Guitar solos we have loved.

isley brothers for me too. that lady, really light and sharp, or something

butthole surfers songs seem to be made entirely of solos. and, amazingly, this seems to be a good thing. in the 80s anyway

spiral scratch ep - buzzcocks - 1 note solo's whoa yeah DIY at its best

The guitar solo in the middle of Moisture by the residents, it's perfect. I think it was either Snakefinger, or Fred Frith. And Mark Knopfler on Blanket Roll Blues by Scott Walker

Odd, I was thinking about this this morning. My favorite solos tend to not really be solos but lead parts that come in late in the song and change the song completely, ie, "Making Plans for Nigel" by XTC and "Mind" by Talking Heads. I guess they're kind of solos, but not really. Fave real solo is probably "Miracle Mile" by Silkworm. The song is acoustic guit and vocals for the first 2 or 3 minutes, then all of a sudden, you hear him plugging in electric guitar, complete with loud buzzing sound of the cable not quite connnecting with the input jack, then a loud electric guitar solo overpowering everything. Solo ends the same way, with cable suddenly being unplugged and vocals coming back in. Rock.

oh c'mon on these are such pansy answers...

best solos:

ritchie blackmore "child in time" angus young "back in black" santana "black magic woman"...no scratch that make it "waves within"

I like Television's "See No Evil" and Hendrix's "Wind Cries Mary"... you can sing along to the solos. And for some reason, Los Lobos "Will The Wolf Survive." I don't know why.

Wanted Dead or Alive - Bon Jovi. Richie Sambora writes his own obituary here, setting the whammy-bar impossibly high. It's the sudden viciousness of it that you always forget. For once, Bon Jovi walk the walk. And it's over quickly, like good guitar solos ought.

Black Flag - Drinkin' & Drivin' Sounds like an out of control car.
Dinosaur - In a Jar. Kicks yer ass.

Steely Dan's "Reelin' In the Years" is the best solo in a top-40 song ever! I think jazz session musician Elliot Randall was the guitarist, and I've never sought out his subsequent solo work (he's got at least one LP under his own name) for fear of being horribly disappointed.

Every last glorious second of the solos in Hear 'n' Aid's "Stars." Aaaah.

Also, the entire Morbid Angel catalog.

I go for "Another Girl Another Planet" by the Only Ones. Bliss.

Never universally acknowledged as it was nicked wholesale and diluted by Dire Straits to make Sultans of bleedin' Swing, thus indirectly leading to the bandana-mullet-hell of 'Brothers In Arms'.

Recently came back to life as Belle and Sebastian's encore at the otherwise disappointing Brixton Academy gig in May - the guitarist did it note for note as it originally was, total homage. The best song they did that night ..

Sultans of Swing -- that's a great guitar solo!

"So Far Away" is Knopfler's masterpiece, though.

And I don't know if I'm being ironic anymore.

Frank zappa's guitar alb.

Mayhem; every trebling scrape of hate on deathcrush and the one on 'necrolust' in particular (not that it's on deathcrush)

Making Broad and Crass Generalizations About Incredibly Diverse Musical Phenomena - Classic or Dud?

Although "impossibly needledick" is a nice descriptor, despite its awkwardness. I'd love to actually hear someone say "That solo is so much like a needle-sized dick it seems damn near impossible!"

Dom, buddy, you're slippin' further every day; first, Barenaked Ladies, now... *gulp* this? ;-)

for "Impossibly needledick" read "Needlessly needledick". This works better as it is both alliterative and spondaic with a Feminine ending. Sorry, my English let me down.

Clarke- I'm the ILM pariah.

i used to l-o-v-e air guitaring the solo in "st. elmo's fire"

Nazareth - "Hair of the Dog"

Daft Punk - "Digital Love"

Chicago - "25 or 6 to 4"

Stereolab - "French Disko"

i used to REALLY love the solo in the cult "love" and i also love the solo in X "the have nots". i might say that some of the guitar sections of SRVaughn (sp?) "riviera paradise" are really cool

"boogie oogie oogie" by taste of honey - absolutely INTERGALACTIC!

