The 10 greatest guitar solos of the 1990s
By the time the 1990s started, the age of the guitar hero was officially dead. As much as some fans loved to practice scales and shred for anyone who would listen to them, every one of the fretboard masters was rendered obsolete the minute that Kurt Cobain started performing in the video for ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. Although the days of the big hair and hour-long solos may have been a thing of the past, there were still pockets of brilliance from the likes of Pearl Jam and Metallica.
Though the grunge wave tended to shy away from anything too flashy, unique guitar players still paved the way for something new in rock and roll. Whereas some may have fallen back on standard chords, the alternative scene almost used the guitar as an emotional translator, more concerned about the individual notes they were playing rather than ensuring everything was staying in key.
Even outside of the rock world, other genres had their fair share of great guitar moments, from metal, Britpop, and even a handful of mainstream pop artists having a field day behind the fretboard. While not all players had the same chops typical of someone like Eddie Van Halen, none of their solos were lacking in soul, always providing the right emotional release before returning to the song.
Since the core statement behind the alternative scene was to not emulate one’s heroes, some of the most unique players in rock started to emerge, bringing with them a different approach than any of their contemporaries. The massive scale exercises may have ended, but that didn’t mean the scene wasn’t less exciting.
The top 10 guitar solos of the 1990s:
10. ‘Scar Tissue’ – Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Red Hot Chili Peppers were in for an uphill battle when they started picking up the pieces of their broken band. After guitarist John Frusciante left during their peak in 1991, his heroin abuse throughout the rest of the decade severely impacted his motor skills, all while substitute Dave Navarro came in for the album One Hot Minute. Once Frusciante decided to kick the habit for Californication, ‘Scar Tissue’ is the sound of one of rock’s greatest guitarists finding his footing again.
One of the main draws behind the solo is just how simple it is. As opposed to every other strange guitarist of the decade trying to make weird sounds on the instrument, Frusciante hangs back with his slide guitar, creating pure emotion with every note he plays. Since he didn’t have his chops back just yet, Frusciante approaches the guitar in a different way, looking to tell the song’s story through music rather than melt someone’s face off.
Considering the lyrics of the tune, though, the guitar breaks may as well be the autobiography of Frusciante over the past five years, crying out in pain for all of the years he had lost to drugs. However, this isn’t a song about regretting his time away from the band. ‘Scar Tissue’ is a tale of survival, and Frusciante uses his six-string to tell his personal story of redemption for conquering his demons.
9. ‘Nutshell’ – Alice in Chains
By the mid-1990s, any hope that Alice in Chains would go the distance had started to dwindle. Although Jerry Cantrell and Layne Staley were still writing quality material, Staley’s rapidly declining health after years of drug abuse left him a shell of what he once was, growing thinner by the day and more distant from the rest of the band. While Dirt may have been their defining statement as a group, their acoustic EP Jar of Flies gave fans one of the most heart-wrenching experiences of the grunge era.
Across ‘Nutshell’, most of the song is carried by Staley’s voice, talking about the privacy taken from him due to his fame and the massive physical toll that years of heroin use has taken on his body. After laying his soul bare on tape, it’s Cantrell’s turn in the song’s second half. As the tempo picks up, Cantrell trades in his acoustic for a snarling electric guitar, playing tasty licks almost country-tinged in their articulation.
For all of the grunge purists out there, Cantrell was always proud of his heavy metal chops, using the back half of the solo to play intricate scale runs that wouldn’t be out of place on a record by Steve Vai or Joe Satriani. Though the part might be a little busy, it’s never at the expense of the song, sounding like the heart palpitations that might happen before someone like Staley overdoses for the last time. Staley may have written the lyrics, but this solo guitar figure is the sound of Cantrell trying to musically call out to his friend.
8. ‘Only In Dreams’ – Weezer
After grunge came and went, most young rock fans were looking for somewhere to turn to. Since Kurt Cobain was no longer there to lead a generation of kids, other acts began springing out of the woodwork to fill those huge Converse shoes. Although most seasoned grunge bands weren’t looking to become the next big thing anymore, fans found a more positive outlet for their musical angst in Weezer.
Being the polar opposite of the sad sacks from Seattle, the songs of Rivers Cuomo showed rock fans what it was like to be an outcast, with lyrics more concerned about the kids picked on at school than entertaining the jocks. While almost every song on their blue-coloured debut has amazing guitar work, most fans weren’t ready for the final few minutes of ‘Only In Dreams’. While starting as a decent acoustic love song, the long feedback strain tells fans that that section was only Act 1.
