A recent internal poll of the students at Guitar-X, the guitar students at London's prestigious 'Tech Music Schools', has resulted in the following list outlining, in order of popularity, the top 25 guitar riffs of all time to coincide with their 25th anniversary celebrations.
The list also showed one very interesting thing - that London was, officially, the most rocking town in the UK and the second most rocking town in the entire world! 6 of the riffs in the list were crafted by residents of Los Angeles, but 4 were by Londoners such as The Who's Pete Townshend and "Fast" Eddie Clarke from Motorhead.
The results of the survey are as follows:
1. Smoke On The Water - Deep Purple (1973)
2. Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana (1991)
3. Walk This Way - Aerosmith (1975)
4. Purple Haze - Jimi Hendrix (1967)
5. Sweet Child O Mine - Guns N Roses (1987)
6. Paradise City - Guns N Roses (1987)
7. Ace Of Spades - Motorhead (1980)
8. Enter Sandman - Metallica (1991)
9. Under The Bridge - Red Hot Chilli Peppers (1992)
10. Welcome To The Jungle - Guns N Roses (1987)
11. Run To The Hills - Iron Maiden (1982)
12. Walk - Pantera (1992)
13. Johnny Be Goode - Chuck Berry (1958)
14. Back In Black - AC/DC (1980)
15. Immigrant Song - Led Zeppelin (1970)
16. Wake Up - Rage Against The Machine (1992)
17. Highway to Hell - AC/DC (1979)
18. My Generation - The Who (1965)
19. 7 Nation Army - The White Stripes (2003)
20. Born To Be Wild - Steppenwolf (1968)
21. Give It Away - Red Hot Chilli Peppers (1991)
22. Paranoid - Black Sabbath (1970)
23. Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) - Jimi Hendrix (1967)
24. Eye Of The Tiger - Survivor (1982)
25. Money For Nothing - Dire Straits (1984)
The big surprise it the fact that with only a few exceptions the riffs were all written more than 20 years ago. Pretty interesting considering many of the students who took part in the survey were not even born when the riffs were recorded. Classic rock has indeed won through here.
Morning Dick 