Dust My Lick

Gibson’s 10 Iconic Blues Riffs & Melodies is focused on playing – maybe fooling around and coming up with your own riffs.  But it could just as easily be called The Best Blues Songs of All Time.

Yeah, I know, there are a few thousand tunes competing for that honour, but it’s a pretty impressive list.  Songs written by giants like Willie Dixon, Howlin’ Wolf and Robert Johnson, and played by the masters:  Sumlin, B.B., Buddy Guy, Elmore James, Albert King, Clapton, Hendrix and Johnny Winter.  It doesn’t get much better than that.

But the article’s main point is a good one:  mess around with something you already know and it might take you somewhere new.  I’m sure that’s how most songs are written.

Reelin’ In the Ears

Great songs hook you quickly, and reel you in.  This is nicely illustrated by Guitar World’s The 20 Best Guitar Intro’s of All Time.

Day Tripper, Sunshine Of Your Love, Smoke On The Water, Heartbreaker, You Really Got Me …  Hendrix, Van Halen, Chuck Berry, Hetfield, Keef …   Some of the best riffs of all time courtesy the greatest riff-meisters of all time.

Most great songs have a ‘hook,’ something that grabs you, catches your attention, somehow makes you feel like you already know the song even when you’re hearing it for the first time.  Sometimes that hook is a riff, but not always.  Sometimes the hook doesn’t show up until part way through the song.  But looking at GW’s list, I’d have to say the winning formula has got to be to snag ‘em right away.

Whole Lotta Riffs

The beat: definitely.  The energy: probably.  The simplicity: most of the time.  The lyrics: often.  The audacity: goes without saying.  But what really sets a great rock song apart is the riff.  The hook that buries itself into your DNA, where it forevermore acts as a switch, a trigger, a hypnotist’s command.

BBC Radio’s Greatest Guitar Riffs have most of the ones you’d expect: Whole Lotta Love, Sweet Child O’ Mine, Back In Black, Smoke On The Water and Layla landing in the top 5.  Can’t really argue with those.

And as you scan down the list, you realize – joyfully, I’ll bet – just how much great music we’ve been blessed with.  Dire Straits, Pink Floyd, Hendrix, Chuck Berry, Rush, Free, Fleetwood Mac, Cream … on and on it goes.  I can’t think of one riff on this list that doesn’t deserve to be here.

However, it is nothing short of shocking that the Stones and Beatles have only one entry each.  Nice of the BBC to spread the joy, but I can think of another dozen or so riffs from those two groups that are more than worthy.  Nevermind.  I’ll get over it.

Sad, though, that there’s nothing current.  Rock riffs seem to have gone the way of the dodo, and that is not a good thing.

Play With Fire

Now here’s a difficult list to assemble: Gibson’s Keith Richards' 10 Coolest Guitar Riffs.  Difficult to narrow down to only 10, that is.

Here’s the list:

Satisfaction, Get Off My Cloud, 19^th Nervous Breakdown, Mother’s Little Helper, Paint It Black, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Gimme Shelter, Honky Tonk Women, Brown Sugar, Start Me Up.

Easy, right?  Sure, but what about: Street Fighting Man, Beast of Burden, Bitch, The Last Time, even Tumbling Dice?  Keef is rivaled only by John Lennon and Jimmy Page in terms of volume, impact and unforgettability of killer riffs.  As the article points out, these riffs are now part of the culture.

You may or may not think Keith Richards is respectable, but time appears to be on his side.

As Clear As The Sun In The Summer Sky

I know it’s been played to death, but there’s a case to be made that Boston’s More Than A Feeling might be the best rock song ever written.

OK, maybe not, but – like Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony– it could be held up as the best example of the genre, worthy of study.

Screaming guitars and fancy acoustic pickin’.  Nice.  An unforgettable hook.  Lyrics that grab your emotions without actually going too deep.  Smart.  Another great hook that acts as a bridge to the chorus, showing you that this ain’t no simple 3 chord rock song.  These people were MIT students; they have depth.

So make that two unforgettable hooks.  Wait!  Make it three, since the chorus somehow manages to steal a power chord riff that’s been done to death and make it sound new.

A soulful melody.  Sweet harmonies.  Another genius bridge on the way into the solo.  Oh ya, and you can sing the solo.  You do sing the solo.  No mindless shredding here; this is music.