Starting slow, both Cuomo and fellow guitarist Brian Bell engage in a guitar battle, weaving their lines around each other before harmonising towards the end of the song until building to a massive climax. In the context of the song, this might as well be the moment that the singer can win the girl of his dreams, finally working up the courage to talk to her and become the person he always knew he wanted to be. For as down and out as Cuomo’s nerdy persona might seem, the guitars on the song’s back half feel like the moment where dreams turn into reality.
7. ‘Some Might Say’ – Oasis
There is no one on Earth who would say that Noel Gallagher is one of the greatest guitarists to pick up the instrument. Although he may have written some powerful songs during Oasis’s heyday, Noel’s prowess on an electric guitar is usually confined to just a handful of chords and maybe the odd solo here and there, all while keeping within the pentatonic box for most of the runtime. Despite his lack of technical prowess, he always knew how to construct the guitar melodies millions of people could sing along with.
Bridging the gap between Definitely Maybe and What’s the Story Morning Glory, ‘Some Might Say’ is one of the most triumphant Oasis songs in their canon, singing about the blue skies one day coming to those living in their personal Hell. While Noel sprinkles bits and pieces of lead work across the verses, the ending solo is pure bravado, only using a handful of notes to tell the world that nothing will stop the Oasis train from taking over the music world.
Although Noel isn’t saying much musically with his solo, he’s more focused on serving the song’s mood, hitting the notes that he knows will pierce fans’ hearts once they hear them. Oasis was on the road to being one of the biggest bands in Britain, and the sound of Noel’s buzzing solo may as well have been the rock and roll introduction for royalty.
6. ‘Spoonman’ – Soundgarden
Out of all of Seattle’s finest at the height of grunge, Soundgarden were always the most technically gifted. Although Alice in Chains may have had a heavier sound and Nirvana had more classic songs, Soundgarden was always concerned with pushing rock forward, writing complex time signatures, or utilising strange open tunings that no one would have thought of before. Even when they were writing songs purely as a joke, guitarist Kim Thayil turned in one of his greatest solos on record.
Based around the story of a Seattle native known for playing the spoons, ‘Spoonman’ is all one could ask for in a classic rock staple, having the same stop-start dynamic that Led Zeppelin was famous for using in songs like ‘Black Dog’. Then again, Thayil’s guitar wouldn’t be mistaken for anyone else, sounding like a swarm of bees spinning around the speakers when he starts to go for broke in the back half.
Whereas most grunge guitarists would play a series of random notes to give the song a distinct vibe, the start of the solo also has some fairly tasty sections, almost sounding like something George Harrison would write towards the tail end of The Beatles’ tenure before Thayil practically strangles his instrument until he drops out entirely for the drum solo. ‘Spoonman’ might be a tour de force for every band member, but Thayil turned in one of the first solos that could make a Chris Cornell wail sound dull by comparison.
5. ‘Take the Power Back’ – Rage Against the Machine
Most people can count on one hand the number of guitar players who sound like Tom Morello. In an era when most people were taking things back to basics behind the fretboard, Morello took a different approach, looking to expand the vocabulary of what the electric guitar could do. That didn’t mean he couldn’t play the traditional way, either, and ‘Take the Power Back’ is a crash course of everything that made Morello one of a kind.
After the song’s first half is carried by Tim Commerford’s bass, Morello starts tapping into something else in the second half, playing dissonant notes to illustrate to the listener that something isn’t quite right. Once he settles into a groove with different strange sounds emanating from his instrument, Morello goes on different scaler runs that would leave most grunge guitarists out of commission, pulling from his shredding influences like Randy Rhoads and Yngwie Malmsteen to create cascades of notes falling from his six-string.
This version of Morello’s playing always took a back seat to his main gig in Rage, though, being the impromptu DJ in the band by creating strange sounds that no one had heard coming out of an electric guitar before. There might be more identifiable guitar solos from Morello, but this was one of the few times he used his wanna ‘80s shredder and innovative genius sides in one tune.
