What I hear you saying is...

Interesting list from Guitar World about the top 100 guitar solos of all-time. I'll save you the click - the winner was "Stairway to Heaven". (SWTH)

Now, I consider myself a pretty solid Led Zepplin fan. I'm all about getting the "Led out". 7 of the 8 cassettes in my first car were Led Zeppelin albums. My senior prediction in high-school was, "most likely to get Jimmy Page and the band back together" (no joke). So I love Zeppelin.

But this list irritated me...

What are the criteria for a great solo? Off the cuff, I'd say it's a combination of:

1) creativity - adding something unexpected to the mix
2) meshing with the rest of the song
3) mad skillzz!

So how did they choose SWTH as #1? SWTH does not have a great solo. It's not a bad solo, but it's not even in the top 20. It's slow and predictable, not especially interesting, and basically just rounds out the end of reasonably decent song. It's filler.

What is a better solo? Their second choice is "Eruption" by Eddie Van Halen. On pure talent and creativity, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better solo than this - I mean holy crap that is just real, ultimate power. All the Yngwie Malmsteins of the world are just technical copy-cats compared to this. The problem with Eruption is that the entire song is a solo, so it doesn't really stand up on it's own as a "song" (although it does transition nicely to "You Really Got Me").

If I had to pick a winner by the criteria above, it would be something like Stevie Ray Vaughan's solo in Voodoo Chile:

Now, their list already includes Jimi Hendrix' original at #11, which is also awesome. But SRV really pushes his version over the top. It's a cover, so he has to make up a lot of ground in branding the tune as his own. And that is exactly what happens in the solo: It starts with vintage SRV Texas blues chops, then goes spinning off -- weaving in and out of the bass-line like a drunk hornet -- chunking back and forth between these soft hand-muted syncopated riffs. And then he comes bouncing out at the end in total control.

Nobody can listen to Voodoo Chile and then declare that SWTH the greatest guitar solo of all time. One can only guess that they chose SWTH as the top rock solo because it has so much inertia as the perrenial "greatest song" in rock and roll.

Now why is this?

Every New Year, the classic rock station in your town puts together their list of top 100 songs and puts "Stairway" in the top-slot? On leap-years they might sub-in "Freebird" to mix things up. But it's a fair bet that SWTH is going to be in the top 3 spots pretty much every year.

Is SWTH the geatest rock song ever?

Please.

It's not the greatest rock song ever. It's not even Zeppelin's best song (IMHO it's not even the best song on that album). To be sure, it's a good song. But the greatest song ever? What are the criteria for making these lists? I can guess it's not "most requested" because *nobody* asks to listen to SWTH.

However, I do tend to see a pattern looking through the songs that make these lists, though:

Stairway to Heaven (8:01)
Freebird (12:38)
Bohemian Rhapsody (6:02)
Light My Fire (7:08)
Hotel California (6:30)
Layla (7:06)
Hey Jude (7:08)
Wont' Get Fooled Again (8:33)
American Pie (8:28)

Kinda like this post.

I see a similar pattern with lists of greatest books:

Ulysses
War and Peace
Gravity's Rainbow
Rememberance of Things Past
Moby Dick (also a loooong Led Zeppelin tune)
The Magic Mountain
The Bible

The GodFather
Lawrence of Arabia
Citizen Kane
Gone with the Wind
Dr. Zhivago
Seven Samurai
Earnest Goes to Camp
2001 Space Odyssey
Apocalypse Now

What's the significance? I don't have a clue, but it sure seems like these songs/books/movies are like the furniture that your parents kept under plastic-wrap for the guests. They aren't used except on special occasions.

I wonder if the top 100 greatest blog posts would also follow this pattern?

If so, I'm thinking this post is definitely a candidate :-)