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The best guitar riff ever?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kaat72
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Kaat72

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A guitar riff is defined as a cluster or sequence of notes or chords that is used in a song. It can be repeated over and over again, or it may only be heard once in, say, a lead guitar solo. Riffs can be minor decorative elements or they can be the basis of a song. What is the best guitar riff of all time?
Is it Led Zeppelin's Black Dog, or maybe Pearl Jam's Alive? Deep Purple's Black Night?
Let's hear it!
 
Although I truly appreciate your taste in music, I'm not asking for artists, but for a riff ;)
 
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Kaat72 said:
Although I truly appreciate your rate in music, I'm not asking for artists, but for a riff ;)
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Yeah.

I know.

I answered - in multiple riffs per artist, with a few songs mentioned - for all of which the multiple riffs are perfectly obvious to me.

I simply reduced the data in print.

If you didn't hear multiple, excellent, well known riffs mentally for each clause specified then not sure how describing any of them helps. :D

Much less choosing the best ever. :)

Seriously - when you got as far as "Peter Green's Fleetwood" did you not already start hearing the intro to Oh Well before even getting to the first comma?

How many did you hear reading as far as "Eric Clap"...? :D

If yes, several, then we both know which ones.
 
No More Tears guitar riff half way through the song

Anything by Joe Satriani

Blues Deluxe by Joe Bonamassa has a great one.

Someone has to have mentioned Free Bird by now, right?
 
Why are they all American bands so far? I know there are some awesome shredders across Asia!

The end of Dancing Mad Waltz, by the Black Mages, Nobuo Uematsu gets into a guitar solo that sends shivers down my spine every time I listen to it!
 
EarlyMon said:
Either Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, Oh Well; Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer; Pete Townsend's Eminence Front; The Who's The Real Me; Eric Clapton and everything he did; BB King and everything he did; too much from Phil Manzanara with 801; and I leave you with this -

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EM, maybe I'm way off base but aren't you in China? How'd you get such a great appreciation for the blues? (Of course if I'm wrong and your in America it makes sense lol..)
 
CrimsonToker said:
EM, maybe I'm way off base but aren't you in China? How'd you get such a great appreciation for the blues? (Of course if I'm wrong and your in America it makes sense lol..)
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Per my avatar, I live in a suborbital platform and I'm visiting from Mars.

Naturally that places me in New Mexico, USA - but I grew up on MoTown because that's where I'm from.

@mikedt lives in China but didn't always.
 
Texas flood, by the great Stevie Ray Vaughan. The entire song is one amazing riff after another. For that matter, just about anything by him
 
Jimmy Page made the rock riff a true art form.

David Gilmour could stick a riff in your head in 4 notes (Shine on You Crazy Diamond).

Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Mark Knophler, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Pete Townshend, Jeff Beck, Johnny Winter, on and on...so many greats gone or getting old.

Here's hoping younger talent like Joe Bonamassa, John Mayer (who can play when he wants to) Jack White and others can keep rock guitar, musicianship and creativity alive. Riff on!
 
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Crashdamage said:
Jimmy Page made the rock riff a true art form.

David Gilmour could stick a riff in your head in 3 notes (Shine on You Crazy Diamond).

Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Mark Knophler, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Pete Townshend, Jeff Beck, Johnny Winter, on and on...so many greats gone or getting old.

Here's hoping younger talent like Joe Bonamassa, John Mayer (who can play when he wants to) Jack White and others can keep rock guitar, musicianship and creativity alive. Riff on!
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You are so right.
 
Well said, well said all around.

It occurs that some of our folks may know the sound but didn't recognize the title, so...


Eighteen seconds that defines not only this song but many that followed.

And you didn't ask but I think that the bass riff from the beginning of Badge by Cream is pretty well known, and spawned a lot of walking bass lines -



And if you're Clapton, you can actually replace that with a guitar -


:D
 
From one of my favorite concerts...Live in Gdansk. David Gilmour with the great Richard Wright just before his death. IMHO the best performance Gilmour ever did of the insane solo that ends Comfortably Numb. The Black Strat speaks...


This concert also has the most beautiful version ever of Shine on You Crazy Diamond with none other than Dick Parry on sax. Gilmour uses just 4 notes to drill that unforgettable riff into your head...

 
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And for something completely different... Joe Bonamassa teaches a Les Paul how in a small club. With Anton Figg on drums - I forget the bass player right now...


I gotta stop...I'll end up posting Tedeschi-Trucks Band, Blind Faith, James Brown and God-only-knows what long-forgotten stuff my damaged mind will find irresistible. Help me...
 
Define best? One that sticks in your head? One that's technically brilliant? One that invokes emotion or memories? One that every one knows?

I don't know where to begin, or where to stop.

EarlyMon said:
Seriously - when you got as far as "Peter Green's Fleetwood" did you not already start hearing the intro to Oh Well before even getting to the first comma?
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Absolutely. That and Shake your Moneymaker.


Jimi Hendrix, Purple Haze.

The Animals - House of the Rising Sun (although their version is poop when compared to Bob Dylan or Pete Seegers).

Chuck Berry, Johnny B. Goode (although Jimmy Hendrix' version is much better).

The Beatles, I Feel Fine (probably not the greatest, but whenever I hear that song, the intro is stuck in my head for days).

Another Beatles riff that gets stuck in my head for days is the intro to Ticket to Ride (but probably because Ticket to Ride is one of my favourite songs of all time).

Ocean Colour Scene Riverboat Song



This one is iconic (not sure about over the pond, but over here it is). Folks will probably have heard covers, not the original.


Great, great band that (aside from this song) never got the attention they deserved. The bassist went on to form another band called Cast who were no where near as good. The Lead singer of the Las was asked if he wanted to get back into music again, but he said he didn't see any point as every 3 months he gets a royalties cheque from this song which makes him a fortune.

Intro to Step in to My World by Hurricane #1?


Fools Gold by The Stone Roses?



or Waterfall by the Stone Roses?

Tonnes from my youth/when I was a teenager and there are even more from the eras where music was consistently decent.
 
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Also does it have to be guitar riffs?

The bass lines (can you class them as riffs?)

The Bass riff here:


Or here:


Hey Joe


One last one which isn't bass


Can you guess who my favourite band is? :p
 
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