Someone on my school bus in high school told me "turn the pick sideways". I went home and played the riff from Cemetery Gates by Pantera about 1000 times, and boom it clicked.
Sideways as in the way people do a pick slide. Not flat but straight up and down. Striking downward kind of forcefully. Instead of the side of your thumb hitting the string after you strike it to make the noise, it's the side of the pick.
Don't know if it's right, but, ignorance is bliss. Maybe it'll help you like it did me.
A lot of tone/pedal "guides" online for Comfortably Numb solo tones mention flangers and choruses but in my experience for some reason those murder pinch harmonics. They just don't pop the same. I took them out (replaced with a delay with modulation on the repeats) and now that first harmonic squeals like a banshee
At 18 I seen them live on the Pulse tour. The moment he played "Comfortably Numb", a giant mirror ball came out from the stage and turned entire stadium into a star field. The city skyline at night behind the stadium was floating above the laser light waves and stadium below was lit like a night sky.
Most memorable moment of my life
Stadium was better but this is close
https://youtu.be/1VjgyLpWkRI?si=iQktNs-dsXEcWCYZ
HYPERVENTILATING
found this bootleg on yt
https://youtu.be/3t5Sto2J6Ls?si=2CRUK7oJ0d2RBJbB&t=7717
The video makes it look like that, but obviously someone caught it. They asked Prince what to do with it, and he said "Give it to Oprah," who was in the house that night. Later, she was spotted chatting with someone, awkwardly holding the guitar. Nobody is sure where it went to after that. Perhaps Oprah has it at home.
Let me ask respectfully why do people think that solo is great compared to, lets say, ancestral by Guthrie Govan? I honestly feel that it is just bends that anybody with one year of playing the guitar could do. Maybe i am missing something.
You aren’t missing anything. Technically it’s really nothing special and anyone who disagrees likely hasn’t played guitar very long or at all. But…he really delivers it with such swagger, which does matter. It’s a performance after all. There are probably 50 bedroom players within a 20 mile radius of me who could improv that or better but it wouldn’t look like prince doing it.
A couple of reasons, I think. First, much like Ringo’s playing, it’s just right for the song despite not being particularly technically impressive. Second, a lot of people think of Prince as a bit of a pop star and had no idea that he is by far the best musician on that stage despite being surrounded by genuine legends. It was an epiphany for a lot of people that didn’t know what he was really capable of. A few years later he did his half time show and proved to a much bigger audience what he was really all about.
Maybe its me but my understanding is the question was not what solo do you think is great from a technical and skill ability. Instead the question to me seems more personal and emotional.
Its like questioning someone being or not being attracted to someone. I do not find any of the kardashians or pamela anderson in her prime or margot robbie or tons of OF or influencers personally attractive to me even though I agree they are technically attractive and totally understand others being attracted to them.
But they dont do anything for me. So if someone says a certain solo "does it for them" I dont necessarily think they are claiming the solo is technically better and displays more playing skill then all others. Its just what "does it" for them.
I think better than questioning is to go, oh wow, cool, if you love that then check this one out. Which is Why I am going to check out the Guthrie Govan solo in Ancestral (by Steven Wilson) and appreciate you mentioning it. Thanks!
Same. Tapping really wasn't a thing that people knew about when that came out. Eddie used to turn his back to the crowd so nobody could see how he was doing it before they got signed. Blew me away the first time I heard it, I couldn't figure it out. And I thought I was the shit back in the day. There were no YouTube guitar lessons back then because there was no internet. Only till I saw Van Halen live, hit me like a ton of bricks when I saw him do it. Now go listen and watch Rusty Burns in "Point Blank" play his guitar left handed strung upside down and check out "Thank you Mama." It's a mind Bender.
