Your favourite guitar solos

Forostar

Ancient Mariner
Hiya fellow forummers. I wonder which bands you like because of their guitar solos and would you care to mention some songs which contain really nice solos in your opinion?
Here's my list:

Judas Priest - "Painkiller", "Between The Hammer & The Anvil", "Rock Hard, Ride Free", "Run of the Mill", "One Shot at Glory", "Hard As Iron".
Scar Symmetry - "Deviate From The Norm, "2012: The Demise of the 5th Sun", "Mind Machine".
The Arcane Order - "The Superior Collision", "Bloodlust".
Rush - "Limelight", "La Villa Strangiato".
Soilwork - "Chainheart Machine", "Needlefeast"
Black Sabbath - "Glory Ride", "Neon Knights", "Jerusalem" & everything from the "Headless Cross" album!
Nocturnal Rites - "Eternity Holds".
Jacobs Dream - "The Warning".
God Dethroned - "Nihilism".
Helloween - "Giants", "Warrior", "Pleasure Drone", basically all solos by Kai Hansen in the 1985-1988 period.
Iron Savior - "Riding On Fire", "Atlantis Falling".
Dio - "Rainbow In The Dark", "Don't Talk To Strangers", the outro-solo (more of a melody to be honest) of "Egypt - The Chains Are On".
A lot of Arch Enemy solos are of a very high quality (difficult to mention only one or a few), the same goes for the band Gamma Ray.

Some non-metal bands:
Dire Straits - "Where Do You Think You're Going", "Sultans Of Swing", "Brothers In Arms"
Pink Floyd - "Comfortably Numb".

Thanks for contributing! :)
 
Dream Theater - Learning To Live, Under A Glass Moon
Artillery - Don't Believe
Megadeth - Wake Up Dead, Tornado Of Souls, The Conjuring
Metallica - Fade To Black, To Live Is To Die, One
Bathory - Shores In Flames
Atheist - Mother Man, Retribution
Judas Priest - Beyond The Realms Of Death, Painkiller, Victim Of Changes, Electric Eye
Iron Maiden - Judas Be My Guide, Moonchild, Seventh Son..., The Number Of The Beast, Still Life
Bruce Dickinson - Jerusalem, Book Of Thel
The Black Mages - Dancing Mad
Dissection - In The Cold Winds Of Nowhere, Thorns Of Crimson Death
Pink Floyd - Time, Comfortably Numb
Wintersun - Winter Madness, Death And The Healing

Not in order, and just what I can think of now.  I don't particularly like needless guitar solos, but these ones are some of the best I've heard.
 
Thanks Raven! Forget about Bruce :/ Here goes:
Bruce Dickinson - "King In Crimson"

"Time" by the Floyd is excellent indeed, so is "Sorrow"!
I love the guitar-harmony underneath Kirk Hammet's solo at the end of Metallica's "Fade To Black".
 
Hey nice thread! Here's some solos I love a lot and like to practice  :yey:

Maiden - Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, Powerslave, Como Estais Amigos, Sign Of The Cross, Killers, Brave New World, Blood Brothers, Innocent Exile, Lightning Strikes Twice, The Clansman, Paschendale, No More Lies, Dance Of Death, These Colours Don't Run, The Legacy, too much more :p
Judas Priest - Painkiller, Beyond The Realms Of Death, Hellrider, Between The Hammer And The Anvil, The Hellion/Electric Eye, The Sentinel, Exciter
Bruce - Jerusalem, Abduction, Book Of Thel, Power Of The Sun, King In Crimson, Omega, Tears Of The Dragon
Metallica - Creeping Death, Hit The Lights,One, Master Of Puppets, Fade To Black, Leper Messiah, And Justice For All
Guns N' Roses - Paradise City, November Rain
Blind Guardian - Fly, Bright Eyes, Imaginations From The Other Side, The Bard's Song
Lynyrd Skynyrd - I Never Dreamed, Freebird, Sweet Home Alabama
 
Enslaved - Neogenesis (Stunning solo)
Meshuggah - Fututre Breed Machine (I love the sound they get out of the guitar)
Slough Feg - Tiger! Tiger! (Great solo very maiden-esque)
Atheist - Enthralled In Essence (Tough choice as the whole album is great)
Led Zeppelin - No Quarter (Great song, it has an amazing atmosphere)
Symphony X - Set The World On Fire (Great neoclassical solo)
Death - Scavenger of Human Sorrow (The first Death Metal song I Heard  :yey:)
Slayer - The Antichrist ( This song has so much energy, its amazing)
Dream Theater - Under A Glass Moon (I love the way Petrucci begins the solo)
Megadeth - Hangar 18 (Mindblowing lead guitars, great riffs, best song Megadeth have made IMO)
Kiuas - On Winds Of Death We Ride
 
supersonic said:
Atheist - Enthralled In Essence (Tough choice as the whole album is great)

I had to restrain myself from putting every 'Unquestionable Presence' track down... :p

Another one...

Led Zeppelin - Achilles' Last Stand
 
I was just going to say that, Forostar. That's one of Hendrix's best. Though, to be honest, any one of his songs could fit on this list. Voodoo Chile, Little Wing, Purple Haze, Watchtower, Hey Joe etc. all have great solos.

