You may well ask what the NME readership knows about guitar riffs? And, considering their top 20, you’d be right to ask.
At the time of writing, the list stands like this:
Muse – Plug In Baby
Muse – Hysteria
Muse – New Born
Muse – Supermassive Black Hole
The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Purple Haze
The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Voodoo Child
Blur – Song 2
Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit
The White Stripes – Seven Nation Army
Rage Against The Machine – Killing In The Name
The Kinks – You Really Got Me
The Rolling Stones – (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
The Smiths – How Soon Is Now?
Franz Ferdinand – Take Me Out
Radiohead – Just
Queens Of The Stone Age – No One Knows
The Beatles – Day Tripper
Led Zeppelin – Whole Lotta Love
Nirvana – Heart-Shaped Box
Nirvana – Come As You Are
Though the list contains some classic guitar riffs, overall the list says more about the NME demographic than it does about actual great guitar riffs. And a few of these are chord progressions - not riffs. So let’s pick the great riffs out of this list to start:
Muse – New Born
Hendrix – both listed. But, really – pretty much everything Hendrix played was close to Godliness – so let’s get him straight to the top.
Nirvana – Smells like teen spirit. Classic and iconic. It’s Kurt trying to write like The Pixies and, though a progression, the bass holds down the riff throughout.
The White Stripes – Seven Nation Army. White’s best? Possibly. Many imitators and covers since have granted this song a place in rock history.
The Kinks – You really got me. Deadly and immediate.
The Rolling Stones – I can’t get no Satisfaction. Sounds like a horn – feels like Keith had one at the time of writing.
Queens of the Stone Age – No-one Knows. Homme is one of the best guitarists in the world.
The Beatles – Day Tripper. Harrison – forever under-rated.
Led Zeppelin – Whole Lotta Love. Another one of the best guitarists ever – send this skyward.
OK – so my filter brings that down to 10. Working backwards: let’s look at the artists and see if they have any better riffs than these listed.
The Rolling Stones – Paint it Black
The Kinks – All day and all of the night
Jimi Hendrix – The king of riffs.
And now let’s list what else should be there.
Well how about these?
Metallica – Enter Sandman (among many, many others)
Guns n’ Roses – Sweet Child o’ Mine
So, if I was to work in tandem with the NME, that would approximate my top 20. And, yes, I did leave out that riff in Bohemian Rhapsody…