Whats the best solo of the 80s??

best solo of the 80s??

  • Every Rose Has Its Thorn

    Votes: 2 6.5%

  • other

    Votes: 29 93.5%
  • Total voters
    31
I went to bed so many middle school nights with my Sony Walkman on wearing out these albums. I would rewind these solos over and over, and in my head I was performing a glorious concert to a sold out stadium with all the hottest chicks from my school in the front row.

2 young masters at the greatest heights of their power. Enough said.

Thread closed.





 
By limiting it to just the '80's, this makes it very obvious: the 1st solo in Mr Crowley. Number of The Beast is also up there and Sweet Child O Mine. Because of EVH's influence a lot of players went the route of mindless noodly gobble gook, so there were only so many good ones to find the needle in the hay stack. I was gonna also say Tornado of Souls, but that was 1990

EDIT: Comfortably Numb came out in 1980, so I take it back. That has to be up there with the best of any of them
 
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Christos rock said:
Recorded in '89-'90 so I guess I'm in the limits.
Tornado Of Souls - Megadeth (Marty Friedman)
From 3:09
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One of the all time best guitar solos imo. Being nitpicky, but I don't like where he goes after those 2 string sweep picking figures, I feel he kinda drops the ball musically from that point, loses the musical thread to the story imo, but until then it was so epic and unique
 
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I thought about this a long time before contributing. Impossible question to answer. But if I had to pick just one ‘solo’ as the best of the 80s, I’m going with Yngwie Malmsteen’s Rising Force. The album. The Whole damn album was one, big, endless neo-classical ‘solo’ that moved the bar on the guitar gymnastics pole-vault up to the next ‘rung.’
 
So many fantastic solos to choose from... off the top of my head, these ones are pretty awesome:

Gary Moore -- "Shapes of Things"
Edward Van Halen - "When Push Comes to Shove" (There are dozens more I could choose from EVH, but that one is probably my favorite)
Jake E. Lee -- "Centre of Eternity"
Warren DeMartini - "Body Talk"
Coney Hatch -- "To Feel the Feeling Again" (Not a lot of notes, but there's some really nice interplay between the two guitar players that starts with the solo section and carries through to the end of the song. Just some beautiful use of dynamics and subtlety through cranked amps. The guitar parts in that song always hit me just right).
 
braintheory said:
Because of EVH's influence a lot of players went the route of mindless noodly gobble gook, so there were only so many good ones to find the needle in the hay stack.
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It's cool that you have your own opinion. Ed's influence though went much further than mindless gobble gook. In addition to interweaving his mastery of the fretboard into otherwise simple songs, he had great rhythm chops, excellent timing and phrasing, could sing, could jump around, could play piano, could play many instruments actually, and could write riffs and songs like it was nobody's business. Not to mention the fact that he pushed electric guitar and amps into new territory on that quest to get more gain and capability - something that has benefited us all.

That's my thinking.
 
311splawndude said:
It's cool that you have your own opinion. Ed's influence though went much further than mindless gobble gook. In addition to interweaving his mastery of the fretboard into otherwise simple songs, he had great rhythm chops, excellent timing and phrasing, could sing, could jump around, could play piano, could play many instruments actually, and could write riffs and songs like it was nobody's business. Not to mention the fact that he pushed electric guitar and amps into new territory on that quest to get more gain and capability - something that has benefited us all.

That's my thinking.
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Well I don’t necessarily disagree with any of that, but this thread is only about leads/guitar solos. I agree he had cool riffs (not the best ever to me, but some very cool stuff (especially “I’m The One”)), excellent sense of rhythm and syncopation, I don’t really care honestly how he was at other instruments or jumping (unless he was actually top notch at them), but anyway this thread is just about solos, which as you already know I don’t like in EVH and I really don’t like how many other guitarists started adopting that noodly style and made it worse than him. That’s my main issue. It made leadwork as a trend take a turn for the worse imo. To be honest, that first guitar solo alone in Mr Crowley, which is not even 1 minute long, I feel is light years ahead in the emotional & musical depth it conveys to me over anything I’ve heard from EVH. I think other solos are in a similar league like Tornado of Souls, No More Tears, Comfortably Numb, Stairway To Heaven, All Along The Watchtower (Hendrix version), but I really don’t see any leadwork by EVH as belonging in the same conversation as those solos. Just my opinion. I want a story and emotional depth in leads. Those solos I mentioned all gave me goosebumps and were cinematic in nature. EVH’s solos imo don’t do that at all for me

It's also perfectly ok for us to disagree. My friend's in person highly disagree with lots of my opinions and I don't mind when they call me names for it. I kinda like it actually. It's all part of the fun. I have strong opinions and everyone once in a while my friends will come around and either see my point or even agree later on and those few times make me feel like sharing to them my strong opinions was well worth it and I also love hearing their views on my end. If anything I feel disrespected or like I'm not really friends with someone when we can't openly discuss our real opinions/thoughts
 
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Meanjoegreene said:
Two of the best ever in one song…just so good.

Same with Brick in the Wall. Heard it 1000 times and still blows my mind.
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Agreed 100%. Those might be my 2 favorite Pink Floyd songs actually. I think that 1st solo in Comfortably Numb took me by surprise a little more and therefore may have been more chilling and moving to me of the 2, but both so good. I’m much more jealous of guys like Gilmour that can come up with musical ideas like those solos than the best technicians
 
Meanjoegreene said:
Sweet Child

But tons of great choices
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I gotta admit the song itself doesn’t do much for me and the lead fills I find trite, but the solo itself is awesome and among the best imo, especially the way it builds up to the part where the wah comes in. That part was very cinematic and epic
 
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