Can anyone explain why the guitar solo has gone so completly out of fashion?

There's clearly something up when a band like Rush, of all people, release an album with no solos.

I blame it on Indie/Alternative music becoming what's effectively the mainstream. Personally I'm sick of bands where all the guitarist does is strum chords.

I think it's probably because 99% of solos were meaningless and pointless, and just sounded like the guitarist showing off. I'd rather hear a great guitarist play something understated and subtle than some wanky solo, and that's exactly what Alex does on Rush's latest.

I grew up listening to heavily-soloed rock in the 80s, I loved it at the time, but I'm more than happy to see solos disappear. Few guitarists are skilled enough to play a solo that actually means more than that they can play scales fast. I'd rather hear emotion than exhibition.

Grunge had a lot to do with killing off most budding guitar heroes. Sure, one could still find the occasional superfluous solo, but the grungekins were revolting against the 80s hair bands, who did the usual verse/verse/chorus/guitar solo/verse/chorus thing. A lot of early grungesters adopted the slogan "No guitar solos allowed," as if solos were the most salient characteristic of the hair bands, as opposed to, say, the hairspray, or the latex, or the power ballad. But yes, it may well be that the guitar solo went the way of the hairbands. Those guys did not take the music seriously. They made a mockery of rock music. Now we are left with such mediocrities as rap, the milquetoast strummers (not a bad name for a band, eh?), such as Dave Mathews and John Mayer, sissily choreographed boy bands, the slutmongers, Christina and Britney, and rap/rock, such as Korn and Limp Bizkit.

Then you could also ask what role guitar solos have in a musical piece. A soloist better add something to the music besides another minute. Jeff Beck once said (and I'm paraphrasing), "I don't do solos unless I have something to say. If I do have something to say, you can bet that I'll ram it down your throat." In this spirit, the grungonauts should have adopted the slogan "No GRATUITOUS guitar solos allowed." Although the word "gratuitous" is not very grungy.

British guitar solos suffered the same fate as a result of punk, which had the same 'no solos allowed' ethos. You hear very few solos in any British music after about 1980 except for metal bands. Solos started to come back in the late 80s with bands like The Stone Roses, but they seem to have gone away again, leaving nothing but boring strummy stuff.

What has happened to the generation of guys that would have been today's talented guitarists if fashion hadn't turned against them? Have they abandoned rock in favour of jazz, which still respects musical ability? Have they taken up some instrument other than the guitar? Or have they given up and become accountants?

I respectfully disagree that 99% of solos are meaningless and pointless. That number is way too high. Ok, so maybe this is the case for some artists, yes, but for guitar-driven rock bands from the 80's these solos were an important part of the mood of the song.

In Benatar's hit days, Neil Giraldi played more solos and had more edge to his guitar parts in the songs. Instead, the passage of time has made his guitars more subdued (and acoustic). Loverboy's newest studio album (which was a commercial failure a couple years back) did the same thing, over time retreating from the original more raw, distorted guitar sound that was part of some great riffs.

In the era of adding additional content for folks to purchase CDs I'd say that it's more important than ever to give bonus content (which means possibly extended or raw versions of songs complete with solos).

I'm with you Tim, and while writing this review I listened to a good raw guitar version of the song Brave from Go (and also a great version of the older hit song Invincible) on Rockline and are available via Real here

It's almost like these bands feel the need to stay in the studio and edit out the raw guitar tracks and remove or dumb down the solos (for some optimal song length or what?) because solos aren't cool any more.

The grunge tie-in is something because bands like Nirvana didn't do much soloing. Smells like Teen Spirit comes immediately to mind as a predictable and very easy to play solo.

Or worse, they are layering in a bunch of garbage to commercialize the sound. I'd rather listen to a good solo outro like the end of You Can't Kill Rock and Roll by Ozzy than some singer moaning with digitized phony keyboard sounds. In fact, I'd rather buy the raw tracks before all the crossphasing and other studio tricks are done, and maybe someday fans we'll get this. Sort of like how Metallica released the DVD with all their songs along with the CD.

When I think of Rush I think of solos like the one in Limelight on Moving Pictures. That is an incredible solo and without it, I think the song would be missing a lot of mood the song projects (also a guitarist in the Limelight with a solo makes sense)

Despite the lack of any solos, Rush's Vapor Trails is a great album. What I can't understand is the lack of a solo on Metallica's St. Anger. One of the reasons I'm a fan is Kurt's guitar playing. When Jimmy Eat World has better guitar solos than Metallica, you know something's strange.

solos typically are there to explicate and explore the melody, to change the tone of the song, to act as a bridge between sections, to show off. If it's the latter, it better be damn good.

Here are some songs that wouldn't be the same without the guitar solos:

Blackfoot - Highway Song
Eagles - Hotel California
Molly Hatchett - Fall of the Peacemakers
Lynyrd Skynrd - Freebird
Metallica - Fade To Black (and also the song: One)
Led Zeppelin - Stairway To Heaven (also note the live version from The Song Remains The Same which is a couple minutes longer)

The solos in the above songs (and others) weren't just gratuitous filler parts, they made up a significant portion of the songs.

