10 Greatest Rock Music Guitar Solos Of The 2010s
Some great examples of shredding from the terrible teenies.
For some people, the guitar solo is a thing of the past, a relic of an era of rock music that doesn't really exist anymore. Whilst hair metal might be gone, the solo is very much alive and well, as proven by the following ten incredible examples from the most recent full decade.
Bands old and new stepped up to the plate to defend this time-honoured rock tradition, with new artists breaking onto the scene alongside the old guard who proved they could very much still shred. This list aims to celebrate the variety of solos available across the 2010s and the great artists keeping the flame alive.
Some are very traditional, big explosions of noise in the middle of a track designed to get people air-guitaring along and head-banging until their eyes fall out of their sockets. Others take a different approach, playing off the new technology available to musicians to produce something artists in the '80s could have only dreamed about.
They might be very different from one another, but all of these killer sequences are absolutely kickass. Safe to say, the solo isn't going anywhere any time soon.
10. End Of The Beginning - Black Sabbath
In 2013, after 35 long years, the original line-up of heavy metal monsters Black Sabbath got back together to record a studio album. Well, almost. Drummer Bill Ward pulled out at the last minute, but this was still the first Sabbath album to feature Ozzy Osbourne since 1978, which is pretty damn cool.
The album, just called 13, was a big hit, topping the charts in both the US and the band’s native UK, and reminded a whole generation of fans that this great band were still capable of pulling out all the stops.
13 opens with the appropriately titled End of the Beginning, an eight-minute screamer inspired by the use of holograms in modern music. As if to demonstrate why robots can never replace human beings, guitarist Tony Iommi laid down an absolutely stonking solo.
Big, bombastic, and technically savvy, the solo in the End of the Beginning is everything you could want from the Sabbath axeman, who proves he’s still got it after 50 years in the business.