Best guitar solo in a pop song?

[p90jr]

I recall many Van Halen "purist" friends of mine being appalled when Beat It came out and finding out that Eddie had teamed up with Jacko. Personally, I really liked what Eddie did with that solo... heck, I even kind of liked the one that Weird Al's guitarist did on Eat It - before he exploded!

 

 

i am pretty sure Rick Derringer did the Eat It solo.

 

... and Derringer's protegé Neil Geraldo also really put some great solos on Pat Benatar songs... flashy, melodic, full of attitude and cool.

 

Which reminds me that I enjoyed what the guy who played lead guitar for Bryan Adams in the '80s heyday would do.

 

... and anybody who ever played on a Pretenders track.

 

... and Glenn Tilbrook's solos in Squeeze songs, particularly "Black Coffee In Bed" if I had to choose just one ("Another Nail for My Heart" if I have to choose another one).

 

... and will the world realize that Marshall Crenshaw is as good a guitarist as he is a songwriter? and inventive with how he plays those songs on any given night...

 

[video:youtube]

[video:youtube]

 

 

 

[zumajim]

Thank goodness someone ("d") thought to include Paul Kossof's wailing solo on All Right Now. I'd give my left hand to have that vibrato. Um, on second thought...

[Terrell]

[video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twjnaV741ZA

[Terrell]

[video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCE48O6U4Yw

 

10 Million Sold...

[Dannyalcatraz]

For The Edge, I always liked his solo in "The Fly", "Silver & Gold" and "Mysterious Ways".

 

Andy Summers? How about what he did in "Invisible Sun", "Spirits in the Material World"', "Synchronicity"... or the stuff he did with Robert Fripp?

[Terrell]

[video:youtube]

 

14 Million Served...

 

:-)

 

Wikki link

 

An interesting thing I've discovered from trying to find the top selling single of all time. Since the internet distribution, single sales have really taken off. The top singles of all time are dominated by the post CD era releases.

[Dannyalcatraz]

Neil Geraldo

Definitely underrated.

[Scott Fraser]

[video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twjnaV741ZA

 

Definitely exceeded my Out-Of-Tune-Vocals-Tolerance threshold.

But a fun vamp solo.

[dvuksanovich]

Prince's solo at the end of "Purple Rain" is pretty awesome.

[skipclone 1]

Here`s one of my faves:

[video:youtube]

[Terrell]

[video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twjnaV741ZA

 

Definitely exceeded my Out-Of-Tune-Vocals-Tolerance threshold.

But a fun vamp solo.

 

LMAO! I totally thought of putting a warning label on it for you specifically...

 

I was thinking: "I wonder if Fraser is going to mention how bad the monitor mix must be".

[Dannyalcatraz]

 

Doyle Bramhall II on "Too Many Ways To Fall" is still some pretty solid work.

 

Warren Cucurillo laid sown a brief but tastily appropriate solo in Missing Persons' "Give". Not too flashy- juuuust right.

 

Steve Stevens's solo in Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell" was pretty hot, too.

 

[skipclone 1]

But wait

There`s more:

[video:youtube]

 

and-

 

[video:youtube]

[Dannyalcatraz]

Adrian Belew...what can I say?

 

Which reminded me of so much else..."Matte Kudesai", "Sleepless" (both studio versions), "Thela Hun Gingeet"...KC solos usually bend your mind a bit.

[p90jr]

I would've put up "Burning For You" to represent Buck Dharma's finest moment, vocally and guitar-wise (if we ignore "Don't Fear The Reaper" for being ubiquitous).

[skipclone 1]

I would've put up "Burning For You" to represent Buck Dharma's finest moment, vocally and guitar-wise (if we ignore "Don't Fear The Reaper" for being ubiquitous).

 

I`ll see that, and raise you a `Godzilla`-

actually it`s the main riff from E.T.I that gets me, kinda like a mutated `Walk This Way` but still unique.

[harvey]

For The Edge, I always liked his solo in "The Fly", "Silver & Gold" and "Mysterious Ways".

 

Andy Summers? How about what he did in "Invisible Sun", "Spirits in the Material World"', "Synchronicity"... or the stuff he did with Robert Fripp?

 

The Fly...yes! How about "When You Look at The World" from All That You Can't Leave Behind?

 

[d halfnote]

Y'know, everyone's got favorite records.

What would keep this thread from being just a list of those faves is explaining what makes any of these records candidates for the title of best.

Just sayin', y'know ?

[Eric Iverson]

Can you really separate it, as in "this one's monumentally important, very well done, but it doesn't really do anything for me personally." Fine, but when you go home from a hard day's night, what do you listen to? Isn't it what you actually LIKE??

