Courtesy of Lynn Sislo, I found this annotated list of the 50 worst guitar solos in (once again) rock music. I find I largely agree. Well, I don't despise the fretwork on Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb," but I'm largely in accord with the rest of the list.
For one thing, I'm happy to see anything by Motorhead, Yes, Kiss, or Bryan Adams appear on such a list.
But there are particulars as well, and as a guitarist myself I must applaud some of what I see slammed here: "Cold Shot," for example. No, Stevie Ray Vaughan was a far better player than I'll ever be--but geez, this one is lame. "Dazed and Confused," ditto. "Magic Man." "Here I Go Again."
The unutterably awful "Do You Feel Like We Do," "Hot Blooded" from the crushingly bad Foreigner, and the wildly overrated "Free Bird." You want southern rock, go with the Allman Brothers Band--or early Chuck Berry. Or, need I mention, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, or Johnny Cash?
Not "Free Bird," though, although a guy in high school once asserted that a band had to be awesome if it had three lead guitarists. I replied, "How about one good solo?"
(The Beatles, you know, had three good lead guitarists, but on only one tune ever--Paul McCartney's "The End," at the end of Abbey Road--were they ever all on display during the same song. And "The End" is about about a third the length of "Free Bird," and a lot more exciting. )
Posted by Craig Ceely at August 22, 2004 11:20 PM