Smoke On The Water judged greatest ever riff
MusicRadar, Mon 28 Apr, 10:18 am BST
UK newspaper The Times has published a new list of what they judge to be the Top 10 guitar riffs of all time. The winner, Deep Purple’s Smoke On The Water, is an evergreen in votes such as this, but there are some surprises.
Unlike some lists that tend to draw heavily for one style of music, The Times’ regular music writer Will Hodgkinson has gone for a relatively broad range of artists - which inevitably means some of history’s most formidable riff writers are left out in the cold. Conspicuous by their absence are Black Sabbath, Cream, Metallica and Jimi Hendrix.
In The Times’ article, Guitarist magazine contributor and head of guitar at Guitar-X John Wheatcroft says: “If you are not careful a riff can sound very tedious. They’ve got to have an air of familiarity to them, but not sound like you know exactly what they’re going to do. Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin isn’t much more than a single riff repeated about 50 times, but it still sounds great.” Indeed so. Here’s The Times’ own Top 10 greatest guitar riffs…
1. Smoke On The Water - Deep Purple
2. Whole Lotta Love - Led Zeppelin
3. Satisfaction - The Rolling Stones
4. There She Goes - The La’s
5. Come On Everybody - Eddie Cochran
6. Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
7. Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes
8. I Love Rock’n’Roll - Joan Jett And The Blackhearts
9. Sweet Child O' Mine - Guns N’ Roses
10. I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor - Arctic Monkeys
Visit The Times’ website for their reasons. There are some undeniable classics in there, but is this the definitive Top 10? Is there even such a thing?
By Michael Leonard
User comments (10)
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Where's the Sex? I see the Rock and Roll and the author is obviously on some serious mind-altering drugs! Looks like he picked the wrong week to not give up crack.
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I'm guessing that fat people in suits with little willies and big cars decided the order of this list.
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Lists like this are by people who know nothing, for people who know nothing. The rest of us know what we like (and why) and are happy for other people to do the same even if their conclusions are different to ours.
Who's my favourite guitarist? The list of them would be even longer than my record collection, and each would deserve to be at the top for different reasons. -
What the Hell !!!
Why is there no Metallica on the list? -
The Arctic Monkeys and the Las absolutely dont belong on that list, replace them with Acdcs Back in Black and, um, Voodo Child by Jimi Hendrix and the list looks much better, replace the White Stripes with early Van Halen ( You really got me perhaps?) and this would be a list i could live with.
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I think that's a pretty good list.
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Terrible.
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Why lock the thread in the forums section after saying you're sure we'd like to express our opinions?
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How did "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor" make the list, when they could've put songs like "Paranoid", "Breaking The Law" and "Johnny B. Goode" all of which have far better riffs
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Why no "Money for nothing"?
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BenEvans
1 week ago.