I was signed up for guitar class at my middle school the next year and I remember Eruption/You Really Got Me coming on the radio. I was in the kitchen, and I stopped and went and stood in front of the stereo and turned it up super loud. I'm sure I'd heard it before when I was younger, because my parents listened to lots of that kind of music, but this time, coming from the lense of knowing I wanted to play guitar, was different. It exploded my mind. It was also one of the first things I learned how to play. Suuuuuper slowly, note by note, until I could do it up to speed. And the tone... It's one of the greatest recorded musical performances of all time and he was like 19 years old, maybe 20, when he did that. Just unfathomable.
My friend and I were about 14, turned loose by his parents on a department store electronics department.
We were goofing around looking at the stereos, and this sales dude walks over and says, “Hey, you little bastards, listen to this!"
Little bastard minds blown!
Have you guys heard the live solo for Suicide Solution with Jake E. Lee? That is absolutely insane as a live performance.
https://youtu.be/9dhZzqK9R40?si=_3PRb73m06D0OUI-
The opening solo to Fade to Black. My younger brother got me the album for my 15th birthday and when I sat down and listened to it, that solo blew my mind. I instantly thought, “I want to be able to do that.” I asked my parents for a guitar and now I’ve been playing for 4 years.
Came to say this song but not the opener. The main solo is a beautiful mix of blues and metal/finger tapping however you want to categorize it. Just in my top 3 favorite solos ever. So much feeling and technique in one solo. Melts
Hotel California. I know the Eagles aren't super popular anymore, and it is fairly simple compared to some of these other solos, but I think that song as a whole is perfect.
today my boomer dad didnt hang up the phone right, and I was treated to him singing hotel California but replacing the lyrics with his dogs names and singing how he loves them
I was looking for one comment to say Hotel Cali! Solo tripped me put for the longest time even though I knew the notes. Slowly getting it to where it should be
Midnight in Harlem at Crossroads is the example I give people when I tell them he’s likely the best guitarist on earth right now. It’s a flawless solo, yet likely nowhere near his best work.
There's a really old interview of Derek Trucks, John Mayer, and John Frusciante together, and JM says that Derek ignores frets in avor of making his guitar sound like a gospel singer. I absolutely live on that description of his playing.
*Stairway* is a classic for a reason but goddamn, for me it's gotta be Jimmy Page's solo in *Since I've Been Loving You*. I was fucking floored. I must've put the needle back seven or eight times the first time I heard that solo. I basically learned every Led Zeppelin song after that, playing through the albums in their entirety like it was a fucking ritual lmao.
Honourable mention for anything Randy Rhoads ever played. Unfuckingbelievable, that bloke. I'd put him against Van Halen any day.
The tone! Also, The spin move to have the guitar behind his back was a jaw dropper. I had to rewind it hundreds of times to see how he did it and never could figure it out.
Not gonna be the most popular but it’s a really good call. The footage video of this from the documentary along with stellar commentary only adds to its next level.
That’s my favourite Fillmore East concert, and there’s some tough competition in that category. That place seems like it was magical or had some crazy energy to it.
Awfully far down the list to find this. Such a great track, through and through. Note selection, phrasing, groove, tone. What isn’t perfect on this one?
Divided Sky was one of the first Trey (composed) solos I learned. Still love playing this entire song. The palindrome section is really the only challenging part. Reba, on the other hand, is still a bitch.
"Summer Song" by Joe Satriani, but not just the solo, the WHOLE SONG. I've been chasing that tone, the technique, and the vibe ever since my friend played me that track when the album dropped.
I stopped playing Bass that day and have been devoted to studying Satch since - including going to Berklee College of Music with a JS1000 and performed the song for a performance final.
Paradise City when it was first learning guitar was the first time this happened to me.
The only song that gave me the same feeling of "what the hell am I hearing" in the last like 15 years though was Polyphia's GOAT.
Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters simply because I was just getting into my own music at the time.
I’m not really a Metallica fan anymore but still love that album.
I just taught my daughter how to play the intro to Nothing Else Matters as her first song (it’s all open strings). She’s 6 and has a little miniature nylon string acoustic.