[Scott Fraser]

Y'know, everyone's got []favorite records[/i].

What would keep this thread from being just a list of those faves is explaining what makes any of these records candidates for the title of best[/i].

Just sayin', y'know ?

 

Yer too right.

In the numerous solos in the first 4 or 5 Steely Dan albums, the ones I keep coming back to year after year, it is the melodic inventiveness, a lack of riff-dependency, wide intervallic leaps, & the fact that every bar has new unexpected twists. A lack of predictability keeps them fresh for me. Whether it's Dias, Baxter, or the various guest soloists, there's always a sense of innovation going on, of Becker & Fagen never accepting any solo that didn't illuminate the material at hand, that any cliches would be eliminated. That is what does it for me on those records, & why so much of pop is so boring to me, due to the lack of that level of inventiveness.

[whitefang]

WOW! Look how far from topic y'all strayed THIS time!

 

Best guitar solo in a pop song?

 

That's POP! As in SODA POP! All air bubbles and no PUNCH, which is how I always thought of it.

 

There's ROCK music, then POP. The sound BUBBLE GUM makes!

 

But I do understand "pop" in "pop" music is short for "popular", which leaves out pretty much what many here have submitted. "Pop" music would, in my mind, be that cheesy, plastic crap you'd hear on "top 40" radio stations, which leaves out several offerings, like Fripp or some of those Steely Dan submissions that rarely, if at all, found airtime. You can't consider it "pop" just 'cause YOU like it; millions nationwide had to have liked it as well.

 

Now that I've chilled a bit, I'd like to add to those replies that mentioned Rick Derringer and "Eat It".

 

Seems that Derringer's been a busy man...not only providing solos for "Eat It", but also Alice Cooper's "Under My Wheels", and Steely Dan's "Show Biz Kids" and "Chain Lightning", among some others on songs I never heard of.

 

As for "Best solo in a pop song"? Well, I've not listened to enough "pop" music, by the aforementioned definition, for so many years, I wouldn't be able to think of one. So I'll simply just go along with "Midnight At The Oasis" which DOES have a tasty solo, and tasty guitar work throughout.

 

OK. Vent over. We now return you to your regular highjack already in progress...

Whitefang

[d halfnote]

Y'know, everyone's got favorite records.

What would keep this thread from being just a list of those faves is explaining what makes any of these records candidates for the title of best.

Just sayin', y'know ?

Can you really separate it, as in "this one's monumentally important, very well done, but it doesn't really do anything for me personally." Fine, but when you go home from a hard day's night, what do you listen to? Isn't it what you actually LIKE??

Presuming yer responding to me, Eric, I'd say that there's no need to separate what y'like from what's good.

What makes y'think there is ?

The fact is that everything any of us likes is by definition fantastic, eh ?

Why else would we like it ?!

 

The thing is that all too often what we read here & in similar threads is "This is great !"

OK...but how so ?

What qualities can one point to that makes the work worth study ?

Sometimes there's not even a recording mentioned, just a player, which makes it even more vague.

I suppose it's just thought to be so obvious how terrific something is that everyone else will recognize it.

 

Nobody has to subscribe to my ideas of how to comment or offer ideas but is it so hard to offer some elucidation or description ?

[d halfnote]

WOW! Look how far from topic y'all strayed THIS time!

Best guitar solo in a pop song?

That's POP! As in SODA POP! All air bubbles and no PUNCH, which is how I always thought of it.

 

There's ROCK music, then POP. The sound BUBBLE GUM makes!

But I do understand "pop" in "pop" music is short for "popular", which leaves out pretty much what many here have submitted. "Pop" music would, in my mind, be that cheesy, plastic crap you'd hear on "top 40" radio stations, which leaves out several offerings, like Fripp or some of those Steely Dan submissions that rarely, if at all, found airtime. You can't consider it "pop" just 'cause YOU like it; millions nationwide had to have liked it as well.

 

Now that I've chilled a bit, I'd like to add to those replies that mentioned Rick Derringer and "Eat It".

 

Seems that Derringer's been a busy man...not only providing solos for "Eat It", but also Alice Cooper's "Under My Wheels", and Steely Dan's "Show Biz Kids" and "Chain Lightning", among some others on songs I never heard of.

 

As for "Best solo in a pop song"? Well, I've not listened to enough "pop" music, by the aforementioned definition, for so many years, I wouldn't be able to think of one. So I'll simply just go along with "Midnight At The Oasis" which DOES have a tasty solo, and tasty guitar work throughout.

 

OK. Vent over. We now return you to your regular highjack already in progress...