4. ‘November Rain’ – Guns N’ Roses
It’s safe to say that Guns N’ Roses jumped the shark several times during the making of Use Your Illusion. After becoming one of the most interesting bands from Los Angeles at the tail end of the ‘80s, their use of grandiose ideas across a double album’s worth of material took them far away from their street-rock roots. Despite Axl Rose’s insistence to be as over-the-top as possible, Slash could always inject a bit of soul into any track he got his hands on.
Throughout the opening of ‘November Rain’, it feels like fans are about to be treated to Axl Rose: The Musical, with sweeping piano arpeggios and Rose tapping into his inner singer-songwriter talking about a love restrained. While Rose sells the heartbroken troubadour well enough, Slash’s guitar solo has all the emotion that Rose is singing about in a few seconds, sounding like he’s crying out in heartache for a woman who walked out of his life.
Playing out over nine minutes, the back half of the song is where Slash really shines, as the music’s mood distinctively changes before a flurry of guitar notes paints the picture of going down an emotional avalanche as orchestral sections play in the background. Rose may have spent years refining this piece to be as perfect as possible, but Slash’s guitar breaks have all of the raw emotion of a hair metal soap opera.
3. ‘The Unforgiven’ – Metallica
When working on the songs for The Black Album, Kirk Hammett once remarked that the album was one of the easiest for him to make. Since Metallica was all about pairing things down to sound much simpler than before, that gave Hammett more freedom to play solos that were much more straightforward than the traditional scale exercises he was used to. Then again, that didn’t mean that the recording process for the solo to ‘The Unforgiven’ would be easy.
After coming in with a solo that he thought would be great, Hammett was turned down by the rest of the band, thinking it was nowhere near good enough for what they were looking for. Being bullied by producer Bob Rock, Hammett became increasingly pissed as the day went on before ripping out a solo in frustration, which became the basis of the track that’s heard on the finished record.
Taking pages out of the blues playbook, Hammett’s solo illustrates his mood at the time, ironically paralleling the song’s message about a man who spends his whole life unable to connect to anyone. Metallica’s recording sessions were bound to get a lot more friendly as the years went on, but Hammett’s determination to work through the criticism may have been a blessing in disguise.
2. ‘Love Spreads’ – The Stone Roses
The entire world of Britpop was practically chomping at the bit to see what The Stone Roses would be releasing next. After setting the world on fire with their debut, much of Second Coming was them trying to measure up to their accolade as genre leaders, with varying degrees of success. Although the album itself ended up running for way too long with few hooks between them, ‘Love Spreads’ remains one of the greatest achievements for John Squire.
Unlike most other guitarists in the scene who wanted to strip things down, Squire was unashamed of his guitar chops, going for a solo that pulled from bluesy traditions while also looking towards the future in some of the arrangements. As the backing track builds a hypnotic groove around the listener, Squire tears it up on both slide guitar and his standard fretwork, squeezing the life out of his instrument until it’s practically begging to be put out of its misery.
Though ‘Love Spreads’ may have capitalised on everything that The Roses had promised, it would be bittersweet, as the band quickly disintegrated once the album came out, leaving Squire to form The Seahorses a few months later. Even if this was one of the last times the Roses were in the studio together, Squire is still playing every note as if it will be one of the final notes he’ll ever play.
1. ‘Even Flow’ – Pearl Jam
In the early days of Pearl Jam, one thing grunge purists found difficult to get around was Mike McCready. Despite being a technically accomplished player, McCready’s classic rock style of riffing clashed with the aesthetic of the region, who often would do their best to spit on the legacies of classic rock artists before them. There was one thing that linked Seattle to the sounds of old, and McCready endeared himself to the public with his vast knowledge of bluesy riffs.
With lyrics about a homeless person trying to make his way through a world that hates him, ‘Even Flow’ is punctuated by some of the greatest riffs of the ‘90s, including Stone Gossard’s brilliant drop-D riff that never lets up for a second. Since the whole song is done in a shuffle rhythm, McCready uses the opportunity to pull out some Stevie Ray Vaughan-style licks, either bouncing off Gossard’s sections or using his solo to blend the tasty side of guitar playing with intense fretboard runs.
Even when the solo fades out of the mix, McCready knows exactly what he’s doing, playing dissonant notes to create a mood before ramping things up again, almost like hearing a wild animal spring back to life before launching into the final chorus. Grunge music was never about playing sweeping solos that went on for eternity, but McCready proved that nothing was off the table as long as it had a groove behind it.
