What is the best-selling guitar solo of all time?
As a music fan, I’ve had a relatively tumultuous relationship with the famous guitar solo. As an adolescent, I lapped it up when the world of classic rock began opening its doors and treating me to expansive licks that bent my mind with their technicality. The more arrogant the better. But now, as I knock on the doors of 30, my feelings have changed somewhat.
Don’t get me wrong, if someone wants to descend into a meaty lick I’m not going to kick up a fuss, but if it doesn’t feel as though it serves the song or even worse, goes on too long, well then I’ll gobble up the rest of my drink and use that as my cue to head to the bar for a refill.
There is an element of narcissism that comes with a good guitar solo; I don’t think any of us can argue with that. And for the most part, it’s necessary, a guitar solo isn’t for the faint of heart and is a dedicated minute or more for a musician to stand front and centre, so a subtle hint of arrogance is fully required to perform.
During the 1970s, the decade when the guitar solo rose to prominence and was arguably at its most used, that sense of performative confidence was encouraged. Musicians were global superstars unconfined by the sort of societal conventions modern musicians are subject to. In fact, there’s a broader conversation to be had about the death of the narcissistic rockstar in what is now an era based around irony and post-everything labelling.
This is why we don’t see sprawling guitar epics topping the charts and becoming annual bestsellers. Modern solos have become a lot tighter, and to the credit of contemporary music, they are done with the overarching purpose of the song in mind.
But back in the heyday of open-collared shirts and hairy chests, the longer, the more outrageous the solo, the better. Fans lapped it up as they lost themselves to the sounds of face-melting rock. Many classics have flown off the shelves, including ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ with a combined digital and physical sales total of ten million units sold, while AC/DC’s epic ‘Thunderstruck’ has amassed 16 million units of physical sales.
But unsurprisingly, the title of best-selling guitar solo is awarded to the song that many say defines the solo: ‘Stairway To Heaven’. It became one of the best sellers of all time, with 37 million units sold worldwide, as well as hitting the magic streaming number of one billion.
What’s the story behind the solo?
The very essence of a good solo should feel improvisational. The reason why fans connect with a solo so deeply is because of its enigmatic and emotive feel, which is born from an instinctual response to the music. And that’s ultimately why ‘Stairway To Heaven’ resonates with listeners in such a profound way. Because Page, in essence, let it rip in the studio with no real idea where he was going with it.
“I just said: ‘Roll it’, took a deep breath – that’s what I usually do – and then go,” he explained. “So I had a couple of cracks at it, because you didn’t have as many options as you would have now. I worked out how I was going to actually come into it, the first two or three notes, but after that I didn’t work it out, I just played it.”
The big bending note announces the solo’s presence on the song, and what follows is nothing more than instinctual genius. Page converses with the 12-string melody that flourishes throughout, with only John Bonham and John Paul Jones in the rhythm section to hold them back down to earth. There’s a unique beauty to the recording that ultimately lends itself to the drama of its live performance, as Page explains.
He said, “It’s ad-libbed just as much as it would have been in any of the live shows. After the recorded version was laid down on record, the solo would remain in a similar vein live, but not exactly the same. I was constantly changing it, mutating it, like we did with all the songs.”
He concluded: “That doesn’t mean I ever surpassed the one on the record. It is what it is and you can tell that it’s just flying. It’s not a laboured solo, it’s not something that’s worked out, written down and read, it’s more like a stream of consciousness.”
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