Saturday, February 17, 2007

Top 5 Guitar Solos

Never let a lack of knowledge or qualification stand in your way.

These are the best:


1. DJ DJ - Transplants. I picture weaving when I hear this. And the straight back wooden chairs in my grandmother's kitchen: the work of an artisan. This song is so minimalist it just barely qualifies as music. But that's almost beside the point. It sounds fat, it sounds tough, it's got muscle and it makes me smile. Every damn time.

2. The intro to Who Would've Thought - Rancid. 38 seconds of the most tenderly articulated musical love letter I've ever heard. Too bad it's not written for me. And no, I'm not THAT much of a fan girl. It's a sonic caress, and I'd love it even if, god forbid, Billy Joel had written it. Not that he could. So, technically it's not really a "solo." Get over it.

3. The intro to I Got The Love - Nick Lowe. A rare lead appearance from Brentford's Best Loved Bee. Heck, the whole dang song is an essay in understated swagger. I spent my commute trying to figure out how to separate the guitar from the bass. The bassman is doing a little bum-bu-bum into Nick's dowd-de-dow, and they become one funky animal.


4. Who Do You Love - George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers. Nothing understated about it. And, again, not exactly a solo. The gravelly growl + the Guitar That Eats Babies = roadhouse heaven. Lonesome George made the electric guitar interesting to me in the Age of the Disciples of Onan. If guitar players were automobiles, George would be that '66 Thunderbird Thelma and Louise drove into ... the sunset, and this song would be that desperate highway.


5. Taylor - Jack Johnson. I'm in two minds about whether this should be #5 or an honorable mention. I don't like the song that much - the lyrics are inane (Peter Patrick pitterpatters on the freaking window?), but I adore the beginning. Blues meets Jazz for a laid-back clambake on Sunset Beach: the quintessential Jack J sound.





Honorable Mention to Elvis Costello, for guitar coloratura on ...Dust

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