Probably my all time favourite guitarist.

As for the rest:

Dave: Powerslave, Phantom of the Opera, Walking on Glass
Adrian: Somewhere in Time, Stranger in a Strange Land, Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Book of Thel, Flight of Icarus (Dave's originally, but I love H's take on it), Children of the Damned, Paschendale, The Evil That Men Do, Gates of Urizen, Tears of the Dragon (he did Roy's a few times, and there's one vid on youtube which is amazing), Walking on Glass
Janick: Sign of the Cross, The Aftermath, Dance of Death

Tony Iommi: N.I.B, Heaven And Hell, Wicked World
Jimmy Page: Stairway to Heaven
 
I'm not as into guitar solos as I used to be. There are so many great guitarists out there, and every rock or metal song has a guitar solo, so it's just nothing special anymore. Sure, they're great to listen to, and no song is complete without them, but still, it just gets repetitive after a while.
Nevertheless, there are some solos that stick out, a few of them being (without even trying to be complete):

Led Zeppelin - Since I've Been Loving You, Tangerine
Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb, Time, Mother, Hey You
Queen - Innuendo, Bijou
Iron Maiden - Stranger In A Strange Land, Strange World (Both of 'em), The Thin Line Between Love And Hate
Ozzy Osbourne - Mr Crowley
UFO - Love To Love
Deep Purple - Child In Time

And so on...
 
Carcass - "Buried Dreams"
Death - "Scavenger of Human Sorrow"
Frank Zappa - "Inca Roads", "Black Napkins", "Watermelon in Easter Hay"
Genesis - "Firth of Fifth"
Iron Maiden - "Phantom of the Opera", "Powerslave"
Led Zeppelin - "Since I've Been Loving You"
Pink Floyd - "Time", "Comfortably Numb", "On the Turning Away"
Rush - "The Trees"
Thin Lizzy - "Still in Love With You", "Cowboy Song"

If I were to pick a band I enjoy largely because of their guitar solos, I'd say Thin Lizzy.
 
Deep Purple - Child in Time (my favourite guitar solo of all time)
Iron Maiden - Seventh Son, The Legacy, Paschendale, These Colours Don't Run
Iced Earth - Birth of the Wicked
Metallica - One, Fade to Black, Enter Sandman
Megadeth - Tornado of Souls, Burnt Ice
Ozzy Osbourne - Crazy train
 
Perun said:
I'm not as into guitar solos as I used to be. There are so many great guitarists out there, and every rock or metal song has a guitar solo, so it's just nothing special anymore.


I disagree with that. I even feel it's the opposite. Bands with good (and many) solos are getting more rare these days. Hence your list which features mainly old songs.
 
I think how a guitar solo is executed makes it special, because most solos now are just a filler in a way, quickly made, and not the real highlight of most songs now. From what I hear in the radio, a solo is as short as a half a verse and not flashy in a sense, compared to other highlight themed solos that many good bands employ a lot.
 
I have never experienced a good song with a needless guitar solo. Try to imagine such a song without that very solo. Remove it and the song has less variation (thus relatively seen it has more repetition). How many cool metal tracks do you guys know without guitar solos? I know quite some but these are not classic kind of heavy metal songs with clean vocals. They are death, doom or black metal songs which are cool for other reasons (riffs, speed, drums, atmosphere etc).

A solo pushes a melodic metal song higher. A metal song with melody needs a solo. In other words: solos are very important.

Back in the eighties and seventies every song had a solo but this was ages ago when current subgenres didn't exist yet. I have to admit that lately the solo is having its “comeback”, but still there are many metalbands who don’t play solos or who hardly play solos. Since the rise of grunge & nu-metal quite some bands suddenly think it's not cool to play guitar solos.
 
I'm not saying guitar solos are needless or anything, it's just that I know so very, very many of them that I'm getting stuffed with them so I only consider them another (essential) part of a song.
 
Forostar said:
I have never experienced a good song with a needless guitar solo. Try to imagine such a song without that very solo. Remove it and the song has less variation (thus relatively seen it has more repetition). How many cool metal tracks do you guys know without guitar solos? I know quite some but these are not classic kind of heavy metal songs with clean vocals. They are death, doom or black metal songs which are cool for other reasons (riffs, speed, drums, atmosphere etc).

A solo pushes a melodic metal song higher. A metal song with melody needs a solo. In other words: solos are very important.

Back in the eighties and seventies every song had a solo but this was ages ago when current subgenres didn't exist yet. I have to admit that lately the solo is having its “comeback”, but still there are many metalbands who don’t play solos or who hardly play solos. Since the rise of grunge & nu-metal quite some bands suddenly think it's not cool to play guitar solos.

I don't really see how traditional metal songs need a guitar solo. It's like saying they need vocals, which is untrue, provided the riff base and construction of the song is good enough. 