I like Neil Young when he makes Like A Hurricane last for like half an hour. And there are lots of good Dinosaur Jr ones. And Keith Richards on Sympathy For The Devil - nicely minimal, if you can call it a solo, and I do. Generally I'm against them though.

Come ON everybody. You know that the best guitar solo EVER is in the middle of "Together in Electric Dreams" by Giorgio Moroder with Phil Oakey.

## Daaaaah dow dow dow da-dow... dow dow da da da da ddoooowwww (etc) ##

Have to agree with Geeg about "Child in Time"

There's also a good one in "Dying to Meet You" by Judas Priest and let's not forget two great blues solos in Cream's "Crossroads"

Plus most stuff by Hendrix and Santana, esp Hendrix "Voodoo Child: Slight Return" and Santana "Wings of Grace" - although Santana tunes are like one big solo/instrumental

Great pair of blues solos in "The Bluest Blues" by Alvin Lee and Ten Year After

"Beat It," anyone?

The Ramones: "I Wanna Be Sedated." Don't care if I ever hear the song again, but will always love that one-note solo.

VU - "I Heard Her Call My Name"

best.solo.evah.

Slash's in "November Rain" (yeah, and what of it?)
Tom Verlaine's in "Little Johnny Jewel"
Neil Young's in "Down By the River"

Now this is what I've been waiting to talk about... Where the fuck has this thread been hiding?

How about these bad boys:

Megadeth: Friedman's Holy Wars climbdown

Megadeth again: Friedman and Mustaine - all 11 solos from Hanger 18

Eddie on Beat It is worth reacquainting oneself with

Joe Perry being alright on Love in an Elevator

Jeff Beck showing how it should be done on Bon Jovi's Blaze of Glory

Neil Young making one note sound better than 200 on Cinnamon Girl

R. California on Street Worm

J. Hendrix on Machine Gun live

D. Navarro on 3Days

L. Kottke on Last Steam Engine Train

LA Wetter on Judas

P. Stanley on I Love it Loud (only for the forwards-role while playing)

And just this once B. May on I Want To Break Free

Eddie Hazel. Funkadelic. "Maggot Brain." It's the whole song. If you have the CD version of One Nation Under a Groove, you get Michael Hampton's live version of this solo, which might not be as intense but is certainly just as exciting.

I second "I Heard Her Call My Name," and add that Andy Partridge has done some of some of the most surprising pop solos in the last 20 years. In particular, his false start on "Church of Women" is hilarious, but some of his work on White Music is great too.

An extraordinarily uncool answer (but a terrific solo): Alan Holdsworth on UK's "In the Dead of Night".

Junior Barnard on "Milk Cow Blues" (Bob Wills, Tiffany Transcriptions, 1946)

via google:

Western Swing King Bob Wills frequently referred to Junior Barnard as "fat boy," "booger man," and "our floor show."

But it wasn't Junior's 230-pound figure that often compelled dancing couples to stop and listen in disbelief. His hard-hitting electric guitar style, complete with distorted tone, violent bends, and scorching runs - all extremely advanced for the '30s and '4Os - heralded the techniques and sounds commonly associated with contemporary rock and roll. In the words of jazz master Jimmy Wyble, "Junior was a highly original player. He had an aggressive, hard-swinging style that was like rock and roll for its time. Junior was a great guitarist."

Although Junior had the most flamboyant style of any Wills guitarist, he is probably the least known because he was with the band for only brief periods; Barnard rarely stayed in one place for very long. "Junior would get discontent for no apparent reason and just up and leave," Eldon Shamblin explains. "In a little while he'd be back and Bob would rehire him. He was just that sort of guy."

Unlike Eldon Shamblin, who to this day plays a more laid-back, jazz and swing style, Junior was a go-for-broke soloist whose incredible technique featured startling runs, rapid hammer-ons and pull-offs, and even contrapuntal lines. "One of the things Bob used to say was 'get it,' which meant to come on as strong as you could," Jimmy Wyble recalls. "Junior had the ability to turn it on and keep it there." Barnard was such an exciting soloist because he rarely played things safe. If he would get lost during a chorus, Bob would tease him by saying, "Junior's pony throwed him. You're meeting yourself comin' back." But Junior could also play in a subdued manner, especially when backing up a singer.