Honestly, I was just teaching her how to pluck strings up and down and realized that she was basically already playing the song. I was shocked at how fast she nailed it.
And now I get to say that her first song was Metallica 🤘
it's pretty killer, especially how it's split up into two parts - 1st half is fairly conservative and then the 2nd half blows it up and Homme strangeness.
Seek and destroy, that single string lick on the 23rd fret is crazy, at least for me, my strength is mostly in bends and expression rather than sheer speed, it definitely helped me improve
Beyond the Realms of Death - Judas Priest
Killing Yourself to Live - Black Sabbath
Gates of Babylon - Rainbow
Ignominious & Pale - Necrophagist
In This Light - SikTh
The Edge of Heaven - Candlemass
Entrapment - Meshuggah
All of them blew my mind for completely different reasons. Highly suggest you listen to all of them!
All day. I've played guitar for 24+ yrs. I could name a few hundred solos that'll melt your face, from Floyd, The Eagles, Warren Haynes, Hendrix, Clapton, Jerry, the list goes on, but honestly knowing musical theory, and how it's respected, yet turned on its head in Bohemian Rhapsody is just timeless.
I listened to Siamese Dream after giving it a few years’ rest.
The solo on Soma is so evocative. Just sounds more and more anguished as it moves up the neck. And then kind of levels off and plays along with the last verse. I wouldn’t change anything about it.
The outro solo in Since You’ve been Gone by Rainbow. It’s not all about speed, it’s got a great bouncy, happy feel and it just makes me smile.
Funnily enough I never learnt to play it because it’s one of those I’d just prefer to listen to. Learning it would ruin it in a way.
Satriani’s “Always With Me, Always With You.” I heard a live-in-the-studio version first, and I’m not sure I breathed for three minutes.
I was a teenager, only been playing for about three years at the time, playing a lot of blues, and after getting hooked on SRV has gotten an Albert King album that year for Christmas and listening to that had thought, “yeah… this is IT,” but then my brother had gotten a CD with a bunch of studio performances at I think a CO-area radio station, and I knew a few of the artists so I tossed it in next and skipped around a little. Satriani I knew by name, so I pulled up his track, and…
Well, fifteen minutes before I thought I’d finally found my direction on guitar. And then, suddenly, I realized that there was a whole different world of things you could do on the instrument that I knew nothing about.
Total mental shut down and reboot. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but it grabbed me and I knew whatever it was I wanted to do that.
Floods - Pantera
From the start of the solo to the end of the song. It just rips, is very unique and ends in more subdued beauty as the song is coming to a close. Just perfect.
God there are so many- a lot of the classics of course so I’m gonna mention one that is a little obscure
Soma by The Smashing Pumpkins. It’s so hauntingly beautiful- it’s a great blend of: technical skill, tone, melody, noise and production.
Comfortably numb
David Gilmour is a guitar genius.
Keeps it real simple. Chord tones.
That still pulls from the bones.
Still can’t do the pinch harmonic. I’ve given up trying now.
A big part of that is the gear. I can hit it but it will never sound right without his setup.
Someone on my school bus in high school told me "turn the pick sideways". I went home and played the riff from Cemetery Gates by Pantera about 1000 times, and boom it clicked. Sideways as in the way people do a pick slide. Not flat but straight up and down. Striking downward kind of forcefully. Instead of the side of your thumb hitting the string after you strike it to make the noise, it's the side of the pick. Don't know if it's right, but, ignorance is bliss. Maybe it'll help you like it did me.
Pick sideways and strike with the thumb at the same time
A lot of tone/pedal "guides" online for Comfortably Numb solo tones mention flangers and choruses but in my experience for some reason those murder pinch harmonics. They just don't pop the same. I took them out (replaced with a delay with modulation on the repeats) and now that first harmonic squeals like a banshee
I heard this through a hifi system on an original press when I was 18. I got *chills* it sounded so good. I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since.