All of the elements are simple, but the relative complexity of the structure, and the number of elements subtly add to your enjoyment of the song.  “Like this?  Great.  Here’s a little something more.”  It’s like chocolate sauce and sprinkles on your ice cream.

Listen: I like raw three-chord rock and blues, but a lot of masterpieces have the kind of added complexity and intelligence described above.

It’s too bad the lawyers got involved so early in their career.  I always felt Boston could have given us so much more.

Listen Up

There is no better way to get your attention than to kick off a song with a killer riff, as illustrated in Gibson's 10 of Rock's Greatest Guitar Intros. 

Something new, something clever, something loud, usually something simple.

Hey!  Over here!  Pay attention.  Stop what you’re doing.  You’re gonna dig this.

It’s arguably part of the formula for a great rock song.  As hinted by the carefully worded title, these are 10 of rock’s greatest intros, not rock’s 10 greatest intros.  The comments below the posting really drive this home.  No end of worthy candidates.

Though, really, is there anything better than I Feel Fine?  No wait!  Layla.  No, Start Me Up.  No, no, no!  Blackdog.  Wait! …

Sticks Like Oatmeal

Gibson has a long-overdue article called Guitar Riffs ... an Art in Need of a Revival.  Yes, I dropped the question mark.

It talks about the dangers of comparing the old to the new (less than effectively, actually, ‘cause of course Babe Ruth was better than Albert Pujols).  They do have a point: each generation has to do its own thing.  But for some reason, today’s rockers seem to have abandoned the riff.

Kinda a weird, because the article nicely explains why that’s the tool to imbed your music inside the listener’s psyche, to imbed it under the skin, to worm its way right into the DNA chain.  A good riff sticks to you like oatmeal sticks to your ribs.

Maybe it helps explain why “classic rock” records now outsell current releases.  As the article explains, a good riff is instantly familiar but also altogether new.  A lot of songs today sound very familiar because they feature the obligatory distorted power chords and shouting, but not much feels new.

By talking about The Stones’ most recent riff on Doom and Gloom, the article neatly proves that Paul Stanley from Kiss was dead wrong when he claimed all the good riffs had been written.

Not so.  Come on, people.  Get out there and give us something to remember.

Riffs Across the Water

New Musical Expresses 50 Greatest Guitar Riffs of All Time is another reminder for me that my culture is more rooted on this side of the Atlantic.

Lots of the expected suspects:  Back in Black, Smoke on the Water, Sunshine of Your Love, Voodoo Child, You Really Got Me, Satisfaction, Cinnamon Girl, Johnny B. Goode, and so on.

Glad to see Rebel Rebel made the cut.  Ditto Song2, Get It On, and Seventh Nation Army.

Speaking of The White Stripes, the list serves up a reminder (to me, anyway) that lots of great guitar-based music continued to be made after 1990.  Not enough, but lots.

That said, and with no disrespect to some of the newer bands listed, but no Springsteen?  No Creedence?  No Dire Straits?  No Tull?  No Zeppelin?  At all?  No Beatles?  Really?   Shouldn’t they have, like 6 or 7 on this list?  Hello?

Also, I get the feeling that the list is trying too hard to spread the joy; one for the Stones, one for the Kinks, one for him, one for her, one for them, one for you, one for me …   Fine, but I’m not sure I Can’t Explain is the Who’s best riff, or The Streets Have No Name the best from U2.  And yes, Free Fallin’ gets the audience singing, but is it really Tom Petty’s best riff?

Maybe these tunes just went better with the pictures.  The NME articles seem to be more about the pictures.

All The Madness In My Soul

When I watched the 12.12.12 Concert for Sandy Relief a while back, I was nothing less than astonished by Springsteen’s performance of Born To Run.

I mean, here’s a guy who’s 63 years old singing his a** off about teenage angst and meaning it.  And he’s convincing!

Sure he’s that good, but maybe the song carries him more than a little.

You know, it just might be the greatest rock song ever.  It’s got it all: the aforementioned teenage angst, plus rebellion, romance, danger, hope, even social commentary – delivered over one of the best riffs of all time.

I don’t know if Springsteen’s incredible energy still makes the song relevant, or if the power of the song still makes Springsteen an untamed force of nature.  But either way, it’s magic.