Although Barnard wasn't as sophisticated an accompanist as Shamblin, he had a strong rhythmic sense and used substitute chords to make progressions flow smoothly. Wills depended on Junior's ability to keep time, and once after a shaky start he was corrected by Junior's steady-driving rhythm on an "air shot" [live broadcast]. Wills responded, "Thanks, Junior. Old Junior sure pulled us out of a hole."

Barnard was a loud guitarist who had an overdriven tube sound decades before it became widely popular with rock guitarists. His main guitar, a blond Epiphone Emperor arch-top (occasionally Junior used a Gibson ES-150), was dubbed "*my young radio station," because it had so many wires and controls added on. Although Barnard first electrified his instrument with a DeArmond pickup, he later added another unit from a steel guitar. The two pickups were wired out of phase, and each was amplified through a separate channel. (Junior used both a Fender Pro with a 15" speaker and an Epiphone amplifier.) In addition, Barnard employed a volume pedal, for which he probably got the idea from steel guitarists such as McAuliffe and Boggs. "In those days in the Wills band," Shamblin remembers, "you never knew when you'd get a solo. Bob would just point his fiddle bow at you and say, 'Take it away.' Junior didn't have time to turn the volume up, so you can see that the pedal was a time-saving device."

Junior Barnard was one of the first to fuse elements of jazz, country, rockabilly, and rock and roll into an exciting style that was in many ways years ahead of its time. His brother Gene, also an accomplished guitarist, concludes: "I don't think people realize that Junior was playing today's type of popular music years before anyone else. He was playing rock and roll years before it had a name."

- Buddy McPeters - http://www.texasplayboys.net/

For better or Worse , I must take credit for that LOVE band solo on "August". I was very young and crazy and when I hear it now I can't make heads or tails of it. Yes, it was "rehearsed" kind of...but always different. We had to record live...straight through including solos ..so that's what you get. But, it was defininately me, even the drugs didn't confuse me that much. thanks, Jay Donnellan

i <3 google!

blectum and jay donellan in one day... *sigh*

Most every solo on Les Rallizes Denudes' 77 Live. I love it when the tape cuts out for a split second here and there due to the EVIL FEEDBACK NOISE.

PRINCE - "Kiss"
(for fk's sake!)
must be one of the most concise guitar statements evah

There's a solo at the end of "Sweet Thing (Reprise)" off Diamond Dogs that I love. It's almost entirely feedback & noise. Oddly enough, I think it's actually played by Bowie.

"Reprise" at the end of Verve's "Northern Soul" album.

It's as distraught as Nick was at the time -- and when I play it, I hear that : the hurt pride, the drug downs, the manic-depression, the failed relationship, the inward spiral.

It makes lyrics redundant.

(oh, whoever said Steely's "reelin'", good call! But don't forget "rikki" either!)

brother jt's top 10 "jesus solos"... his #4 is my #1 (as noted above).

metallica and acdc... and ...
m.

Fleetwood Mac: 'Say You Love Me'. Incredible.

The Smashing Pumpkins - "Starla." The real key to this one is the production; the left and right channels switch back and forth from playing completely different pieces to playing in unison. Also the fact that the guitar sounds like Hendrix and a theremin in a steel cage deathmatch.

Lou Reed, "Strawman." The only thing about the New York album that I can still stomach hearing.

i only clicked on this thread to enter "starla" but it seems curtis has beat me to it.

How about the Nightblooms' "Crystal Eyes"? Tactile!

Steve Hackett's solo on Genesis' "Firth Of Fifth" is as close to perfection as a guitar solo can get.

Mickey's solo on the live version of Ween's "Voodoo Lady" from Paint the Town Brown is so friggin monstrous and orgasmic you can almost hear the audience's collective bowel shudder from the sonic intensiosity geetar throwdownzilla spectacle.