Bob's Badass List #1 - Five Badass Guitar Solos that Totally Wail, Bro!

Here at Holy Shit NO!!!, bitching about bullshit is our number one concern. But it's not all we do. That in mind, I am proud to introduce a new occasional feature: Bob's Badass List! In it, I, Bob, will spin out positive rants about things that are totally badass. So get ready to rock out with your cock out and/or jam out with your clam out, because we're gonna kick this bad boy off with Five Badass Guitar Solos that Totally Wail, Bro!

1.) Guitarist - Jimi Hendrix
Band - The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Solo - All Along the Watchtower (between 2nd and 3rd verses)
Any of Hendrix's solos could easily have been chosen to appear in this list, but I picked this one because it is a particular display of his talent not only as a player but also as an arranger. Sure, it may not be loaded down with all the shredding and sweeping of today's metal masters, but it is still a gold standard of rock glory: the compositional genius of Bob Dylan blended perfectly with the raw, soulful power of Jimi Hendrix to make one of the greatest covers of all time. I'm really trying to come up with more to say about this solo, but I'm just getting stuck at "DAMN!"

2.) Guitarist - John Petrucci
Band - Dream Theater
Solo - The Best of Times (end of song)
Speaking of today's metal masters, and speaking of raw, soulful power, prog virtuosos Dream Theater have done it again with their new album Black Clouds & Silver Linings, giving us technique nerds plenty to drop our jaws at while producing music of amazing emotional power as well. This solo stands out as one of the highlights of the record, with its epic melodies and masterfully constructed sweeping arpeggios bringing a fantastic conclusion to an extremely moving send-off for the man who named the band.

3.) Guitarist - Nabana Tomomi
Band - detroit7
Solo - Mr. Kato on the Road (after first chorus)
Have you ever wondered "What if Grace Slick were Japanese and could play the guitar like Hendrix?" Neither had I until that question was answered for me when I saw Tokyo power trio detroit7 at SXSW last year. Totally mind-blowing experience, that show. They wailed so hard I just had to buy their CD, and this solo is one of the best examples of the pure unstoppable energy with which Nabana and her band present their massive blend of classic hard rock and old-school punk.

4.) Guitarist - Emppu Vuorinen
Band - Nightwish
Solo - Gethsemane (end of song)
Damn, I love me some old-school Nightwish. Love their new stuff too (no substitute for brilliant songwriting,) but there was something different about their approach to arrangements before they started hiring orchestras. For a grand finale on a Nightwish song from Century Child onwards, the orchestra is likely to be heavily involved, and maybe the choir too. Back in the day, though, this solo was what a Nightwish grand finale sounded like. The lyrics finish, the band chugs through the progression a couple times, and then Vuorinen frees the metal beast.

5.) Guitarist - Matthew Bellamy
Band - Muse
Solo - Hysteria (after second chorus)
First there's the trippy staccato progression that follows as an alternative extension of the intro riff (instead of the signature pre-verse lead,) then it seamlessly walks down into the second part of the solo, the big legato lines that wail on into the drum break before the end chorus. It's a great example of Muse's phenomenal ability to pack extraordinary amounts of compositional flow into a standard pop song format.

Well, that was some good fun, wasn't it? More Badass Lists (maybe one of them a direct sequel to this one) will appear in future updates, peppered in among the usual senseless bitching and gratuitous profanity that you've come to know and love, or at least expect from this blag. Until next time, from all of us at Holy Shit NO!!! to all of you out there on the Internet, pass out with your ass out!