Great Guitar Riffs
The guitar riff is rock's great contribution to society. No other art form elicits such primal joy, rage, and wonder. Name anyone who stands in front of the mirror pretending to play a clarinet hook. Find me someone who sits in the car humming a polka riff. A guitar riff is the musical equivalent of that lyric you can't get out of your head. It's fully contagious and unshakable.
Only guitar riffs alone have the ability to transport generations of kids and adults to a land of air-guitar bliss. For one shining moment, we're onstage at Madison Square Garden, playing for the devoted. But not all riffs are created equal. The world of guitar riffage has many sounds and shapes. Each one spawns imitators, and every once in a great while, a new riff comes along that renders all the previous ones obsolete.
Here is GetBack's Guitar Riff Hall of Fame, which chronicles the long, strange trip of rock's greatest wonders. Time marches on, but a great riff is forever.
VIDEO GALLERY: See & hear the greatest guitar riffs EVER!
Founding Fathers of Riffage
There are two guitarists without whom we would have no riffs: Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley gave the world the first rock guitar hooks. Berry's 1958 single "Johnny B. Goode" virtually created modern guitar rock. It's opening riff is probably the most widely known of all time, and playing it is a rite of passage for any guitarist. In fact, the song has been covered by hundreds of artists, from Hendrix to Green Day.
Bo Diddley was so influential that he has a riff named after him. The "Bo Diddley" riff - embodied in his classic song "Who Do You Love?" - is a pounding, pulsating grove that feels like a rumba. There are no chord changes, no great volume shifts, no distortion. Just a long, tense, snaking groove. You can hear it on U2's "Desire," the White Stripes' "Screwdriver," and hundreds of other songs. If Diddley could have gotten a copyright for it, he would have died a very rich man.
Psychedelic Riffage
It's almost cliche to mention Jimi Hendrix's enormous influence as a guitarist. Hendrix took guitar riffs into the psychedelic stratosphere, and "Purple Haze" was his first shot at the moon. It's also the crown jewel in his six-string crown.
The psychedelia of "Purple Haze" is a combination of Hendrix's very heavy music theory (he used a fancy tritone, which weren't common in rock songs previously) and some pioneering effects pedal use (he, along with engineer Roger Mayer, developed the Octavia pedal for use in the song).
On the other end of the psychedelic riff universe are George Harrison's contributions to the Beatles' mid-'60s output, such as "And Your Bird Can Sing" and "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)."
Neanderthal Riffage
Whereas Hendrix infused his riffs with complex, jazz-inspired chords, many of the best guitar riffs are the equivalent of cavemen banging sticks on rocks. They're not meant for deep thought and don't require years of practice to play. The Neanderthal Riff is meant for maximum volume and the most primal of fist-pumping. Think AC/DC's opening to 1980's "Back in Black." Think Deep Purple's '72 classic "Smoke on the Water." They are riffs borne from pure testosterone, and they travel through nearly every song that's worth a good head bang.
Reinventing (or Ripping Off) the Blues
One could argue (pretty successfully) that all rock riffs owe their life to the blues. Yet some riffs are more overtly blues-inspired than others ("Smoke on the Water," in addition to being Neanderthal, is also a blues scale).
Led Zeppelin's marriage of blues, volume, and psychedelia led to the creation of "Whole Lotta Love," which opens with one of the heaviest and orgasmic rock riffs ever. The song from Zep's 1969 sophomore album was actually a little TOO close to Zep's beloved blues - in particular, "You Need Love" by Chicago blues great Willie Dixon. Dixon sued and won, and his name was added to the songwriting credits.
It's All in the Wrist
Some riffs rely solely on a very nimble and fast wrist. Picture a guitarist fanning a fire on the strings of his guitar. These are riffs that cram as many notes into a small space as possible.
The father of the Wrist Riff is undoubtedly Pete Townshend, as demonstrated in his opening on "Pinball Wizard" (from The Who's 1969 rock opera, "Tommy"). While Townshend has called it his "most clumsy piece of writing," it's far and away one of rock's most recognizable riffs and has inspired a generation of guitarists to set their own land speed records. Without "Pinball Wizard," a whole bunch of speed-metal guitarists would be dressed up in leather with no place to go.
