Pink Floyd: Comfortably Numb
Stone Roses: Made Of Stone
Fleetwood Mac: Oh Well
Thin Lizzy: Still In L ove With You (The Live one)
Nope. I’ve heard almost all of the songs mentioned in this thread. I was seriously into Pink Floyd, Yes, Genesis, Zappa, Santana, Zeppelin, Klatuu and the likes in the 70’s. Quite a few of my friends were also into the whole jazz rock scene.
Today, I get bored silly, whenever I hear someone play a guitar solo. It’s technically brilliant but emotionally void for all but the anal retentive player who thinks that his cool way of playing will get him laid more often.
Guitar should only be used as a rythm instrument.
Nile Rodgers is the best guitar player in the world. Or maybe Billy Gibbons, when not playing solos.
Hendrix at Woodstock.
Blackmore on Child in Time
Lots of Rory Gallaghers stuff.
“Cinnamon Girl” by Neil Young.
Only a true master can produce a solo of that intricacy and feeling with so few actual notes.
Wow. I thought you were kidding until I read your second post. This is the first time I’ve heard someone say that an instrument’s role should be limited to rather than by its role in classical music. Are you actually saying that the canon of modern music defines the guitar’s role as a rhythm instrument? I didn’t even know there was a canon of modern music. Many guitar solos ARE self-indulgent displays of technical expertise at the expense of feeling and composition, but to make a blanket statement that the guitar is a rhythm instrument is just plain weird. Are you saying that the proper role for the guitar is solely as a rhythm instrument or that no one has yet to create a guitar solo that isn’t devoid of emotion? The solos I’ve mentioned are hardly examples of technical expertise; I chose them for their contribution to the song. Weird.
I wouldn’t want to live in a world without guitar solos.
I wouldn’t want to live in a world where there were no solos to play air guitar to.
KidCharlemagne
Quite seriously - I don’t think guitar solos add anything to most songs. There are exceptions of course, but many times it’s just the guitarist showing off. Anybody who’s ever been around musicians for a while, know that guitar players have the biggest egos. At the local music store in town there is an (old) joke that all guitar amps should be sold with the colume controll going to 11.
And I don’t listen to music for intellectuall reasons. I want music to evoke feelings in my gut, not talk to my brain. Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, Eddie Van Halen and all those guys are great guitar players. I’m amazed at the technique. I’m in awe with their skills. And that’s not mentioning the more jazzier guys: Al di Meola, Pat Metheny ASF. But that kind of guitar playing doesn’t do anything for me, emotionally. The opening riffs of Back in lack or Tush or most of what Zeppelin did, before Page started going crazy with two necked guitars and 12-strings - all of that reach my gut.
But I’m not going to pay money, spend my time or even download something which, IM(not so)HO only serve as a masturbatory excersise for a guy who was picked on by the bullies in High School.
Reading this thread, obviously your milage does vary. 
Q: How many guitar players does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Four. One to change the bulb and three to say they could all do it better and faster.
Although he has done and recorded more solos than most musicians’ entire recorded output, I consider Frank Zappa 's epic, The Ocean Is The Ultimate Solution to be among the best solos ever.
As for guitar solos being mere wankery, would the same be true of violin solos, or any other instrument for that matter? If not, what’s the difference?
Chris W
Well, for some people it does. Who says technical brilliance must always be devoid of emotion? Some of the solos mentioned in this thread give me goosebumps while listening to them. Others actually make me get up out of my chair and - well - make an ass out of myself. That’s emotion, and it’s an emotion I get from very few other kinds of music.
Why can’t the guitar take a front seat in a song? It can be a very expressive instrument, especially in the hands of a master.
Yaay blanket statements. My experience with musicians is that every group thinks every other group has the biggest egos.
Just because it seems like showing off technique - though many of the guitarists you list are NOT the most technically proficient at all - that doesn’t mean that was the purpose. Nevermind the fact that it obvious doesn’t stike most people are either of those things. It’s fortunate for the rest of us you know as little about becoming master of the universe as you do the guitar. 
riserius1. Of course. That’s one of my major problems with jazz. The group takes a standard - say ‘Round Midnight’, and turn it into a 12 minute nerd-fest. Everyone gets a solo and the audience applause politely after each solo.
Music, as any other artform, should primarily go for the gut, then for the brain. It’s nice to pick things apart and analyze them. But I don’t want to do that to get that first feeling of enjoyment. For me, modern jazz is ‘Finegan’s Wake’ in musical form. I tried to read the damn thing, BTW, during my precocuious youth.
I don’t need to know anything about guitars. I just need to listen. De gustibus non disputandum est
So far most examples have been from rock (Especially hard rock from 1967-1980), with some jazz/instrumental players thrown in.
Are there any great country, folk, or R&B soloists? Or do the really talented guitarists gravitate to rock, jazz, or Steve Vai type “shredding”?
And how about great acoustic solos?
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Metallica - One
Metallica - Fade to Black
Three of Kirk Hammett’s finest.
Willie Nelson’s solo on “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” from “The Red Headed Stranger” album.
I can’t believe no one’s mentioned David Gilmour, in Time, on Dark Side of the Moon.
Joe F’n Perry, Train Kept A’Rollin’ and Amazing and his slide solo on Cheesecake
Another vote for the brilliant solo in “Comfortably Numb”
I love the long solo in Purple Rain, by Prince. Yeh, yeh, I know.
The solo in Still of the Night, by Whitesnake. yeh, I know.
The over-exaggerated style of the solo in Play Guitar by John Mellencamp (and whoever his guitarist is) is great, cracks me up.
Of course, Hendrix’s solo in Red House makes me want to become a stripper just to dance to that song.
There is a great acoustic solo on the Wall, right before they sing Nobody Home.
Dinosaur Jr., “Start Choppin’” (J. Masics); Camper Van Beethoven, “Never Go Back” (Greg Lisher); Bruce Springsteen, “Streets of Fire” (Bruce Springsteen).