The Greatest Guitar Riffs Of All Time
The aim of this feature is to reclaim riffs from the guitar geeks, and in so doing to celebrate their infinite variety, from the bell-like clarion-call that ushers in the Temptations' "My Girl" to the staccato savagery of At The Drive-In's "One-Armed Scissor".
Sonically, the notion of the guitar riff encompasses multitudes--but its function has always been the same. A riff plunges you into a song. Its purpose it to accelerate your pulse, to alter your body chemistry. Deployed with aggression, a riff offers distilled exhilaration. Excitement amplified.
A riff can be a siren or warning shot, signalling danger up ahead - as with the cascade of overdriven notes that heralds Guns N' Roses' "Welcome To The Jungle."
Equally, it can signal that something strange and thrillingly new is afoot. In this category we can include such "anti-riffs" as Echo & The Bunnymen's guitar-as-sitar conjuring trick, "The Cutter," and My Bloody Valentine's "When You Sleep," an effects-pedal epic that saw 18 recording engineers tinker with it before Kevin Shields was satisfied.
An electrifying riff can be just as much the result of studio ingenuity as instrumental proficiency--that's why our shortlist includes Johnny Marr's wildly oscillating intro to "How Soon Is Now?" as well as the usual guitar store suspects: "All Right Now," "She Sells Sanctuary," etc.
Likewise, spirit counts for more than musicality in our reckoning. Hence the inclusion of Arctic Monkeys' child's-play "Brianstorm," and the Clash's "London Calling," a riff that essentially comprises a single chord, yet still manages to sound like onrushing apocalypse.
Tell us your own favorites by leaving a comment below--but please do browse through our shortlist first. That way, you can hear each riff (there's over 100 in total) and rate each one out of 10.
Also, a quick note by way of definition. "Guitar riff" is a slippery term, so for the sake of this feature our rule is this: if you can strum it (i.e., play it with a loose wrist) it's not a riff, it's a chord progression. Therefore "Cigarettes & Alcohol" is a riff. "Wonderwall" isn't.
I always liked the Jimi Hendrix riff from "Highway Chile."
I can tell the most voters were alternative rock fans. All the "real" riff got low votes, what a shame. Iron Maiden, Judas Preist, and Pantera all got 10's from me. I like that pic of Dimebag Darrell you got up.
Your right about the guitar riff being a slippery term, the NME site deffinetly treated it as such. Too much chord progression in most of the songs, not enough real riffs. Like I said earlier, you can tell those people are alterna-rock fans.
Classic examples of classic rock or metal riffs are : Metallica "Master of puppets", Megadeth "Holy wars", Accept "Balls to the wall", Judas Priest "You've got another thing coming", Ratt "You think you're tough" Led Zep "Whole lotta love"...those are guitar riffs...riffs are NOT single notes done in scales or appreggios, etc. Riffs have to be thick , cutting and have to slice right through the song verses like a saw does....=) That my friends is a "Guitar riff"
Dinosaur Jr. - "Little Fury Things"
The Fall - "Cruiser's Creek"