Breaking the Sonic Barrier
Riffs are inspired as much from equipment as notes. Keith Richards wrote the riff to The Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" literally in his sleep. However, he hated it until got into the recording studio and recorded it with a Gibson Maestro fuzzbox. The final riff owes everything to its sound. Imagine it being played on mandolin. Not quite the same punch.
U2's Edge is probably the only guitarist of the late 20th century whose creation of a sound is as important (more so, maybe) as his hooks. In fact, every U2 guitar riff is a perfect marriage of catchy notes and singular sounds: "I Will Follow," "Sunday Bloody Sunday, "One." None of them would sound the same played by anyone else.
Southern Twang Riffage
Southern rock guitar hooks have something no other rock hooks possess: twang. Guitarists from the American South play with a drawl that can't be found anywhere else. Imagine Derek & the Dominoes' "Layla" with anyone other than Duane Allman laying his slide guitar like a sweet peach cobbler next to Eric Clapton. The riff, of course, had to be completely reinvented to be played acoustic on Clapton's famed "Unplugged" session.
Southern riffs can also get crunchy, like Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama." Ironically, it was played by a Californian, Ed King, originally a bassist who'd left psychedelic rock band Strawberry Alarm Clock to join the Jacksonville band in 1972. King played the riff on a guitar with crappy pickups, forcing him to crank the guitar amp all the way up. The guitar now hangs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum.
Too Smart for 6 Strings
Prog rock bands like Rush, Yes, and ELP each contain guitarists who are too smart for rock music. As a result, their songs are filled with super-complex riffs, like the ones found in Yes' "Roundabout" or Rush's "Tom Sawyer." These are riffs made for M.I.T. grads.
Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham is also a guitar mad scientist (listen to "Never Going Back Again" from '77's "Rumours," and you'll swear it took three people to play his solo riff).
Guitarist John Frusciante is The Red Hot Chili Peppers' resident genius. His riff from the Peppers' '92 breakthrough single, "Under the Bridge," channels Hendrix, Captain Beefheart, and Robert Johnson in one glorious melodic, circular motion. Frusciante has admitted one other influence: glam band T. Rex and their song "Rip Off." Frusciante has been quoted as saying, "I ripped off a song called 'Rip Off'. I thought that was interesting."
Sensitive Hair Band Riffage
Every hair band has the obligatory power ballad that starts which a super-sensitive acoustic guitar riff (nothing says sensitivity more than a big-haired dude with an Ovation guitar). Slash may have realized he was headed down that path when he came up with the opening riff for Guns N' Roses' 1988 hit "Sweet Child o' Mine." He refers to it as a "string skipping" exercise and claims he wrote it as a joke circus melody. The band thought of the song as an album-filler, it being too sweet of a sentiment to fit in with the rest of their songs. Wrong! Axl's ode to his girlfriend (and future ex-wife), Erin Everly - daughter of Don - was one of their biggest hits, and its electric guitar riff regularly makes top 10 lists worldwide.
Romantic Riffs
Despite the onstage aggression sometimes displayed, guitarists are romantics at heart. Some of the greatest guitar riffs are filled with yearning and heartbreak, many of them played by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers.
Tom Petty had the riff of 1981's "The Waiting" before he had anything else. He says he played it for a week without any lyrics. Lead guitarist Mile Campbell's slide fully cemented the pop heartache.
Across the Atlantic, a bunch of '80s British new Romantics were wearing their romantic rock riffs on their sleeves. The Cure ("Just Like Heaven") and The Smiths ("The Headmaster Ritual") were beginning to redefine the role of the rock guitar player and the rock riff.
Post-Modern Riffage
Nirvana's Kurt Cobain was famously the anti-rock star. His anti-establishment sentiments ran through his lyrics, his attitude toward the music industry, and ultimately his personal demons, which contributed to his 1994 suicide. However, his knack for a riff was surprisingly conventional. He admitted that "Smells Like Teen Spirit's" opening guitar line was a cliche similar to that of Boston's "More Than a Feeling" or The Kingsmen's "Louie Louie." It's proof that all riffs are connected. A fact that Jack White knows all too well as he bridges two centuries of riffage.
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Also, in the 70's there was a guitar player from Britain. His name is Tony Iommi.