My List of Ten Best Guitar Solos

This is my list of what I consider to be the ten best guitar solos of all time in order of greatness. I take full responsibility for all inclusions and exclusions and the order they are in. Your mileage may differ, but this is mine.

Guitarist: David Gilmour

Band: Pink Floyd

Album: The Wall (1979)

After all this time, Gilmour's solo still sends chills up and down my spine and round the back of my skull. I will drive around the block if it's not finished by the time I get home. And, though perhaps a bit heretical to die-hard Floydians, I consider the best version is their performance at Earls Court in London during the 1994 Division Bell Tour with the shimmering sphere hanging over the audience opening up into something like an extra-terrestrial visitor.

Guitarist: Jimmy Page

Band: Led Zeppelin

Album: Led Zeppelin IV (1971)

Almost played to death but Page's solo always stands up. Only David Gilmour could keep this from being number 1.

Guitarists: Don Felder and Joe Walsh

Band: The Eagles

Album: Hotel California (1976)

I'm embarrassed to admit this but I air guitar this one if no one else is around. It's not a pretty sight.

Guitarist: David Gilmour

Band: Pink Floyd

Album: Dark Side of the Moon (1973)

Gilmour simply soars on this one. How could four guys in their twenties nail the passage of time in our lives? “Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.”

Guitarist: Eric Clapton

Band: Cream

Album: Wheels of Fire (1968)

The solo isn't till the end, but definitely worth the wait. If only it was longer. “Wheels of Fire” was the first double album to go platinum.

Guitarist: Eric Clapton and Duane Allman

Band: Derek and the Dominoes

Album: Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (1970)

Although the album was released in 1970, Layla received most of its airplay in the US in 1972, a year of incredible highs and lows for me. My biggest complaint is that Clapton only ever seems to play the “bluesy” acoustic version anymore, which can't hold a candle to the original.

Guitarist: Eric Clapton and George Harrison

Band: Cream

Album: Goodbye (1969)

The pause before the solo is almost excruciating. Badge originally had no title, but George Harrison scribbled the word “bridge” on the lyrics, either in reference to a link between sets of lyrics or to a guitar bridge. Clapton, misreading it asked what the hell “Badge” meant and that's where the name came from-- it means nothing. Ring Starr, drunk at the time, contributed the bit about “the swans, that they live in the park”.

Guitarist: Jonny Greenwood

Band: Radiohead

Album: OK Computer (1997)

If you are not paranoid after listening to Jonny Greenwood's explosive guitar solo, you might consider a career defusing unexploded munitions.

Guitarist: Eric Clapton

Band: The Beatles

Album: The White Album (1968)

For years I had no idea Eric Clapton played the solo on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. Indeed he does make it cry and sing.

Guitarist: Brian May

Band: Queen

Album: A Night at the Opera (1975)

Perhaps a guilty pleasure and, despite massive airplay, I say it's still one of the great guitar solos.