Poniedziałek 1 Wrz 2008, 12:29

Thought I'd have a little fun and search out my favourite five guitar solos. The guitar's an amazing instrument, able to convey countless emotions and feelings and it's ubiquity means it features in around 90% of my favourite music.
There's lots of lists out there and I certainly agree with most of the top tens I see but here I want to list some that mean a lot to me personally. They may not be the fastest, most complex or most iconic solos but when I hear them I have to get on my knees and rip out some crazy air guitar.
So with no further ado, ladies and gentleman, may I present to you…

BoundlessSpirit's five favourite solos!
Download the .wav file from the link. It's pretty big at 25MB, sorry about that.

5. F-Zero GX - Mute City
I remember having an all night F-Zero session with a couple of friends and looking foward to playing the Mute City track each time. I think maybe Daisuke Ishiwatari's Blue Water Blue Sky is a better guitar driven game track but the solo here is just great, soaring notes and the techno background make for a pretty fun combo.

4. Sonata Arctica - The Cage
When I first heard this track I was completely blown out of the water, I'd had the volume up for the quiet ending to Graven Image and then this barnstorming solo comes out of nowhere. Thousands of incredibly fast notes in a perfect pattern of awe-inspiring glory, one of the best openings to a song I know.

3. Ayreon - Day Fourteen: Pride
Arjen Lucassen's a great guitarist, he's pulled off some amazing work and his albums are laden with excellent progular solos and guitar-keyboard duels. I don't think this is actually his best solo, a couple of the songs on Into the Electric Castle have better, but whenever I hear this my head rises and I sit back and just let this one roll over me.

2. Queen - I Want it All
This solo, for me, is the best party solo ever. It has everything, fast bits, long notes and Freddie's "oooooooooooh yeah-yeaaaah" at the beginning gets such a grin on my face every time. Easily my favourite Queen song and this solo is easily the best thing they ever did.

1. Dragonland - The Book of Shadows, Part III: The Glendora Outbreak
Words fail me when I try and describe this but I'll give it a go anyway. This is, simply put, the most beautiful piece of music I have ever heard. The long notes just soar away, pulling you with them and leaving you sky-high when it's over. If any song can instantly put my mood into happy it's this. Not many solos have a nifty little piano riff underpinning them either.

Well there we go, I've tried to put a little more effort into this than the other couple of journals I've done and actually explain why I like these instead of just filling out a meme this time.