It's the kind of attitude of 'I-think-we-should-throw-the-solo-that-we-have-to-have-in-here' that causes otherwise fantastic Slayer and later Maiden tracks (to name but two artists) to fall flat on their faces by disintegrating into absolute travesties of solos.  I'm looking at you, Gates of Tomorrow, Sign of the Cross, Seasons in the Abyss, Angel of Death et al

In fact, two of my favourite bands of the minute (Emperor and Primordial) use next to no solos at all, preferring instead to add variety by subtle use of layered melodies and further riff structures.  Comparing these kind of 'solo-less' bands with a band like DragonForce or Yngwie Malmsteem, who focus almost exclusively on shoving themselves (and their skills) so far up their own collective arses that no light reaches them, you can clearly see the contrast between focussing on an actual song structure and throwing out the same song just so the guitarist can jerk off along their fretboard.
 
Raven said:
In fact, two of my favourite bands of the minute (Emperor and Primordial) use next to no solos at all, preferring instead to add variety by subtle use of layered melodies and further riff structures.  Comparing these kind of 'solo-less' bands with a band like DragonForce or Yngwie Malmsteem, who focus almost exclusively on shoving themselves (and their skills) so far up their own collective arses that no light reaches them, you can clearly see the contrast between focussing on an actual song structure and throwing out the same song just so the guitarist can jerk off along their fretboard.

Emperor and Primordial have other qualities, besides solos. The classic bands Perun likes can't be imagined without guitar solos. These bands need the solos to enrich their music. I don't mean needing against their own will. It's something they do because they like to do it. But without it their material becomes weaker. I agree with you that a cabaret kind of band like DragonForce and the overkill of soloing in Yngwie's music can be less interesting than bands with more interesting song structures or other qualities.

Still, I have never experienced a good song with a needless guitar solo and I don't know many cool heavy metal/melodic metal (or whatever you want to call it ;) ) tracks without guitar solos.
 
Forostar said:
Emperor and Primordial have other qualities, besides solos. Just an example: The classic bands Perun likes can't be imagined without guitar solos. These bands need the solos to enrich their music. It's not needing against their own will. It's something they do because they like to do it. But without it their material becomes weaker.

Well, I can agree with that, since bands like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple more-or-less popularised the well-constructed, tasteful solo, which became a hallmark of the 70's and early 80's metal sound.

However, there are still many traditional metal bands forming in this decade, and to listen to their music (or to the modern works of bands like Deep Purple and other older bands) thinking 'If I don't hear a guitar solo, this is going to be a poor song', is hardly *ahem* open-minded, is it?

Solos are very important, but to be honest, I would much rather listen to a well-constructed song with strong riff structure and technical skill from all members than one thrown together to showcase a solo.  Just like you can listen to a great song with bad (or simply distasteful) lyrics, one should be able to listen to a great song with a poor solo, rather than the other way round.
 
Raven said:
However, there are still many traditional metal bands forming in this decade, and to listen to their music (or to the modern works of bands like Deep Purple and other older bands) thinking 'If I don't hear a guitar solo, this is going to be a poor song', is hardly *ahem* open-minded, is it?

Well, I agree that it wouldn't be good to think like this before listening.

Raven said:
Solos are very important, but to be honest, I would much rather listen to a well-constructed song with strong riff structure and technical skill from all members than one thrown together to showcase a solo.

Again I won't disagree with you on that.
But there's a difference between the following statements:
-a song doesn't have to have a solo to be good
-I don't want a solo, because without it, it becomes better.

I'll try to be a bit more clear on this. But the following is a personal experience of course.
The Judas Priest Demolition album was for me a huge disappointment because the Judas Priest trademark was gone. The great twin leads, all the melodic solos we know from their career when they had Halford in the band. Priest (read Glenn Tipton) was influenced by more modern bands (nu-metal bands which his son played all the time) and tried to sound more modern. A bit forced. Because of the lack of melodic guitar leads (and the lack of speed in most songs) I really liked it less than other albums.

Queensryche made at least one album without ANY solos. I think it was "Tribe". It was a flop. What did they do after that? Operation Mindcrime II. What did Priest do on Angel of Retribution? The return of the solos! YES, I was so relieved when I heard it for the first time. I honestly thought they couldn't even do it anymore. I was glad I was wrong about that.

All this has to do with your expectation of a band and with the elements you like about a band. It's indeed not very open minded, I tend to be conservatic when it comes to older, more classic bands.

If I want to hear metal songs with (almost) no solos, I'll just get some Six Feet Under, Sear Bliss, Epica, My Dying Bride or After Forever or any other band that fits my mood. But melodic metal music (without the grunts, without, the keys, orchestrations, choirs, proggie structures or any other assets you can imagine) is very empty without solos. Just my 2 cents! ;)

edit:
Raven said:
Just like you can listen to a great song with bad (or simply distasteful) lyrics, one should be able to listen to a great song with a poor solo, rather than the other way round.

Yes. Besides, a solo is nothing without its accompanying music. Take for instance Black Sabbath's "Neon Knights" or "Glory Ride". The music underneath it, especially the bass lines are the fundation of these "intermezzos", the solo-parts. The solos are the cream on the cake, but not always necessarily more important than the other stuff that goes on at the same time.
 
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