Fuddland
The latest issue of Total Guitar magazine has a feature on the top 100 guitar riffs of all time, the first 20 of which are reported by the BBC.
Sweet Child O’ Mine - Guns N’ Roses
Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
Whole Lotta Love - Led Zeppelin
Smoke On The Water - Deep Purple
Enter Sandman - Metallica
Layla - Derek & The Dominoes/Eric Clapton
Master Of Puppets - Metallica
Back In Black - AC/DC
Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) - Jimi Hendrix
Paranoid - Black Sabbath
Crazy Train - Ozzy Osbourne
All Right Now - Free
Plug In Baby - Muse
Black Dog - Led Zeppelin
Ain’t Talkin’ ‘bout Love - Van Halen
Walk This Way - Aerosmith with Run DMC
Sunshine Of Your Love - Cream
No-One Knows - Queens of The Stone Age
Paradise City - Guns N’ Roses
Killing In The Name - Rage Against the Machine
I don’t know some of those songs, but I’m at least familiar the bands and it’s clear there’s one thing common to all the riffs: they’re all played on electric guitar. I’ve got nothing against electric guitar riffs and there are some classic ones in this list, although obviously I’ve got my own preferences [most of Jimi Hendrix’s songs deserve to make the top 100, and “Little Wing” should be way up there, along with Bernard Butler’s killer opening to Suede’s “This Hollywood Life”]. But, ignoring the rock bias of Total Guitar and its readers, I see no reason why acoustic guitar riffs can’t be as good as electric ones, so in an attempt to redress the balance I had a look through my song collection and tried to pick out a list of what I consider to be great acoustic riffs.
The line between a riff and a chord progression is blurred at the best of times, and it becomes especially difficult to distinguish the two in an acoustic song where the guitar is generally utilised to a greater degree to “fill out” the song more than an electric guitar backed-up by rhythm guitar, bass and drums. It became much more about deciding what I considered a riff, a chord progression, an introduction or an all-out solo, and then ruling out the song if it fell in any but the first category; no doubt some of these will still be contentious choices.
The Wild Ones - Suede
Tears in Heaven - Eric Clapton
Losing my Religion - R.E.M. [mandolin riff!]
High and Dry - Radiohead
Kielbasa - Tenacious D
Here Comes the Sun - The Beatles
Warehouse - Dave Matthews Band
The Shining - Badly Drawn Boy
Lie in our Graves - Dave Matthews Band
You Light the Fire - Bernard Butler
Loser - Beck
Comments
Daisy | 2004 / 05 / 03 – 00:46
I’m useless at remembering songs unless I’ve heard them a few minutes ago and since I’m now listening to the Carpenters* it’ll be a while before I can think in “riff mode” again.
*tell anyone that I confessed to that and you’re a dead man ;-)
the manly smell | 2004 / 05 / 04 – 10:13
Amen to 1. and 10. brother!
Clair | 2004 / 05 / 04 – 13:24
Have to agree with Little Wing, one of my favourite songs ever and what I hope to dance to at my wedding.
mrtn | 2004 / 05 / 04 – 13:56
prolly have some more comments re: acoustic riffs later, however might i direct you to hayseed dixie’s excellent acoustic (and hillbilly!) cover of walk this way (can be briefly heard here at amazon, which IMHO goes some way towards showing that a great riff is a great riff is a great riff…
David | 2004 / 05 / 04 – 14:17
Ooh, lots of Re #n’s!
Re #1: You secret is safe with me. Good job you didn’t post that info on a public website. ;)
Re #2: Always good to find a fellow BB fan. And might I add it’s wonderful to be friends & lovers?
Re #3: Excellent, it’s one of my favourites too. I have a great music-only [i.e. no singing] version that Jimi recorded at some point, although I don’t know where it’s from.
Re #4: That is so … weird! I kinda like it though, and would go even further than yourself: a great riff is a great riff is a great riff is a great riff. Further evidence provided by the Bluegrass Tribute to R.E.M. [not so keen on the “picking the vocal line” of Nightswimming, but Find the River sounds very promising].
[Edited by commenter — 14:19]
steve | 2004 / 05 / 05 – 11:39
Little Wing - Jimi Hendrix.
David | 2004 / 05 / 05 – 11:45
Re #6: Well said. [Err … what about it?]
steve | 2004 / 05 / 11 – 11:19
The whole song is one big lovely riff.
David | 2004 / 05 / 11 – 11:24
Re #8: Ah, so you were agreeing with myself [as I mentioned it in my post] and Claire [comment #3], although it’s an electric guitar riff and I was bigging it up for acoustic riffs. Thanks for clearing that up. :)
steve | 2004 / 05 / 11 – 12:47
Wind Cries Mary also has some excellent chord arrangements.
David | 2004 / 05 / 11 – 14:10
Re #10: It certainly does, and sounds lovely [if I do say so myself] when played on an acoustic. Along with something like Free’s “All right Now”, it’s an example of one of those songs where it’s arguable whether it’s a riff or a chord progression — does putting a “twiddly bit” somewhere in a basic chord progression automatically make it a riff, or just a fancy progression? Is there actually such a thing as a chord progression, or is everything a riff?
[Edited by commenter — 14:11]
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