{ Lick That Riff! }

Hello everyone, it’s nearly the new year! I actually can’t wait to be honest. I am quite looking forward to seeing the back of this year.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed yesterdays post, even though it was mainly about death. On todays post, I’m mainly going to be looking at the best riffs of the decade. A decade which flourished with guitar riffs, especially the first 5-6 years of the decade. This list is in no particular order. So to kick of this post here are some quality riffs!

1) The Strokes – Reptilia The Strokes burst onto the music scene in 2001 with their debut album Is This It. They were one of those bands that at the time just made music, and then didn’t care what people thought. They were one of the coolest bands around. And what’s more, they had two amazing guitarists to accompany their sound. Nick Valensi was one of the coolest guitarists of the decade and he orchestrated some top quality riffs. But this one has to be the cream of his crop. His Michaelangelo. His Mona Lisa. Taken from The Strokes’ second album Room On Fire, this song tore straight into my heart and it’s a song I have alreayd covered on this blog in the riff of the week section. Wow. This is how it sounded when it first burst onto the guitar scene!

2) The Libertines – Don’t Look Back Into The Sun Another band that really burst onto the Indie/Alternative scene this decade were The Libertines. And boy did they burst onto the scene. Another band that didn’t care what people thought about them. Fronted by both Pete Doherty and Carl Barat they were an inspiration to a generation. Their debut album was like that of Definitely Maybe, The Stone Roses The Clash and Nevermind The Bullocks. It just screamed raw! Pete and Carl were two pretty good guitarists, with Carl probably the better of the two. They weren’t technically polished guitarists, but they didn’t need to be. Their raw passion carried them through a song, and this riff is the best from the band that only spanned two albums. In a way its a shame this band disbanded because of drug related problems. But then its those same drug problems that bought us the great songs they produced. Maybe one day they’ll get back together. Anyway here’s the riff, hope you like it.

3) The Hives – Hate To Say I Told You So Well, this little Swedish outfit are sure something. The 5-piece at first glance, with shirts, ties and geekish looks, don’t look like your usual rock band. But then give them a guitar and their lead singers voice and you get The Hives. A truly amazing band that give it their all everytime. They can seriously rock! They prompted me to listen to more Swedish bands and I suggest that a lot of you lot do too. It really is a great nation for music; Kent, Mando Diao, Sugarplum Fairy, to name but a few. Anyway, I’m sure most of you already know this riff of by heart. And if you don’t then really you should. It’s one of the most memorable riffs of my time guitar playing. It came out in 2004/2005. A time when I had not long been playing the guitar, so it gave me inspiration and a new found love to rock! Q Magazine rated it at #54 of the 100 greatest guitar songs ever! Not Bad for a band from a little place in Europe called Fagersta. Here it is anyway, I suggest you play this loud, very LOUD!

4) The White Stripes – Seven Nation Army Again another song that everyone should know. From one of the decades greatest guitarists. The amazing quality of this riff comes in its simplicity. Taken from their fourth album this song really is one of the guitaring greats. Put at #8 in Q’s 100 greatest guitar tracks, at #21 in Rolling Stones 100 greatest guitar songs of all time. Not bad considering you have all of the 60′s, 70′s, 80′s and 90′s guitar songs. Which were amazing. Naively, I hadn’t heard anything about the White Stripes before this album, and before this song. I do feel ashamed. But the amount of listening I done to this album surely made up for it. I suggest you listen, buy and murder this album to death. Listen to Ball A Biscuit to find out why Jack White is probably the best guitarist of the 00′s. Anyway here’s how it should sound.

5) Vampire Weekend – A-Punk Moving towards the latter part of the century now with this one. From an American band from New York. This song has already been covered in my riff of the week. Taken from the bands self-titled debut album, this song was first released in 2008 and received mixed reviews. Which I think to be honest are quite unfair, especially given some of the music that has been around in the last two years. I think this riff is a brilliant riff, again its especially good because of the time of release, with guitar-based music falling in popularity, riffs such as these will help revive the guitar again for the next decade. And for that, Vampire Weekend, we give you thanks.

6) Audioslave – Cochise Now we move on to what some like to call a ‘Supergroup.’ Audioslave is the remnants of Rage Against The Machine and Sound Garden. Chris Cornell fronting the band Sound Garden and Tom Morello, Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk the guitarist, bassist and drummer from RATM. The song’s video starts with the term, “PLAY LOUD” which is exactly what you should do with this track. There is about 50 seconds of build up, but when that amazing heavy riff kicks in it is so worth the build up! The riff is classic Morello and I love Cornells voice on this track aswell. I suggest that everyone tries this riff at some point, although I would say that if your a beginner, you wait, as its more of an intermediate riff. Here it goes.

7) Black Rebel Motorcylce Club – Spread Your Love Ok, so this is more of a Bass riff, but its just so mega its unbelievable. There are also some very good guitar parts in it. The main riff is so dirty and heavy its great. Black Rebel Motorcylce Club for me are an extremely underrated band. You don’t hear about them much but they are a quality act. They hail from the states, and play heavy gothic riffs. This song is taken from their self-titled debut album which was released in 2001. They have had 5 albums to date and are set to release another in 2010. I once read a review on this song that I thought summed it up quite well, saying that it ‘pinches the rhythm from Spirit In The Sky and the distortion from Marc Bolam.’ So yeah here it goes, see if this bassy riff shatters your bones.

8 ) Muse – New Born This song was again released in 2001, like quite a few of these riffs were. It is taken from Muse’s second album, Origin Of Symmetry. This was more of a commercial success than the first album, including some other good guitar songs like Plug In Baby. Again this is quite a heavy dirty riff to be played with quite a lot of distortion. One of the reasons this riff seems so heavy is because it is played in drop-D tuning. Before the main riff there is a piano intro that goes on through the first verse and last about 1 minute 25 seconds, but when that Guitar riff breaks through it all seems worthwhile. This song is actually an amazing song to watch live, as Matt Bellamy starts out playing the piano intro and then takes his guitar and Rocks out the riff! once you’ve have learnt this riff it is a great way to impress friends and family as it sounds so good. Play on!

So, there you have it. My list of the best riffs of the decade. Other riffs that I would like to note that are worthy of mentioning would be:

• The Vines – Get Free
• Incubus – Megolomaniac
• Wolfmother – Woman
• Arctic Monkeys – Florescent Adolescent
• Jet – Cold Hard Bitch

Thanks for listening and reading, and please remember that it is my list, so it is my opinion. I’m sure that the list is quite Indie-based, and if you have any riffs that you would like to mention then please do in the comments section. There will also be a third and final instalment in the Decade review posted tomorrow.

Part One of the Decade Review can be found here:

Part One

Bye

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