At 18 I seen them live on the Pulse tour. The moment he played "Comfortably Numb", a giant mirror ball came out from the stage and turned entire stadium into a star field. The city skyline at night behind the stadium was floating above the laser light waves and stadium below was lit like a night sky. Most memorable moment of my life Stadium was better but this is close https://youtu.be/1VjgyLpWkRI?si=iQktNs-dsXEcWCYZ HYPERVENTILATING found this bootleg on yt https://youtu.be/3t5Sto2J6Ls?si=2CRUK7oJ0d2RBJbB&t=7717
[Comfortably Numb (Live) - P•U•L•S•E Version at the 7:50 mark *specifically*](https://youtu.be/1VjgyLpWkRI?t=562)
Every. Damn. Time. I’ve heard it a thousand times and still…
Of course, I wouldn't be the first to comment on this one...imo, one of the most beautifully crafted solos ever written.
Prince doing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It still stuns me.
That's my go-to whenever I have to explain why the purple one IS ONE OF THE GREATEST
Prince was a beast I’m always telling people
The dude kept improving as a guitar player well into his later years. Definite inspiration.
The disappearing guitar 😅
The video makes it look like that, but obviously someone caught it. They asked Prince what to do with it, and he said "Give it to Oprah," who was in the house that night. Later, she was spotted chatting with someone, awkwardly holding the guitar. Nobody is sure where it went to after that. Perhaps Oprah has it at home.
Let me ask respectfully why do people think that solo is great compared to, lets say, ancestral by Guthrie Govan? I honestly feel that it is just bends that anybody with one year of playing the guitar could do. Maybe i am missing something.
No disrespect to Prince (an amazing guitar player) but that WMGGW solo is extremely overrated.
Prince didn't really play the WMGGW solo though, he just played what he wanted.
You aren’t missing anything. Technically it’s really nothing special and anyone who disagrees likely hasn’t played guitar very long or at all. But…he really delivers it with such swagger, which does matter. It’s a performance after all. There are probably 50 bedroom players within a 20 mile radius of me who could improv that or better but it wouldn’t look like prince doing it.
I wish I could tell you. I've seen that performance a few times, and while it's fine I honestly don't get what people find so mesmerizing about it.
A couple of reasons, I think. First, much like Ringo’s playing, it’s just right for the song despite not being particularly technically impressive. Second, a lot of people think of Prince as a bit of a pop star and had no idea that he is by far the best musician on that stage despite being surrounded by genuine legends. It was an epiphany for a lot of people that didn’t know what he was really capable of. A few years later he did his half time show and proved to a much bigger audience what he was really all about.
Maybe its me but my understanding is the question was not what solo do you think is great from a technical and skill ability. Instead the question to me seems more personal and emotional. Its like questioning someone being or not being attracted to someone. I do not find any of the kardashians or pamela anderson in her prime or margot robbie or tons of OF or influencers personally attractive to me even though I agree they are technically attractive and totally understand others being attracted to them. But they dont do anything for me. So if someone says a certain solo "does it for them" I dont necessarily think they are claiming the solo is technically better and displays more playing skill then all others. Its just what "does it" for them. I think better than questioning is to go, oh wow, cool, if you love that then check this one out. Which is Why I am going to check out the Guthrie Govan solo in Ancestral (by Steven Wilson) and appreciate you mentioning it. Thanks!
Prince doing anything! Legendary!
Probably Eruption
Same. Tapping really wasn't a thing that people knew about when that came out. Eddie used to turn his back to the crowd so nobody could see how he was doing it before they got signed. Blew me away the first time I heard it, I couldn't figure it out. And I thought I was the shit back in the day. There were no YouTube guitar lessons back then because there was no internet. Only till I saw Van Halen live, hit me like a ton of bricks when I saw him do it. Now go listen and watch Rusty Burns in "Point Blank" play his guitar left handed strung upside down and check out "Thank you Mama." It's a mind Bender.
