Smoke on the Water
Oh, I got one. How about Lenny Kravitz’s solo from “American Woman”? I mean, his cover is pretty terrible to begin with, but that solo is just doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the song. It just sounds like a generic rock solo plopped into the middle of the song. (That said, the whole song can be criticized as just sucking all the fun and color out of the original and genericizing it.) I mean, I guess I should give him points for not copying the fairly well-known solo from the original, but really?
Coming from a Frank Zappa fan, I thought a lot of his solos could have used more variance, or range of notes.
ETA:
At this point, I’m inclined to include the anti-solo guitar solo, from Two Lips Two Lungs and one Tongue, by NOMEANSNO. You’ll never convince me he didn’t know exactly what he was doing, and that it wasn’t perfect.
To think he couldn’t play a more complex solo is laughable. He did exactly what he intended.
I’ve always likened the solo in Kiss’ I Was Made For Lovin’ You to an ugly fall down the stairs: it’s short, haphazard and painful.
How about The Breeders, Cannonball? Kim Deal’s sister Kelley joined on lead even though she didn’t know how to play. I think Kim wanted to hang out with her identical twin. Kinda like Linda McCartney on keys and backing vocals with Wings.
On a purely technical basis, the lead fills are lame. Something, oh, that someone who doesn’t know how to play guitar might be able to pull off ;). Slide your finger up and down two frets first on one string, then another. Dee-doh, Dee-doh (switch string!) Dee-doh, Dee-doh.
But damn if it doesn’t work.
Yeah, good (?) one. It fails in all respects : musically, it’s boring and technically, it sounds amateurish as if it was constantly in danger of slipping one fret too far or go out of sync with the beat.
Actually, it reminds me of a little silly thing I used to do with my brother: I’d bend the high e string, seventh fret a semi-tone then move very quickly to the b string and do the same, then back to the e string and so on while he’d play some cheesy basic chords to accompany it. With time, the bends got out of tune, especially at a high speed. The result was kind of similar to that song.
As for George Harrison: His solo on “Can’t Buy Me Love” is the only thing I like about that song. And, it’s pretty cool how he composed and played a serviceable solo backwards for “I’m Only Sleeping.”
However, I don’t like that Hawaiian slide sound he used in late Beatles and (especially) his 70s solo stuff.
I was gonna say, technically easy, but not lame in the least. Sounds way cool.
And I think part of the reason it works for me is that tension of pulling and pushing against the rhythm. Played exactly on the beat and in a “technical” manner, it probably would sound lame. But I love that little guitar part.
I see what you mean but as far as I’m concern, I can’t hear this as “tasteful slop”. What I picture is a 12 year-old kid with his tongue sticking out, thinking: "This is sooo kul (but guitar-playing is sooo hard).
I can see that but, honestly, until this thread, I never really thought about that guitar line as sticking out in any negative way. It doesn’t really sound sloppy to me so much as simple.
Slight hijack but my son played this for me and I thought it may just be the coolest sitar solo ever.
I couldn’t help but hear the primitive technique even while I was marveling at how the pieces come together. Kim’s two-chord crunched-up acoustic rhythm. The silly atmospherics, the overlapping vocal tracks, etc.
Talk about a song where the drums just bring everything together and makes them work, it’s this one. I love the little rhythmic figures that kid used to propel everything forward.
Indeed, love the drums on this, too (especially those little clicky flourishes when he hits the cymbal stands or drum rims or whatever, and that fluttering bass drum beat that adds just enough interest and energy to the part to keep it grooving and moving forward), and it ties everything together. As you noted, this is a great song to use as an example of how simple little ideas stacked together can create a wonderful pop/rock song (it’s one of my favorite songs from the 90s.)
Paul also has the solo on “Another Girl”
I think he was just playing along to tape played backwards.
I do agree that his signature sound is not a turn on for me. It went all the way into his solo stuff. I hear it for the first time in the bootleg of the Strawberry Fields sessions. It just appears and never goes away.
Thanks.
So far we have 4 discrete solos for Paul and 2 for John in the catalogue.
However Revolution and Yer Blues credit both John and George as Lead guitar. I’ll give them to the composer: 4 and 4.
I hear slight shades of Mr. Atkins in that solo.
That reads as: you’re saying he actually played it backwards? I always thought the recording of it was done backwards.
from wiki:
Called to mind my favourite anti-solo - from King Crimson’s Ladies of the Road.
Sure - a few more notes than Andy’s, but still…well…you had to hear it, but unfortunately I could kill youtube for not having the studio version to link here. There is a live version there, but totally lacks the austere sharpness and angularity of the original. Those who do know it, though, can hopefully relate.
And yes I was kinda hoping Andy woulda taken that 15 minutes to explain whatever it was his :eek:“DAD”:eek: told him.
heh, sorry Scabs
- The sitar solo in Steely Dan’s “Do It Again” I thought was pretty neat.
Harrison composed the lead to be heard backward, translated that to the forward requirements, then recorded that in order to be able to flip it and splice it in backwards to get the sound they wanted.
By “composing” it means that he was playing along to a tape. It was the music played in reverse, or “backwards” but he was not composing backwards.