The greatest rock riffs of all time, according to Howard Stern: “It’s just ballsy”
Broadcasting royalty Howard Stern is a rock music connoisseur, and over the years, he’s welcomed everyone from Paul McCartney to Mick Jagger into his studio. Stern has soaked up everything there is to know about the genre, and in his mind, there are a series of riffs which are a cut above the rest.
He may well have been considered the ultimate shock jock, a radio DJ who did most of his best work in devotion to the art of devious insults or unwelcome ploys to make his guests look silly, but Stern was far more than that.
Though his first footsteps were simple and chaotic ones, his affiliation with rock music is hard to deny and is hardened by his supreme love for the genre. There is no radio DJ who has been more attached to the genre throughout the length of Stern’s impressively long career.
Throughout Stern’s career, he has mastered one form of audio, but music is equally as special to him as the art of broadcasting, thanks to his father. Stern once recalled: “When I saw my father as a recording engineer … I was enamoured. Looking at how my father was so reverential to those people, I thought that maybe he could look at me with that kind of respect if I could get behind a microphone.”
While his microphone has a different use compared to the one his late father used for his profession, they both created joy from the sound. As much as Stern would have liked to have made it in the music business, broadcasting was his calling, and on the side, he’s had to settle for being an amateur guitarist in his bedroom.
Despite his ordinary musical talent, Stern’s opinion on rock music holds extraordinary weight. Once during his programme on Sirius XM, he was quizzed by a caller named Kyle, who wanted to know about the presenter’s favourite classic rock riffs, and Stern was more than willing to explore the subject matter in depth.
“We know ‘Kashmir’ (Led Zeppelin) is probably the greatest rock riff of all time, the whole (mimics the sound of Jimmy Page’s guitar playing). I mean, it’s just ballsy,” Stern noted. The radio host then imitated Joe Walsh’s ‘Life Is Good’, and Paul McCartney’s ‘Let Me Roll It’, which rounded out his top three. It’s not exactly the first riffs rock lovers would aim for when selectig their own.
Of course, everyone would expect a Led Zeppelin riff to find its way onto most people’s lists, but the introduction of Paul McCartney and Joe Walsh is a little more unexpected. Walsh is one of the better guitarists the 20th century produced, but McCartney’s greatest asset is certainly not his six-string work.
Stern then asked Kyle for his selections. He placed ‘Kashmir’ in third, ‘Smoke On The Water’ by Deep Purple in second, and Black Sabbath’s ‘Iron Man’ occupied the top spot. He explained: “It’s all wrong, you’re not a guitar player. You would have said ‘Sunshine Of Your Love’ (Cream) over ‘Smoke On The Water’, and if you had any taste, instead of ‘Iron Man’, you’d have said ‘Welcome To The Jungle’ by Guns N’ Roses or ‘Voodoo Child’ by Jimi Hendrix. You are not a guitar player, you’re a wannabe.”
While Stern’s selections aren’t exactly out of the left field, the songs he mentioned are rock classics for a reason. They are tracks that refuse to go out of fashion and continue to strike a chord with every generation of music lovers that discover the genre.
Watch the radio segment below.
