. It sounded like the coolest thing in the World and I WANTED TO DO IT! RIGHT THEN! But I couldn't quite. I did have to practice a bit. Using my dad's old nylon-strung classical guitar which wasn't the sort of thing a young, thrusting axe-god should have to do. Which is probably why I'm now a dentist rather than an old, thrusting axe-god. Oh well..
Hang on.. that's how it started..
Oh Well - 25 Years of Rock
I remember the series well and it was broadcast in 1980 I recall on the basis that Rock started in 1955 with Bill Haley etc.
I also had a hardback book that accompanied the series as a present that year fir Christmas - oh happy days!
It is hard looking back to think of a rock retrospective that had yet to have the delights of New Romantics, Indie, The Smiths, hip-hop etc that would appear within a few years and now seem a long time ago.
Oh Well......
The views of others
can be found here:
http://www.philbrodieband.com/muso_solos_riffs.htm
All those posts above
and nobody has nominated Cream and Sunshine Of Your Love.
A winner, methinks.
Testosterone
I used to play this while driving back after the gym, in one of my intermittent keeping fit phases. It seemed ideally suited to that all too brief endorphin high. An awesome tune at any time.
Also conspicious by their absence
Purple Haze, Smoke On The Water, Money, Vodoo Chile, Freebird, Sweet Home Alabhama - all much enjoyed by me at one time or another. Message in a Bottle was another one stuck in my head for a few weeks and I'd love to be able to play (like Don't Fear The Reaper mentioned above) but my fingers just can't hack it.
Message..
yes, a 'we're not worthy' salute seems appropriate for Mr. Summers. This is surely his finest moment. I know it's terribly un-punk to say it, but The Police were ridiculously talented weren't they?
Very talented indeed
Although as is often the case talent and great songs don't always mix, as that bloody awful "Do Dah Do Dah" song proved. Stewart Copeland was a real powerhouse of a drummer, and Mr Summers was always a cut above the rest. Saw them at the Top Rank in Cardiff when "Message" had just come out. Great gig, no 20 minute Sting singalongs but plenty of short punchy songs interspersed with pleas to the crowd to stop "gobbing on them" .... as if they were a punk band or something....
I was there too, f8
My mate Nick was a manager at the Cardiff Top Rank at the time & I got to see The Police (among other luminaries) for free. It was the day Message In A Bottle went to Number 1 and it felt like a real 'event' gig : they were a great live band anyway but this show fizzed with excitement because they'd just topped the charts. Another friend went backstage afterwards & informed Sting they were 'fucking good', to which Sting replied, 'Thank you, Adrian. Would you like some coke?', indicating a powdery pile nearby. These days he'd probably offer a nice butternut squash & carrot shake.
I remember the gobbing incident. JJ Burnel treated the same herberts slightly differently a few weeks later, leaving the stage to clunk them with the blunt end of his bass and sparking a riot
La Grange - ZZ Top
Narrowly edges out Tush.
The Move
"Do Ya"
and a couple of early smashers
Eddie Cochran-Summertime Blues
Buddy Holly-Well Alright
oh and "Midnight Hour" Wilson Pickett
not forgetting
"Cinnamon Girl"-Neil Young
Mirrorball - not elegant
but quite a riff (an unlike most of the others, one that I can play)
Crazy Horse
"Beggar's Day"
Jeff Beck - BeckOla - Rice Pudding
From left field the dreadnought of all riffs:
Jeff Beck Group - Rice Pudding from BeckOla:
No takers for "Ace of Spades"
...or are we discounting bass riffs. For one chord wonders, what about "Another Brisk in the Wall". The chromatic run in "Echoes" is pretty tasty too.
Slightly more modern, "Mama Said" by Lenny Kravitz, and "Love is the Law" by the Seahorses.
I win...Dr. Feelgood - check out the dudes introducing the band
This one's even better...
And another one
Following on from Sheev's idea
of putting all the suggestions into a Spotify Playlist, see the brilliant reggae one he did here:
http://open.spotify.com/user/sheevmaster/playlist/4nYuSlZ2P89zu8XWxZhlBJ
here's one of the "Greatest Riffs", or as many as I could find from those listed above (no Led Zep, no Beatles).
http://open.spotify.com/user/retroman1965/playlist/5xJdCIAUCCivsHjcbSREZ...
You can add your suggestions too...
Great playlist
On listening, it's clear that Pinball Wizard is the greatest. No wait, it's Louie Louie. No, Sunshine of Your Love. No, hang on...
V 'Oo
"I Can't Explain"
BTW - ta for the mensh Retro Man. Is the Reggae one being added to/updated? I'm on hols and frankly me dongle ain't up to it.
It's actually
Broken Glass And Lime Juice by Deke Leonard's Iceberg. Great big Welsh guitaring at its best & a Peel fave from 74. The clip here http://www.dekeleonard.com/media/brokenglass.mp3 gives a taste but sadly stops before the main riffology gets going.
Man
Surely "Bananas" nagging insistent riff that just wont go away
Bloody hell, 64 posts and still no mention of Tony Iommi
The man with the nine finger tips and the handsome moustache practically invented hard rock 'n' heavy metal as we know it, and not one mention of him or any of his mighty Black Sabbath riffs thus far? Pfff...
There's FAR too many of them to mention; in fact, every single Sabbath song has it's FUCK YEAH! moment of mighty riffness. Hell, even in the duff non-Ozzy, non-Dio, non-Geezer years he was still knocking them out like a man possessed. Which he possibly was...
I mentioned 'Paranoid'
much earlier.
Goggle eyed
Sorry, didn't notice it. By far one of his weakest riffs, but their best known song. Funny how things happen like that. Same goes for Hawkwind I suppose with Silver Machine and ZZ Top with Gimmie All Your Lovin.
I'd agree. I'd also disagree.
Rikky Rooksby (a great guitar teacher) states via Wikipedia that "A riff is a short, repeated, memorable musical phrase, often pitched low on the guitar, which focuses much of the energy and excitement of a rock song."
I'd also put in the modifier that a riff is a guitar phrase which opens a song and then repeats throughout. Toni Iommi's opening phrases rarely follow through the song. But, I feel, they are all the better for not doing so; more should have followed his example by starting with something brilliant yet tantalising because it is instantly discarded for something yet more exciting.
Reading back through that, I sound like a right ponce.
Vodoo Chile innit?
Or Purple Haze or Spanish Castle Magic or If 6 were 9 or Manic Depression or Foxy Lady or Changes or Machine Gun or Pali Gap or Ezy Rider or Freedom or Highway Chile or Stone Free or...
How about
The Flamin' Groovies - Slow Death
Very funny...
own up, who deleted all the songs from the playlist except BTO? Stop sniggering at the back or you'll all have to stay behind after school.
Must be some sort of bug on Spotify as I can't imagine who would have done that! Could at least have kept the Dr. Feelgood tracks!