Casper has already linked to Pitchfork Media's 50 Worst Guitar Solos. While one or two might hit some well-deserved targets, many more are standard-issue fashionable music press sneerage. Blue Öyster Cult 'awful musicians'? You must be joking!.
Anyway, here is my list of bad solos. Only ten, rather than fifty, and they represent my biases and prejudices.
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath by Black Sabbath, solo by Tony Iommi. We all know that this song contains three of Iommi's monster riffs, but the solo is the weak spot in what's otherwise a classic. It's a thin, weedy thing, dwarfed by the towering riffs that surround it. Although Iommi might known for his riffs rather than his solos, he's still capable of far better than this.
Everything by Vardis, solos by Steve Zodiac. I'm not naming any individual songs, because I can't remember any titles. But Vardis were one of those bands that only really had one song, and played it over and over again. I remember a review of a live album of theirs, that described it as sounding like "A thirty second excerpt of Dave Edmunds' 'Sabre Dance' in a continuous loop for forty minutes". And that's exactly what they sounded like.
Paranoid Android by Radiohead, solo by Johnny Greenwood. In my terminally unfashionable opinion "OK Computer" is an album which would have really benefitted from real guitar solos. But the closest we get to a solo on the entire album is this single note strummed really really fast. Is that really supposed to be a solo?
Champagne Supernova by Oasis, solos by Noel Gallagher and Paul Weller. Noel seems to think that Paul Weller is a great guitarist. Noel Gallagher is wrong. And Noel himself is an order of magnitude worse. Anyone who thinks this loud-mouthed oaf is a good guitar player clearly does not have a record collection that goes into double figures.
Child in Time by Deep Purple, solo by Ritchie Blackmore. No, not the well-known live version from Made in Japan, or the equally good original studio version. The one I'm talking about is the dire solo from the Man in Black's very last album with Purple, the thoroughly mediocre live set Come Hell or High Water. By this time it was clear Ritchie's heart just wasn't in it any more; there's none of the fireworks from axe-shredding 70s classic live albums such as California Jamming or Rainbow On Stage. Instead we get a couple of minutes of tuneless strumming, until keyboard player Jon Lord puts it out of it's misery by taking over on the Mighty Hammond. At this stage in his career, Blackmore's tantrums were much more interesting than his guitar playing.
Article comments
1 - Andrew Ian Dodge
How about 'Every Rose has its Thorns', talk about a crap solo...course CC DeVille isn't Eddy Van Halen now is he?
2 - Douglas Mays
how can this be narrowed down to a worst 10? There are so many ridiculous solos out there. I just can't put my thoughts on any.
3 - Tim Hall
If you want more than ten, you'll have to make some suggestions of your own :)
4 - hewitt
you do realise spinal tap was a spoof band making fun of actual metal bands right?
5 - Jess
how could you say that 'Smells like teams sprit had one of the worst Guitar Solos!!
6 - JC Mosquito
How about solos that are so bad they're good? One of my faves would be Mark Farner's solo on Grand Funk Railroad's version of "The Locomotion" (which was even a hit single!). Sounds like someone scatching their nails on a blackboard.
7 - Jason
What?! The "Smells like teen spirit" isnt suppose to be a fucking cock-rock solo, its the MELODY of the song if you know what that is.
8 - danny
smels like teen spirits got a good guitar solo how the hell is it here there are so many trully terible guitar solos out there how does smells like teen spirit considered one of the worst
9 - DC
How about Clapton's "Lay Down Sally"?
Talk about bad
10 - bluesman44
I agree about Kurt Cobain -- great songwriter, so-so guitarist (you have to wonder if he was even interested in playing a flashy lead).
The same could be said about Pete Townsend (except that his songwriting talents dwarf KC's).
Bad solo in a great song by a respected guitarist: Keith Richard (or Ron Wood?) in the Stones' version of "Ain't Too Proud to Beg"
11 - bluesman44
Somebody mentioned Mark Farner's solo in "Locomotion". Not only is the solo bad (MF was not a good guitarist anyway) but GF's verion of the song sucks! There was just no reason to record this song. Little Eva's original is OK but MF sings it off-key. Terrible version of the song.
12 - rocknmetalhead
The smells like teen spirit solo wasn't bad.Kurt was a good guitarist.