Greatest Rock Guitar Riffs


A British guitar magazine recently polled it readers to compile a list of the greatest guitar riffs. Guns 'N Roses "Sweet Child of Mine" came in at the number spot. Here's a link to the poll results. As you can see the list is entirely metal oriented.

My list would include:

The Chuck Berry intro
The Chuck Berry rhythm
The Bo Diddley beat
Temptations - My Girl
Kinks - You Really Got Me
Steely Dan - Reelin' In the Years
Sam & Dave (Steve Cropper) - Soul Man
Stone Temple Pilots - Plish
Beatles - I Feel Fine intro
Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze intro

Is it my fault that nearly all the great riffs are pre-1980?

What's on your list?
128x128onhwy61
They ALL belong to Frank Zappa IMHO and the list of riffs is truely infinite.
im with marakanetz,fz did all of them the best,the entire shut up & play yer guitar double album is 1 big riff.

mike
Fujindemon,

No hurt feelings. I threw that one in because when I was learning to play guitar in the mid 80's, Stairway was one of the most overplayed riffs of the day. It seemed like everyone of my era knew it (at least the beginning, few learned the whole song). Same for Purple and Iron, everyone knew them.
You're all forgettin' probably the greatest riff of all time:

Oh Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison

Honorable mentions:

Day Tripper - The Beatles
Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
Dirty Water (Oh Boston You're My Home!) - The Standells
Whole Lotta Love - Led Zeppelin
Satisfaction - The Rolling Stones
Dang - this has got to be one of the stupidest threads I've looked at in years. Can you all imagine how expensive this is gonna get?

Started to go through the mental list, but started to show some years (and a senior moment or two 'cause I probably can't remember about half of what I'd put here). Then I went to the "magic closet" - the one where all the vinyl's stored. OMG - what a mistake! Dang - this is gonna be one expensive evening now. Already got the turntable and cartridge choices figured out, now just gotta get 'em & set 'em up... Stupid, stupid thread. Stupid, stupider me for going to that closet...

Tkmetz done real good there, & Marakenetz and Wellfed hit some classics (FZ furever). Also Santana (Samba Pa Ti? Song of the Wind?), Joe Walsh, Bromberg somewhere, Schon, Knopfler, prob. Beck, more Tull than just Aqualung (Barre done darned good), and I'm just going to have to hook everything up and listen again and we'll get back to this thread in a year or so with a better list (yup, got a bunch of time saved up from work ;~). Stupid thread...