Whitefang

Yeah, there's a tilt here toward rock music over mainstream pop (glossy songs in the style of Sinatra or Burt Bacharach) but the fact is that between abt 1964~2000&now rock has been the dominant style of popular music, with periods of country-rock & more recently hip-hop, which is really just the most recent version of rock.

One specific example (Steely Dan) were one of the major sellers of the 1970s.

I'm not sure you could get more pop than they were for a while, though I suspect Frank Zappa was trying hard to figure that one.

[whitefang]

Well, d, by my criteria, Steely Dan was NEVER "pop". They sounded like no one else, and no one else sounded like THEM. I always thought of pop as a sort of template sharing genre. Like for instance, I always had a hard time telling the difference between Toto, Poco, Air Supply and the like. Or today, I hear little difference between Ga-Ga, Perry, Stefani. The music is so generic you have to wonder if it's all prerecorded and just picked out of a barrell or something.

 

And I don't think Zappa bothered trying to figure anyone else out. He had better things to do.

Whitefang

[Dannyalcatraz]

Nobody has to subscribe to my ideas of how to comment or offer ideas but is it so hard to offer some elucidation or description ?

 

For me, it's not any one thing.

 

For some of the solos mentioned in this thread, it's how everything about the solo works with the song it's a part of- Benson's "Masquerade" or the solo from Missing Persons' "Give."

 

Others, like Fripp's wild solo in "Fame" or SRV's solo in "Lets Dance" stray further from the tone of the song in general, occasionally seeming to be completely alien to the song.

 

Some, like EVH's solo in "Beat It" are simply unexpected shows of virtuosity.

 

All that they have in common is that they make me sit up and take note of how they make me feel.

[d halfnote]

Well, d, by my criteria, Steely Dan was NEVER "pop". They sounded like no one else, and no one else sounded like THEM. I always thought of pop as a sort of template sharing genre. Like for instance, I always had a hard time telling the difference between Toto, Poco, Air Supply and the like. Or today, I hear little difference between Ga-Ga, Perry, Stefani. The music is so generic you have to wonder if it's all prerecorded and just picked out of a barrell or something.

 

And I don't think Zappa bothered trying to figure anyone else out. He had better things to do.

Whitefang

FWIW or matters, by the basic criteria of "popular", few bands in their 1970s~80s heyday were more pop than St.Dan.

They got massive radio play; sold tons of records; were darlings of critics, general music fans & musicians; & they influenced many other artists.

As pop as the BeeGees ? No...but what's the cutoff point ?

As far as Zappa, if you don't think he analyzed why other artists were popular or how he could better promote his own work... :idk

 

Back to the lists...

[d halfnote]

I dig yer point Danny, I just like to know what makes ppl like something when they recommend it.

It's also a good way to get to know how they think abt music.

 

BTW...

...Fripp's wild solo in "Fame"

:idk

It's not unreasonable to think Fripp played & maybe he did but...

Fame

David Bowie Lead Vocals, Guitar

John Lennon Backing Vocals, Guitar

Carlos Alomar Guitar

Emir Kassan Bass

Dennis Davis Drums

Ralph McDonald Percussion

[happydog]

BTW...

...Fripp's wild solo in "Fame"

:idk

It's not unreasonable to think Fripp played & maybe he did but...

 

Yeah, I think Danny is thinking of "Heroes," where Fripp did play guitar. I never thought of that as a "wild" solo from Fripp because I'm a KC fan and thought of it as relatively tame, but it's a good solo.

 

I don't wanna get too deep into the "what is pop" thing but I will say that me, I liked the solo on Linda Rondstadt's "You're No Good" better than the actual song. The late Andrew Gold was really good at doing that.

[Scott Fraser]

Well, d, by my criteria, Steely Dan was NEVER "pop". They sounded like no one else, and no one else sounded like THEM. I always thought of pop as a sort of template sharing genre.

 

And to my way of categorizing, Steely Dan were very much pop, but to me pop isn't a pejorative term. It's merely a container encompassing the rock based music of the masses in America & England which took over from the jazz/swing based music of the WWII generation in the 1950s. That Steely Dan as well as The Archies can both be considered to exist in the same broad category is not a contradiction to me. And while I definitely feel that the overwhelming majority of pop is total garbage, the nomenclature of "pop" is not a statement of quality, but rather a defining of broad stylistic elements.

[Caevan O’Shite]

"Pop"- as in "Popular"- is NOT even REMOTELY a style or even a group of styles- it is, largely, simply the popular hits and albums that succeed in registering on the Pop Charts via sales and reported broadcast rotation. Thus many of the tunes mentioned by various posters on this thread are indeed- though not limited to being- "Pop", having sold large numbers of singles, albums, and repeated inclusion on airplay lists, all generating revenue.