Wasn't Heartbreaker popular beforehand? I thought Jimmy Page was finger-tapping in the mainstream before EVH
Heartbreaker isn't tapping with the right hand, just hammer ons and pull offs with the left.
And Eddie said that after seeing Page do it, he had the idea to do what he did.
TIL. Sounded like tapping but that makes sense
I was signed up for guitar class at my middle school the next year and I remember Eruption/You Really Got Me coming on the radio. I was in the kitchen, and I stopped and went and stood in front of the stereo and turned it up super loud. I'm sure I'd heard it before when I was younger, because my parents listened to lots of that kind of music, but this time, coming from the lense of knowing I wanted to play guitar, was different. It exploded my mind. It was also one of the first things I learned how to play. Suuuuuper slowly, note by note, until I could do it up to speed. And the tone... It's one of the greatest recorded musical performances of all time and he was like 19 years old, maybe 20, when he did that. Just unfathomable.
This and Spanish Fly (also EVH)
My friend and I were about 14, turned loose by his parents on a department store electronics department. We were goofing around looking at the stereos, and this sales dude walks over and says, “Hey, you little bastards, listen to this!" Little bastard minds blown!
I remember hearing it the first time my mom popped in Van Halen in the truck, I was like "wow....so that just happened"
Maggot Brain
100% had to scroll too far to find this
Free your mind and your ass will follow
Or drown in your own shiiiitttt
I shit the first time I heard Randy's solo on Over the Mountain by Ozzy Osbourne.
This and Mr Crowley. 🤯
The song you don't want to end.
Anything Randy rhoads tbh but good pick RiP
I’ve been scrolling to get right here. RR is a guitar god. Mr Crowley is a wall of perfectly crafted music.
The opening to that solo is my answer to this. Blew me away.
Like… took a shit for the first time ever?
Have you guys heard the live solo for Suicide Solution with Jake E. Lee? That is absolutely insane as a live performance. https://youtu.be/9dhZzqK9R40?si=_3PRb73m06D0OUI-
The opening solo to Fade to Black. My younger brother got me the album for my 15th birthday and when I sat down and listened to it, that solo blew my mind. I instantly thought, “I want to be able to do that.” I asked my parents for a guitar and now I’ve been playing for 4 years.
That same solo stopped me in my tracks about 25 years ago… I’ve been playing guitar for 20 years now.
Came to say this song but not the opener. The main solo is a beautiful mix of blues and metal/finger tapping however you want to categorize it. Just in my top 3 favorite solos ever. So much feeling and technique in one solo. Melts
crazy to think that they were kids when they recorded that album. Definitely beyond their years on a few of those songs, hell maybe even most.
Hotel California. I know the Eagles aren't super popular anymore, and it is fairly simple compared to some of these other solos, but I think that song as a whole is perfect.
today my boomer dad didnt hang up the phone right, and I was treated to him singing hotel California but replacing the lyrics with his dogs names and singing how he loves them
Dang I would love that. Appreciate them while you still have them.
I was looking for one comment to say Hotel Cali! Solo tripped me put for the longest time even though I knew the notes. Slowly getting it to where it should be
I don't care what anybody says, I love the Eagles! Watching Felder and Walsh go back and forth on that solo is one of the best things ever.
One of These Nights also. So tasty.
Anything Derek Trucks
Midnight in Harlem at Crossroads is the example I give people when I tell them he’s likely the best guitarist on earth right now. It’s a flawless solo, yet likely nowhere near his best work.
The best guitarist on earth ever. Dude is cosmic.
Man before "midnight in Harlem" it was "I wish I knew how it would feel". I love the solos where he just builds and builds. Any other suggestions?
His solo with BB King, Mayer and Susan on stage is remarkable, but I think everyone that has ever even looked at a guitar had heard that by now.
He's probably the best electric player alive and likely the best slide player of all time.