That's right TDavid. Some solos are there as integral parts of the song. Certain Gilmour solos are perfect for explicating (this Olson guy has some vocabulary, don't he?) Pink Floyd songs -- very tasty. And most any solo in a Steely Dan song belongs there. My intense dislike of Lynyrd Skynyrd prevents me from commenting objectively on the Free Bird solo. And what would "Do You Feel Like We Do?" be without Frampton's talkbox solo and subsequent masterful exploration, exploitation, and explication of the Dorian mode? Alex Lifeson's solo on Between the Wheels (Grace Under Pressure) is a beauty, his finest, if you ask me. It belongs there.

Sorry, Eric. That's Olsen -- with an "e."

the lack of guitar solos is one of the main reasons i can't really get into a lot of modern rock (or nu-metal)....aside from the solo playing off of or expanding on the melody, it also can also serve to break the song up into sections...lots of modern rock i've heard ends up sounding like one long chorus.

Let me re-state my position: I'm not a anti-solo snob. In fact, I love them in the right place. But the bands of the 80s overused them and they were put into effect by guitarist whose main skill was speed and not feeling. I'm lumping - sorry - I know there are very intelligent, thoughtful, expressive solos in many songs, but the majority of songs from that era are not gifted with such a thing. I wnat to hear a solo when it can advance the song, when it ties up a melodic loose end, when it can make a statement. I don't care if it shows off the skills or not - skill to me is knowing what to play, where. Being a jazz fan, I'm well aware of the importance of the solo. But the solo became the MO of a whole lot of metal in the late 80s, and the song suffered because it was just a vehicle to transport the listener to the solo. I'll never be sad to see that kind of thing disappear. But hey, I still love Joe Satriani - I follow his every release because the man makes his guitar truly sing. When I want to hear soloing, that's what I want to hear.

I'm curious, Tom, if you could name some songs with solos -- specific examples -- that you felt were unnecessary from 80's bands. I think some of the hair bands altogether were unnecessary, not just the solos from their respective guitarists. But I am curious if you can cite some examples of specific tracks that come to your mind as being excessive.

I'm not trying to rattle ya on this or anything, but I am intrigued by your perspective. Thanks for the feedback :)

BTW, in Benatar's Crimes of Passion (referenced in the post) these are the times of the guitar solos for each track:

Treat Me Right (:20)
You Better Run (:33)
Hit Me With Your Best Shot (:30)
Hell is For Children (:45)
Little Paradise (:40)
I'm Gonna Follow You (:40)
Wuthering Heights (:44)
Prisoner of Love (:24)
Out-A-Touch (:12)

- Nearly 5 minutes worth of guitar soloing and 9 out of 10 songs contained a guitar solo
- The only song without a guitar solo was Never Wanna Leave You

Compare this to Go which contains nary more than 45 seconds of guitar soloing on the whole CD.

Others in this thread have mentioned Rush and Metallica both releasing CDs with no solos on them and the comparisons to albums released in the 80's for both these bands would turn up even more glaring holes for soloing.

One would think that Benatar would have stayed true to their successful formula from Crimes of Passion, but in today's largely sololess music scene, they cut out the solos and cram an extra song or two onto the disc, thinking (?) that this is something that more appeals to today's music audience.

It's not just the solos, but I think the solos were part of a larger formula that worked for 80's bands and some of them have left the formula for whatever timely reason.

The converse of this is that Iron Maiden's newest CD has soloing in it and I don't think it was all that fantastic either.

Where would rock music even be without guitar solo innovator Chuck Berry?

I wish I could provide some examples, TDavid, but it appears my brain has been washed clean of them. :-) I'm not like most listeners today - I don't want to eschew them entirely. What I want is for guitarists to take the responsibility to make their solo mean something to the song. It's very often the emotional apex of a song, and, to me, having a wanky display of scales ruins what should be THE moment of the song. Style over substance. Unfortunately, most listeners today tend to be like my coworker, who immediately decides the moment he hears a guitar break free from the main melody of the song that it's just a cheesy show-off moment. The irony I see is that he appreciates DJ solos, which, to me, are exactly the same thing as a guitar solo just on a different instrument. I don't care for those either.

Let me just state for the record that I am a huge Rush fan and I think Alex Lifeson is one of the most underrated guitarists in rock. His solos are always tasteful and intelligent. There are some songs, like "Bravado," where his live solo is what carries the song from being simply good to being transcendent. It's not showy, it's just emotional. That, my friends, is what a good solo should be about.

c'mon...WASP's Blackie Lawless was a fricken' artiste! look beyond the flaming codpiece and he was Jimi-freakin' Hendrix.

ok, maybe not.

Didn't Blacklie mostly play bass guitar, Mark? I realize in later albums he played guitar, but the earlier (and good) material he was just the bassist twirling around that fake long black hair with the skunk white stripe in it.

