Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love voted best guitar riff

[Scubbie]

BBC News - Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love voted best guitar riff

Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love has been voted the greatest guitar riff of all time by listeners of BBC Radio 2.

The rock classic came out top from a list of 100 riffs drawn up by a panel of Radio 2 and 6 Music DJs, critics and record producers.

Sweet Child O' Mine by Guns 'N' Roses was second in the poll, with Back In Black (AC/DC) and Smoke On The Water (Deep Purple) the next most popular.
Led Zep guitarist Jimmy Page said he was "knocked out" by winning the vote.

"I wanted a riff that really moved, that people would really get, and would bring a smile to their faces, but when I played it with the band, it really went into overdrive," he said.

"There was this intent to have this riff and the movement of it, so it was menacing as well as quite sort of caressing."

Other riffs in the list included Layla by Derek And The Dominoes, which was voted fifth best, Pretty Vacant by the Sex Pistols and Metallica's Enter Sandman.

"Whole Lotta Love is one of the most important guitar riffs of the 20th century," said record producer and panellist Steve Levine. "The moment you hear literally two notes of it, you know exactly what it is."

The Top 30 announcement came on Zoe Ball's bank holiday show.

Arctic Monkeys, The Beatles, Daft Punk and Pink Floyd were among the acts jostling for favour. The vote closed on 25 July.

The BBC station has been celebrating the guitar in a special season featuring documentaries and live performances.

The countdown of the top 100 riffs began on Will Gompertz's midnight show and continued across the day on BBC shows hosted by Alex Lester, Ken Bruce, Jeremy Vine and Jo Whiley.

Top 10 guitar riffs
Title	Artist
Source: BBC Radio 2
Whole Lotta Love	Led Zeppelin
Sweet Child O'Mine	Guns 'N' Roses
Back in Black	AC/DC
Smoke On The Water	Deep Purple
Layla	Derek and The Dominoes
How Soon Is Now?	The Smiths
Down Down	Status Quo
Money For Nothing	Dire Straits
You Really Got Me	The Kinks
Money	Pink Floyd

Comment: Which is your favourite out of these? Just to help below are the videos, in reverse order...

[Scubbie]

Part 2...

[lettice]

Some good ones there in that list, but top 10, nah!
Not really sure I could actually choose a top 10 easily.

The Pink Floyd one is a bass riff and is in that weird seventh time, the only way to learn it, is to play it very slow first and then build up for when you play faster with a band, a lot of concentration and foot tapping to keep it there, but a classic riff. But being a mega Floyd fan, I'm biased.

Not sure why that Smiths one is there, cant make out the riff that well.
Apart form the Smiths one, its nice to see those and that I can easily play them all too.
Often play Whole lotta love and everyone always says that's Top of the Pops, haha!

This made me pull out the Strat and start playing, made me remember many of may favourites that should be there;
Am I Evil - Diamond Head
Johhny B, Goode - Chuck Berry
Sultans of swing - Dire Straits
Sunshine of your love - Cream
Purple Haze - Jimi Hendrix
School's out for Summer - Alice Cooper (this was our junior school motto song in the early 1970s! We also did a big Fareham/Gosport/Portsmouth junior school sing-along for TV when we began school for the new term in September 1972, as we were all singing the song through the 1972 Summer holidays when it got to No1)
Hot for Teacher - Van Halen
Daytripper - The Beatles
There are some nice riffs hidden in The Beatles catalogue that many would not recognise, like Helter Skelter and Revolution.
Are you gonna go my way - Lenny Kravitz
Don't fear the Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult
Message in a Bottle - The Police
Jethro Tull - Aqualung
Tie your Mother down -Queen
Life in the fast lane - The Eagles
Communication Breakdown/Kashmir/Black Dog/Houses of the Holy/Immigrant Song/Good Times Bad Times and many many more - Led Zeppelin
Free - Alright Now
Beat it - Michael Jackson
Joan Jett - I love Rock n' Roll
Pipeline The Chantays
Oh Well/Landslide - Fleetwood Mac
NIB/Paranoid/War Pigs/Iron man - Black Sabbath
Ace of Sapdes - Motorhead
Welcome to the Jungle - Guns N' Roses
Summertime Blues - Eddie Cochran
Walk/Cowboys/Century from Hell - Pantera
Pinball Wizard - The Who
Cars - Gary Numan (just amazing to play it on guitar)
Horse with no Name - America
Seven Nation Army - White Stripes
Smells like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison
More than a Felling - Boston
Crazy Train - Ozzy Osbourne
Walk this way - Aerosmith
Aces High/Trooper/Wrathchild - Iron Maiden
Deuce/Cold Gin/Black Diamond - Kiss
Kiss Me - Sixpence none the richer
Seek and destroy/Enter Sandman/Master of Puppets - Metallica
Holy Diver/Rainbow in the Dark - Dio
Angel of Death/Raining Blood - Slayer, but be careful or you will break the strings!
Born to be Wild - Steppenwolf
Under the Bridge - Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Balls to the Wall - Accept
Jailbreak - Thin Lizzy
Falsom Prison - Johnny Cash
Painkiller/Breaking the law - Judas Priest
Madhouse - Anthrax, probably one of the easiest to play

And the classics like Dust my broom, Baby please don't go, Tobacco Road and many from John Meyers, John Lee Hooker, Howlin Wolf and Muddy Waters,

I d have to include some Pink Floyd in mine, Wish you Were Here, Run Like hell, Breathe, In the Flesh, Learning to Fly, Interstellar Overdrive, Pigs on the Wing, The Nile Song, Have a cigar,
The Narrow Way, Echoes and High Hopes.

Of course, there is the riffs that are banned in all guitar shops around the world - Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin, House of the Rising Sun by The Animals, Sweet Child of Mine and Hotel California, all pretty easy to play.

[gymno]

Walk/Cowboys/Century from Hell - Pantera

Yay!

(You forgot Heresy & a few others but i'll forgive you)

[Scubbie]

Nice list there lettice.

One of my favourite records is Hotel California by The Eagles too. The version released on the Hell Freezes Over album has the Spanish guitar at the beginning too, which confused some when it was first released.

Looking around there was actually a top 100 list which people could vote on. I think it was the Telegraph which published the top 20, but in alphabetical order.

That list includes T-Rex, David Bowie, Artic Monkeys, Nirvana, Metalica and Jimi Hendrex. Again every track is a good one.

As for Stairway to Heaven, that is one of those out of the blue songs which really made a hit for the already popular Led Zeppelin.

[lettice]

Oh yes that was the acoustic Eagles reunion version in the 1990s
Haha forgot TRex, boogie riff for Get it On.

Yes, plenty of Pantera and thinking of it Walk can be played with just a Drop D, but should be played with an extra 1/4 tone down. I prefer it with just a Drop D. That adds a couple more riffs I have to add to my list that use the Drop D.
Killing in the name of by Race against the Machine, must admit it aches a bit to play that song with the intro, main riff and chorus.
Another is Last Resort by Papa Roach.

There endeth the guitar lesson for today...