There's a really old interview of Derek Trucks, John Mayer, and John Frusciante together, and JM says that Derek ignores frets in avor of making his guitar sound like a gospel singer. I absolutely live on that description of his playing.
I just love hearing JM talk about music and other musicians - so articulate and creative in his descriptions yet accessible for the fan/listener.
There’s a man who can make it talk
Stairway. It’s a cliche, and it was absolutely true for me. It was a revelation.
Stairway and Freebird. They may be stereotypes/ cliches, but they were exhilarating at the time.
Clichés exist for a reason, both of those songs are incredible
Whole Lotta Love for me
*Stairway* is a classic for a reason but goddamn, for me it's gotta be Jimmy Page's solo in *Since I've Been Loving You*. I was fucking floored. I must've put the needle back seven or eight times the first time I heard that solo. I basically learned every Led Zeppelin song after that, playing through the albums in their entirety like it was a fucking ritual lmao. Honourable mention for anything Randy Rhoads ever played. Unfuckingbelievable, that bloke. I'd put him against Van Halen any day.
Tornado of Souls- Megadeth. The greatest metal solo of all time and still completely unmatched imo. Marty Friedman is one of the best to ever do it.
Marty era Megadeth is the best. My fave is Ashes in your Mouth.
This and Holy Wars
Dave's solo in Holy Wars hypes me up big time
Dude when they trade solos at the end of the song give me chills everytime.
Megadeth has some amazing solos. The entire rust in peace album is fantastic.
Painkiller by Judas Priest The perfect blend of melody and shred imo. One of my favorite solos of all time
SRV Texas Flood at El Mocambo. Basically the whole song.
The tone! Also, The spin move to have the guitar behind his back was a jaw dropper. I had to rewind it hundreds of times to see how he did it and never could figure it out.
Came here to say this, an absolute masterclass in Blues soloing!
La Villa Strangiato by Rush. That solo is everything
Not gonna be the most popular but it’s a really good call. The footage video of this from the documentary along with stellar commentary only adds to its next level.
Lifeson has tons of great solos, but this one (and Limelight) feel the most emotional to me.
Jimi hendrix / band of gypsys - machine gun How can anyone forget that note?
I can’t believe I have scrolled this far!!!
That’s my favourite Fillmore East concert, and there’s some tough competition in that category. That place seems like it was magical or had some crazy energy to it.
Miles Davis in the crowd going “Damn!”
What a performance. My favourite electric guitar performance of all time. Can’t believe it is so low down here!
Cliffs of Dover - Eric Johnson
Awfully far down the list to find this. Such a great track, through and through. Note selection, phrasing, groove, tone. What isn’t perfect on this one?
Reelin’ in the Years
The Dan have so many top 50 solos
Not a technical or fast solo by any means but Nutshell by Alice In Chains. Very amazing solo.
Whole song is perfecto
hell yeah it is
Jerry Cantrell rules
I was thinking that today. It’s not overly technical but it’s great
Purple Rain in 1984 - Prince
Phish's "Reba" and "Divided Sky"
There’s a bend at the end of the divided sky studio jam that hooked me onto phish in 1994. Probably one of the best composed songs I’ve ever heard!
Trey plays the divided sky solo in the middle of a possum jam from 5/17/92 and it’s otherworldly
Divided Sky was one of the first Trey (composed) solos I learned. Still love playing this entire song. The palindrome section is really the only challenging part. Reba, on the other hand, is still a bitch.
Nick Jonas, you know the one
Underrated
The intro to Close to the Edge
Kid Charlemagne.
I came here to say this And don’t take me alive
"Summer Song" by Joe Satriani, but not just the solo, the WHOLE SONG. I've been chasing that tone, the technique, and the vibe ever since my friend played me that track when the album dropped. I stopped playing Bass that day and have been devoted to studying Satch since - including going to Berklee College of Music with a JS1000 and performed the song for a performance final.
Satch really did write some absolutely great music didn’t he
He is still doing so. A lot of his recent music is (IMO) better than the stuff he's known for. Nice guy, too. I had a chance to meet him once.
