It's the Riff....

The latest challenge has been thrown down by Mr W....

"Right, after a lot of indecision and prevarication, the next challenge is out there.  And it's the Riff. The guitar line (and it has to be the guitar line) that turns a good song into a classic.  I want your top ten riffs.  No more than two or three bars. Played to death by young boys in guitar shops. Long of hair, behatted and beaded, no doubt.  I'm not talking solos here, I'm talking riffs. Ba-danga-danga-da-dang dang. Ba-danga-danga-da-dang dang.  You know what I mean."

Firsly lets start with one that always tops riff charts and won't be in my list .... step forward Smoke on the Water. Sorry but I find this song so boring and if I ever hear the story behind the song again I think I will scream!!!

Now that I have that out of my system let's go!  So in reverse order....

10. Last Night - The Strokes

For a period at the start of the new century they were the hottest band around.  A great first album that they have never been able to match.  This is a great song and if you looking for riffs this certainly has one of the all time greats.  Simple but so effective and drives the whole song.

9. Doctor Doctor - UFO

Now I could have a top 10 of riffs just featuring UFO songs and the riff meister himself Michael Schenker.  This is one of their best and still gets the crowd bouncing to this day.

8. Seven Nation Army - White Stripes

Now strictly this is part bass and part guitar riff.  But this cannot be left off the list as Jack White's riff drives the whole song, along with Meg White's wonderful minimal drumming and is a great example of how less can be more.

7. Paint it Black - Rolling Stones

Now most top 10 riff lists will include the Stones but it will be (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction.  However I believe this another great example of how a riff interwoven with the drum track can really make a song move up to the next level.  Always loved this song with it's Eastern flavoured riff.

6. House of The Rising Sun - The Animals

Now Paul's challenge suggested songs played by young boys in guitar shops and when I was a lad and all my friends picked the guitar for the first time this is the one that they all learnt to play first.  The riff is basically the song and love the way that the Hammond organ comes in and follows the guitar part.  Another example of simple is best and a timeless classic.

5. Crazy Train - Ozzy Osbourne

Featuring the sadly missed and legendary Randy Rhoads.  A song that features at least two classic riff lines - nothing quite matches the opening riff when the main part of the song kicks in - the Crazy Train is off and running!

4. Smells like Teen Spirit - Nirvana

The grunge riff classic. Had a whole generation of young boys in the early 90s learning Kurt Cobain's classic riff.  Unfortunately led to bands like Bush so maybe not such a good thing!

3. Can't Stop - Red Hot Chili Peppers

Great riffs should have the ability to get under your skin and this one from sublime, and under rated, John Frusciante certainly does that. I think I couldn't get this out of my head for about two years!

2. Sweet Child O' Mine - Guns N' Roses

One of the most memorable and famous riffs in the last 20+ years.  Probably one of the greatest starts to any song ever and all thanks to the excellent guitar work from Slash.  Their greatest song by far and the heights were never matched again.

1. Paranoid - Black Sabbath

This is the riff bar none from another of the masters of the riff Tony Iommi.  A staple of every rock club in every town and never fails to get a floor full of blokes all pretending that they can play guitar.  A true classic.  Here it is in all its glory....

So there you have it!  As ever a really difficult task of narrowing down my favourites and some narrowly missed out so I have to give a few honourable mentions to ones that nearly made it including Purple Haze - Jimi Hendrix, Ever Fallen in Love - Buzzcocks, This Charming Man - The Smiths, Down Down - Status Quo, Spirit of Radio - Rush plus many more that I haven't got time to list here.

Over to you now Paul!

What *were* you thinking?

As can be found on Paul's blog here I throw down another challenge.  Albums you have bought but now you just ask yourself why???  Well here is my list. I am not proud and actually very embarrassed about some of these.  All I can say was that I was young at the time....

