Favorite instrumental solo

[a|one]

What is/are your favorite instrumental solo(s) in a song?


Pink Floyd / Comfortably Numb (guitar)
Alexisonfire / Counterparts and Number them (guitar)

[knivesout]

Bit of a huge question really. I will mention one favourite - Stevie Ray Vaughan's instrumental version of Jimi Hendrix's Little Wing. Sheer beauty.

[djdonegal]

I was going to say the same thing about this being a really huge question - the possibilities just keep on coming to my mind! Okay, so for guitar solo I'm going to be a bit cliche, but this song just came on my playlist randomly 5 minutes ago:

Slash, from Guns n Roses for "Sweet Child O Mine"

And it's not a particularly stunning piece of piano playing, but I find myself sitting in a dazed state every time I hear it anyway:

Matt Bellamy, from Muse for "New Born"

DJ

[Neon]

Originally Posted by djdonegal

Slash, from Guns n Roses for "Sweet Child O Mine"

I second that ...... I love that solo.

[I, Brian]

Comfortably Number has a great solo in it - if I remember right, there's a track on WASP's Crimson Idol that is psotively reminiscent of it.

[knivesout]

Yes, there is. You listen to WASP?

[a|one]

Who is WASP?

[knivesout]

It's true you really are the jilted generation.


WASP are (they're still alive amazingly) a part of what used to be called sleaze-rock, in the 80s. Kinda like glam but dirtier and rawer. Cheesy solos, cliched song lyrics, but they had a real energy and flair for songwriting that made them one of the best of the genre. Later albums have increasingly cast aside the ****-rock trappings to pursue a darker, more conceptual direction. Most of the time.

[Tsujigiri]

The into to 'The Red Weed' on Jeff Waynes War of the Worlds.

[Space Monkey]

I saw WASP at the Monsters of Rock in 92 - I believe that was the Crimson Idol tour too!

I've never been too big a fan of the fretwanking guitar widdly diddly solos, I rarely heard songs enhanced by them - but my favourites have to be somewhere between Testament's Return to Serenity and Slayer's Seasons in the Abyss. In fact, Slayer were the only band I really liked their solo style throughout, with the excessive tremolo bends and the out-of-tuneness that added to the mood of their songs.
And, if you wanna go back a bit further, I kinda liked Iron Maiden's Stranger in a strange land - one of Adrian Smith's few solos...
Also, anyone remember the early days of Annihilator, from Canada? i.e. Alice in Hell or NeverNeverland? Jeff Waters was an amazing guitarist, at the time right up there with Satch and Vai as far as speed and style went. His solos were technically incredible.

But give me James Galway (on Flute) with the flight of the bumblebee anyday.

[knivesout]

Speaking of metal, there's an instrumental on Death's Human, Vacant Planets (I think?) that is rather cool. I like a lot of Hendrix' later instru studio jams, like Midnight and Pali Gap.

[Space Monkey]

Death's HUMAN! My favourite album of all time.The instrumental, I believe, is called Cosmic Sea - one track before Vacant Planets
I'm writing a tribute article about Schuldiner in the near future.
Knivesout, your taste in music is excellent.

[scifinothing]

Bohemian Rhapsody-- Queen

[angrybuddhist]

Keith Emerson's piano solo on the live version of Tim Hardin's Hang On To A Dream.

[Hypes]

Metallica's Orion. The whole thing is an instrumental solo.