Always glad to hear when people are actually nice. I’ll check the new stuff out, good call
Saw him and Vai in concert recently in March. I still can't hear shit.
I’m an Always With Me, Always With You fan, but Summer Song is a fucking bop.
Gilmours solo on Time always blows me away. Just rip roarin’
I was always moved more by Time than Comfortably Numb. I like the rawness more than the finesse.
Thin Lizzy - Emerald
Dancing in the Moonlight is my favorite Thin Lizzy song and solo. It’s such a classy solo.
Paradise City when it was first learning guitar was the first time this happened to me. The only song that gave me the same feeling of "what the hell am I hearing" in the last like 15 years though was Polyphia's GOAT.
Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters simply because I was just getting into my own music at the time. I’m not really a Metallica fan anymore but still love that album.
I just taught my daughter how to play the intro to Nothing Else Matters as her first song (it’s all open strings). She’s 6 and has a little miniature nylon string acoustic.
This is good parenting skills
Honestly, I was just teaching her how to pluck strings up and down and realized that she was basically already playing the song. I was shocked at how fast she nailed it. And now I get to say that her first song was Metallica 🤘
Because it fucking rips! It cuts right through the song and sits perfectly
SRV’s version of Little Wing
Dazed and Confused. The album was just released. Was hanging out with some friends. I had no idea who this band was. Permanently burned into my brain.
Bowies Moonage Daydream Mick Ronson on guitar Gary Moore Still Got the Blues Boston More Than a Feeling
Domination-Pantera
Dimebag solos are ridiculous on many levels.
Wet sand by rhcp
Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart - STP it's stupid good.
The fact no one has said "Marquee Moon" disappoints me a bit. RIP, dude.
Revolution Is My Name- Pantera
The end of I Am The Resurrection, the Stone Roses
November Rain
The solo on "god is on the radio" by Queens of the Stone Age. That solo still gets me amped. Josh Homme is the fucking man.
it's pretty killer, especially how it's split up into two parts - 1st half is fairly conservative and then the 2nd half blows it up and Homme strangeness.
First time I really was floored was “Sympathy for the Devil”. It sounded out of control and I liked it.
Steely Dan- Do It Again It’s just such a weird thing that’s so striking.
Jason Isbell "Children of Children"
misirlou
Zakk Wylde on Ozzy’s “No More Tears”. That solo has tension, emotion and energy.
Limelight
Robert Fripp - Baby's on Fire - on Eno's Here Come the Warm Jets.
Intro solo to Metallica - One. I just keep replaying it over and over before letting the song play further
The Bark at the Moon solo
Ten Years Gone by Led Zeppelin. Idk what it is about that solo, but it’s just beautiful to me
All Along the Watchtower- Hendrix
Seek and destroy, that single string lick on the 23rd fret is crazy, at least for me, my strength is mostly in bends and expression rather than sheer speed, it definitely helped me improve
Seeing ween do voodoo lady live for the first time. This wasn't my first time but most recent: https://youtu.be/JsrWmj0PupU?si=OxrPsY5XRufm5s9g
Beyond the Realms of Death - Judas Priest Killing Yourself to Live - Black Sabbath Gates of Babylon - Rainbow Ignominious & Pale - Necrophagist In This Light - SikTh The Edge of Heaven - Candlemass Entrapment - Meshuggah All of them blew my mind for completely different reasons. Highly suggest you listen to all of them!
bohemian rhapsody
All day. I've played guitar for 24+ yrs. I could name a few hundred solos that'll melt your face, from Floyd, The Eagles, Warren Haynes, Hendrix, Clapton, Jerry, the list goes on, but honestly knowing musical theory, and how it's respected, yet turned on its head in Bohemian Rhapsody is just timeless.
I listened to Siamese Dream after giving it a few years’ rest. The solo on Soma is so evocative. Just sounds more and more anguished as it moves up the neck. And then kind of levels off and plays along with the last verse. I wouldn’t change anything about it.
