Greatest Guitar Songs: The Sampler

It's time to wrap this up. Well, I do intend to revisit the Bowie issue, but I am not technically considering that part of this series. That will either launch me down a different musical road, or I might take a break from writing about music. Some of the things I have to say might be better later.

For now, I thought it would make sense to put some music together for someone who might be wondering where to start, and create a Spotify playlist. It won't be definitive or conclusive, which is not even possible. It is somewhat chronological, but not strictly. So really, it is just a departure point, but it comes from hours of listening and writing.

If you have been following along, I have written about many of this before, so sometimes I will not put a lot of detail. We have songs from the Rolling Stone list, songs from the Stereogum comments, and songs from my disagreements, sometimes more strenuously than others.

We start out with Django Reinhardt with "Minor Swing". There were many good song candidates, but I thought this was a good example of his style, and it focuses on the guitar a bit more perhaps, where many of the combo pieces focus on violin or bass.

Next up is Robert Johnson, "Believe I'll Dust My Broom". This is for the boogie bass line, taking something previously belonging to pianos and now standard in guitar, making it perhaps the most appropriate song for representing his influence on guitar.

"Ain't That Just Like A Woman", by Louis Jordan, is really boogie piano, like the music from which Robert Johnson borrowed that bass line, but with Carl Hogan on guitar it gives us that famous riff, after which we jump a couple of decades and get it amplified and electrified in Chuck Berry's "Johnny B Goode".

There is a sound to that guitar, beyond the notes, that seems to lead into Dick Dale and the Surfaris, and a lot of instrumental music, but I am going to go with "Rumble" by Link Wray next, because I think it hints at some of the aggression and societal unrest that is so relevant to rock.

It does have room to get funkier though, and shouldn't forget its blues roots, so this is where I'd like to bring in "Green Onions" by Booker T. & the MG's, which gets us into the '60s.

That's kind of all I want to do from the '60s. It's easy to put in Beatles, Stones, and Hendrix, but they are on all the lists, and we already know what they sound like. I was tempted to put in "Born To Be Wild" by Steppenwolf, but I feel like it would drag things down. Therefore, I am going straight to 1976, with the release of The Ramones and "Blitzkrieg Bop", followed by "Shot By Both Sides" by Magazine.

Despite yesterday's debate on whether "Blitzkrieg Bop" is their best, it is definitely a good song, and it is really early for them. They are brand new here, and they must have been a revelation. They never got as much play as they could have, but for those who were listening, this must have been a breath of fresh air. That also may be how the original list settled on "London's Calling", off of The Clash, two self-titled debuts by two great bands. So I get that, but I am going to go with a different track on the same record, "White Riot".

"Shot By Both Sides" is just a cool song that I had never heard of before. Also, right around here is the time for "Crazy On You" by Heart.

It would be completely reasonable to put Van Halen's "Eruption" in here, but it sounds like Eddie Van Halen was not happy with the recording, so for mind-blowing instrumental I am going with Joe Satriani's "Surfing With The Alien". Yes, that is a Silver Surfer reference. This recording session did not go exactly as planned either, but I still think it came out very well, and it's pretty amazing. On one level it reminds me of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (Captain Nemo music. Don't overthink it.)

And now we are into the '80s, my old stomping grounds. "Beat's So Lonely" by Charlie Sexton makes it in, but so does The Knack's "My Sharona". I was thinking about putting in some Kinks for earlier, and nothing felt right, but I always feel like this song has some affinity with the Kinks, and so that sound is still kind of represented.

It is a harder sound, and a bit longer, but Metallica's "Master Of Puppets" needs to be here, because it shows some mastery of composition here, with the ground they cover and they way it builds. We will then relax a little with Quiet Riot's "Cum On Feel The Noize".

Two songs I feel awful about excluding, but they are not on Spotify, are "Take It Easy" by Andy Taylor (1986) and "Saturday Night" by the Misfits (1999). And they don't have "I Love Rock N Roll" as performed by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts! The '80s are already well-represented, but I am afraid I am going to give short shrift to the '90s. This is where I started to pull away from contemporary music, as I didn't care for grunge, or for the direction rap was heading. My band was the Gin Blossoms, but I'm going to hold on to them for right now. Our '90s songs will be "Dammit" (Blink-182) and "Basket Case" (Green Day).

Actually, I think of "Island In The Sun" (Weezer) and "The Middle" (Jimmy Eat World) as the '90s, but they were post 2000, brining us into the new century, and this is possibly where we are going more into things that I specifically love, rather than songs I learned about from this project, and now it feels weirder to write out the full song and band names, because I just mentioned all of them yesterday. However, I'll try not to start coasting.

I picked on one comment for suggesting what was basically a coffee shop duo type song for the greatest guitar songs list, and for greatest, it doesn't work. For a sampler, though, where we are just trying to remember what guitar can do, and why we like it, that makes sense. So we are including The Weepies here, with "World Spins Madly On". This is from 2006, though I only discovered it a couple of years ago.

Similarly, "Mercy Me", by the Alkaline Trio, is from 2005, but I only found it this year. Perhaps this is why my Fall Out Boy selection is "A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me": I am always late.

And then it is totally time for "Triumph Of Venus" by Torche. Actually, of the songs remaining, I think I have expressed my love for them so frequently and clearly, that I don't know that a lot of comment is necessary. We are getting "Summertime", "Great Expectations", "Fast & Slow" and I think I am going to throw in "Bulletproof Heart", though I had not originally intended too.

However, the one I really want to talk about a little is "Don't Change For Me" by the Gin Blossoms. As important as they were to me in the '90s, and as much as I still love those songs, it was really important to me to find that they were still around. That song is great for me specifically, but also, just still having them here, and for a while I didn't know how they were.

The distribution system for music has changed greatly, and it's easy to miss stuff, and not even think that there is anything out there for you. You have to look harder, or at least differently, but there is rich, vibrant, glorious music popping up all over. I think about it a lot for the new bands I review, and for the older bands I still love. If the occasional blog post or playlist helps, I'll do my part. Long live rock and roll.

You can find these songs on Spotify as the creatively named "Guitar Sampler" play list for Gina Harris.