Welcome To The Working Week (4/19/10)
Last week on Welcome To The Working Week, Cory enumerated his five favorite guitar solos of all time -- I’m not sure how he managed to even find five guitar solos in his meager collection of actual rock music, but then again his list did include a song from Brian fucking Eno. Whatever. He challenged me, in that post, to make a list of my own, as I’m on record as thinking guitar solos are awesome, all the time, every day. So, with that being said, here are five guitar solos that excite my undiscriminating ears:
1. Led Zeppelin -- “Communication Breakdown”
To put into perspective just how awesome Led Zeppelin actually were, consider this: “Communication Breakdown” (and it’s ripping 30-second solo) feature on the band’s first album. They actually started out this good. This is one of my favorite Zep songs, and it’s almost entirely because of Jimmy Page‘s guitar solo at about 1:24 -- it’s hard to believe, the first time you hear it, that anyone can actually play guitar like that. That fast, that fluid, that fucking mean. It’s cliche by now to worship at the altar of Page’s virtuosity, but the fact remains, over forty years later, that his only competition -- ever -- was Jimi Hendrix. Guys like Joe Perry and Eddie Van Halen just copied the playbook that he wrote. His playing is still so hot that it’ll melt the wax in your ears.
2. Jawbreaker -- “Do You Still Hate Me?”
Blake Schwarzenbach was never a great guitar player. But he always got a good guitar sound, and once in awhile he’d sock you with something fierce and unexpected and breathtaking in its simple power -- like, for instance, the twenty second solo that closes out this chestnut from Jawbreaker’s 1994 classic 24 Hour Revenge Therapy. It’s not complex or even necessarily interesting, but the fevered, repetitive intensity of Shwarzenbach’s playing renders technical skill irrelevant. It’s all about the passion on this one -- like that movie where Mel Gibson beat up Jesus. (I think?)
3. Rilo Kiley -- “Breakin’ Up”
Rilo Kiley’s Blake Sennett probably doesn’t sweat the lack of props he gets for his playing as much as he sweats the lack of props he gets for actually being in Rilo Kiley these days -- the band’s last two records were manufactured so aggressively as beefed up Jenny Lewis solo records that it’s easy to forget Sennett is a songwriter and master axeman, too. “Breakin’ Up,” which most people probably don’t think of as a “guitar song,” features some of his best playing, in my opinion -- listen to the way he varies the main riff on each verse, and of course his liquid solo that falls exactly where it needs to for ultimate pop satisfaction. You might be shaking your head right now, but I assure that Rilo Kiley is way better than the tastemakers of the day would have you believe, and Sennett is their secret weapon. He’s as integral to the band’s sound as, say, Joey Santiago was to the Pixies’. (For the record, I don’t know what’s going on with this video that I’ve embedded below, but the sound quality is pretty good. I can’t vouch for any other aspect of it.)
4. Queen -- “Killer Queen”
Brian May is a chameleon. This has nothing to do with anything, but listen: right now I’m listening to “Fat Bottomed Girls,” and it’s preventing me from writing anything about “Killer Queen.” Because I can’t even reconcile that these two songs were written and performed by the same band, with the same guitar player. The licks on “Killer Queen” are mesmerizing as they seemingly emerge from everywhere without ever dominating the sound or puncturing the highfalutin’ mood -- not even during the actual guitar solo, which begins at about 1:30 and actually carves a hole in the shape of itself in the speaker and then sashays away into the ether. Of course, now I’m listening to “Bicycle Race,” and that seems like some other band’s greatest song.
5. Dinosaur Jr -- “Sludgefeast”
Queen and Dinosaur Jr have much in common -- both execute flawlessly badass sonic dive-bombs while also seeming simultaneously gay and nerdy. “Sludgefeast,” from Dino’s much-loved You’re Living All Over Me, is typical of its era -- it’s almost all solo, with J Mascis shooting distortion-drenched riffs in every possible direction. Around the 4:30 mark is when shit really starts to get fucked up, though, so you might wanna fast-forward past some of the less-than-tuneful singing that precedes it. The song fades out with the solo still blaring, retreating ever further into some magical world where J Mascis solos go on forever. I want to go to there. (Side-note: I’m listening to “The Lung” now [it's the next song on the album] and the solo on this one is even better than the one on “Sludgefeast.” I’m obviously not going to delete an entire already-written paragraph, though.)
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The dinosaur jr. one is so good you put it twice!
2 different videos, asstard. Do your research.