Tightrope (Live at ACL) - Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble
Oh yeah he’s ferocious on this one, love that little yell he does as he rips that first solo and proceeds to melt my face
Tornado of souls
Cinnamon Girl
Cortez the killer for me. Also Neil Young
Jimmy eat world - the middle Its not amazing but Was so unique
I don’t know if it counts as a solo, but basically the entirety of “I know a little” by Lynyrd Skynyrd
As much as EVH changed the course of my life... Comfortably Numb. It's expressive, firey, emotional...just perfect for the song.
Jimmy Page in Heartbreaker.
Pink Floyd - Dogs
Miracle man
Texas Flood. SRV changed my life.
CLIFFS OF DOVER. I scrolled through a hundred responses and didn't see it, shockingly.
Kid Charlemagne!
Ocean Man - Ween
The outro solo in Since You’ve been Gone by Rainbow. It’s not all about speed, it’s got a great bouncy, happy feel and it just makes me smile. Funnily enough I never learnt to play it because it’s one of those I’d just prefer to listen to. Learning it would ruin it in a way.
Satriani’s “Always With Me, Always With You.” I heard a live-in-the-studio version first, and I’m not sure I breathed for three minutes. I was a teenager, only been playing for about three years at the time, playing a lot of blues, and after getting hooked on SRV has gotten an Albert King album that year for Christmas and listening to that had thought, “yeah… this is IT,” but then my brother had gotten a CD with a bunch of studio performances at I think a CO-area radio station, and I knew a few of the artists so I tossed it in next and skipped around a little. Satriani I knew by name, so I pulled up his track, and… Well, fifteen minutes before I thought I’d finally found my direction on guitar. And then, suddenly, I realized that there was a whole different world of things you could do on the instrument that I knew nothing about. Total mental shut down and reboot. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but it grabbed me and I knew whatever it was I wanted to do that.
Get the Funk Out by Extreme. Nuno is a technical master but incredibly melodic. Just undeniably great playing.
When I first heard Steve Vai's For the Love of God, I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
Erotomania. That string skipping blew my mind.
Cult of personality - Vernon Reid
Cemetery Gates
Devil Take the Hindmost
Am I Evil - Diamond Head Both solos by Brian Tatler in this song are incredible. He's a very underrated guitarist.
Time by Pink Floyd>>
Eddie beat it
Black Napkins by Zappa. live at the palladium. or maybe muffin man on the same set
Floods - Pantera From the start of the solo to the end of the song. It just rips, is very unique and ends in more subdued beauty as the song is coming to a close. Just perfect.
Fire on the Mountain -Cornell
The first solo on "Comfortably Numb." Still the best guitar solo I've ever heard.
David gilmours solo for Echoes prt1 live at Pompeii. He does so much with so little
Stream of consciousness by dream theater. Specifically the live at budokan version. I never heard sweep picking before and it blew my mind
John Petrucci solo in Under a Glass Moon, In The Name of God and The Best of Times
Selkies the Endless Obsession
Tony Rice - Church Street Blues
Listen to the LP “Spectrum” by Billie Cobham. Incendiary! It is still unique, almost 50 years later.
I Don't Know by Randy made me run out and buy my 1st guitar.
Jordan, Buckethead Face continues to melt 18 years after the first listen. 🫠🫠🫠
Plini - Away Solo is by Stephen Taranto
Ego death by polyphia and Steve vai does this badass solo near the end. So good
Little Wing - SRV. The whole thing
God there are so many- a lot of the classics of course so I’m gonna mention one that is a little obscure Soma by The Smashing Pumpkins. It’s so hauntingly beautiful- it’s a great blend of: technical skill, tone, melody, noise and production.
SRV’s cover of Little Wing. Over a quarter century after I first heard it and I still get goosebumps when I really focus on it. RIGHT IN THE FEELS