1. She's the Boss - Mick Jagger

I have no idea why I bought this album.  I hadn't really liked anything the Stones had done since the early 70s so why I went out and purchased this I cannot recall.  Given that the credits has a talent list to die for including Jeff Beck, Ray Cooper, Sly Dunbar, Bernard Edwards, Rabbit Bundrick, Herbie Hancock, Nile Rodgers, G.E. Smith, Tony Thompson & Pete Townsend this album is just dreadful.  I have really tried to like it and once a decade I try again but sorry it is still almost unlistenable.  I repeated this all over again with his next solo album Primitive Cool which is just as bad if not worse. Don't ask me why I repeated my mistake - I must have been having a memory failure at the time!

2. Hooray for Boobies - the BloodhoundGang

Bought on the strength of the single "the Bad Touch" which I did find funny at first, probably on the strength of it's video.  The album is basically the same joke over and over and over again ("A lap dance is so much better when the stripper is crying", "Magna Cum Nada", "Yummy Down on This" to name just three "classics"!!!).  It lost it's novelty after one and half plays and after that it became very unfunny and just tedious.  Not to be recommended....

3. Pocket Full of Kryptonite - Spin Doctors

Another album I bought on the strength of one track I loved ("Two Princes" - which I still like today).  Allmusic describes the album as "full of the loose, leisurely three-chord pop/rock jams".  Yes there is that dreaded word "Jams".  A jamming session may be fun for a band and it's mates down a small pub/club on a Sunday evening but not as a full proper album.  This album is not in anyway offensive but it is just so completely boring and seems to go on forever!  Every time I have tried to listen to it I just lose the will to live way before the end....

4. Heartbeat - Don Johnson

I can't believe I am admitting owning this album!  I have no excuses or mitigating circumstances.  I just went out and bought it.  It is average at best and completely awful at it's worst.  If I remember correctly a song called "Coco Don't" would end up on trial for crimes against music!  I haven't played since the 1980s and that is the way it is going to stay - I haven't been tempted in over 20 years to dig out the record and put it on the turntable....

5. The Return of Bruno - Bruce Willis

My god it just gets worse and worse!  I am so ashamed.  I liked Moonlighting and Die Hard but it is no excuse for paying hard cash for this.  At least I wasn't the one who commissioned and released it - step forward Motown!!!  This album has nothing to redeem it and features Bruce murdering classics such as "Under the Boardwalk", "Young Blood" and "Respect Yourself".  No more to say really - I will get just get my coat and leave....

6. Rhythm and Stealth - Leftfield

I really don't like Dance/House Music.  Nothing personal but just isn't my thing.  So why I bought an album that features just that I have no idea.  I can't even remember buying this album but yet it is in my record collection just sitting there staring at me and collecting dust.

7. Release the Stars - Rufus Wainright

Does anyone actually really like Rufus' music or does no one want to admit it?  I downloaded this album on the back of strong reviews at the time and was interested to find out what all the fuss was about.  I quickly found out that I really didn't like his voice or the theatrical pop opera music.  It got played once and may never be played again....

8. The Miracle - Queen

It is very sad when one of your favourite bands releases a really poor album and this is just such an example.  I remember RAW, a short lived rival rock weekly to Kerrang!, reviewing this and raving how it was a return to their 70s best.  Trust me it wasn't....

9. St. Anger - Metallica

Another example of decline in a great band.  To be honest Metallica's albums had been getting worse for most of the 90s and it reached this low point in 2003.  The recording of this album and the band's near implosion is captured in the classic music documentary "Some Kind of Monster".  The album itself is almost totally devoid of anything that can be described as a tune, has a very weird drum sound mix, has no guitar solos and is just relentless mess of noise.  Avoid at all costs but watch the documentary - it is a classic!

10. Permission to Land - the Darkness

Now I should never let curiosity get the better of me!  I had the misfortune of seeing the Darkness before they broke big playing a small pub/venue the Monarch in Camden.  My friend Jim's band at the time (International Jetset) had been supporting and I was told I had to see this lot.  I walked out after three songs as I hated the preening idiot lead singer/guitarist for both his stage antics and his really annoying voice! I should just have walked out of the store when I saw this album on the display racks in MVC.....