Blacklie = Blackie, doh!

dang, i think you're right.

that's what i get for dissing hair metal!

Back to grunge and guitar solos, #3 - Duane's statement, though imbued with some truth, is something of a canard since two of the demigods of grunge, Jay Mascis and Neil Young (while in grunge mode, of course, and this goes all the way back to "Down By the River"), solo their asses off. Lot's of soloing in post-grunge Built to Spill as well.

Yes, but Eric, an exception constitutes a mere peu de chose. Allusions to Neil Young could appear to be a facile stab at elusion. My hypothesis is virtually --- virtually, I say --- incontestible.

Built To Spill - nice one, Eric. Very cool band. And effective soloing, too.

Here's an excerpt from an article about Dan Donegan, the guitarist for Disturbed. I think this is fairly representative of the mindset of the successors to the heyday of guitar-hero bands.

This is from Guitar World, November 2002.

Donegan cut his teeth on a steady diet of classic and contemporary metal, from Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin to Tool and Korn. In particular, the grunge bands of the early Nineties -- namely Soundgarden and Alice in Chains -- had a major impact on him. "Grunge appealed to me because it was very riff oriented. It wasn't music that required these virtuoso guitar players," he says. "I liked the fact that a riff could carry the song, instead of merely killing time until the big guitar solo."

Interestingly, the first incarnation of Disturbed was actually heavy on guitar solos. That all changed when Dave Draiman, who had just left a band he describes as an "acid-funk project," signed on as the band's new singer. Says Donegan, "Seeing how syncopated and melodic a vocalist Dave could be, I wanted to take the music in a more riff-oriented direction -- that Soundgarden type of thing where the riffs take you on a bit of a journey. As a band, we felt like there was so much more that we could do."

Ain't it a shame?

It wasn’t music that required these virtuoso guitar players," he says.

And there's the culprit, laziness. To be able to play great guitar solos means long hours of practice, something today's instant gratification generation isn't interested in doing.

i think people need to stop living in the past. as to comment on the new benatar album. i think its a wonderful piece of work. the reason artist like pat benatar are still around is because she is still interesting. if she was still making the same music she was making 20 years ago that would be really tired . she continues to be up to date. and very hip. shes probably the coolest women in music.

Damn, maybe it is a sign of old age as I am sensing a disconnect with today's music scene!

danny - "Stop living in the past"? LOL! Some of the best music in my lifetime has been produced and released "in the past" -- Tell you what, you can have all this hiphop stuff that is popular today and see if folks are still listening to it in 20 or 30 years the way they listen to some of the music of the 70's and 80's today.

I'm sure that this will hold true for some folks. Extremely doubtful that I will be one of them.

Personally, I see this phase sort of like the disco phase.

Oh, and as for being interesting musically? Forget that. It's about money, not artistic expansion and exploration. If these artists don't sell well then they will end up playing casinos and rehasing the stuff they did when they were selling albums.

If they can mix in being fresh with selling albums then that's icing on the cake, but whether any of us like it or not it is about selling music. It's a business.

Solos have been an integral part of Rock'N Roll since the beginning,Chuck Berry,Elvis,old Bluesmen,The Beatles,Stones even most Punk bands.
Every song but one on "Nevermind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols" has a solo.The Ramones first 5or6 albums didn't have any but several of their mid-eighties LP's were loaded with them.
I think 80's Metal "guitarwank" gave solos a bad name.No pun intended.

the problem is when the solo becomes the point

Um, I don't have a problem with that.

Some people have no idea what they are talking about. Tom Johnson you should learn that solos are the musican playing scales really fast. Just look at Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Marty Friedman, Ywiengie Malmsteen (most of his stuff) all their songs are, are 5 min solos. They all have more talent than Jimme Paige and especially Kurt Colbain could ever imagine. And if you don't believe me that they know about music, Satriani and Steve Vai studied at Berkley College.

Solos are what seperate the best from good. I can play just about any riff or intro out there. But the solo is what now seperates the alternive rock guitar players from the guitar players who could actually play.

Its a interesting point. But the solo is necessary for music. Its emotional. Its critical, and it shows that a band actually has skilled players. Because solos aren't easy. Its hard to listen to Metallica's Blackened, and not imagine the solo near its end. That solo for reasons I don't quite know, has been the reason I'm playing guitar. It just fits that song and sticks in my mind.

Remember, some songs dont need a guitar solo, or it would mix in badly with that certain piece of song. It aint like you are going to have a fast, hard hitting guitar solo in a slow song such as Nothing Else Matters by Metallica, whereas, in a fast paced, thrashy song, you would expect a guitar solo, especially a fast one, as it would fit in well - Seek and Destroy and Master of Puppets are 2 good examples both by Metallica.

It depends on what the song is.

How come no one has mentioned Eddie Van Halen? He is one of the greatest guitarists of all time, in my opinion. I wish people would play more like him these days.