There’s been a survey. Are these the best guitar riffs of all time?
Sky Arts, the TV channel out of the UK, conducted a survey of the greatest guitar riffs of all time. Here’s how things shook out. Thoughts?
- Guns N’ Roses, Sweet Child O’ Mine
- Prince, Purple Rain
- Dire Straits, Sultans of Swing
- Deep Purple, Smoke on the Water
- Dire Straits, Money for Nothing
- Kinks, You Really Got Me
- Michael Jackson (well, Eddie Van Halen, really), Beat It
- Police, Every Breath You Take
- Aerosmith, Walk This Way
- Lynyrd Skynyrd, Sweet Home Alabama
- Rolling Stones, Satisfaction
- Steppenwolf, Born to Be Wild
- Led Zeppelin, Whole Lotta Love
- Jimi Hendrix, Purple Haze
- Chuck Berry, Johnny B. Goode
- David Bowie, Rebel Rebel
- White Stripes, Seven Nation Army
- Beatles, Day Tripper
- AC/DC, Back in Black
- AC/DC, Thunderstruck
Hate to be pedantic, but it was actually Steve Lukather who was responsible for the riff on Beat It. Eddie only did the solo. Great story about how Luke and Jeff Pocaro had to rescue that entire track too…
That’s what I thought, too. Weird survey.
Ozzy Osbourne – Crazy Train
43 years – still holds up
There are a lot of great riffs…. And these surveys can leave out a lot of great stuff. One of the best guitar riffs I can think of would include Mean street by Van Halen (really anything Van Halen is a great guitar riff mine), Flying High Again by Ozzy… Where the Streets have no name by U2… lots of great stuff gets left out.. I can think of some Hip tunes… New Orleans is sinking… 50 Mission cap…Great acoustic work by Blue Rodeo… And what? No Spirit of the Radio?