15 Best Guitar Solos Of The 2000s

A truly great solo should encapsulate the mood and feel of a song, pushing it onto another level entirely.

Getting the ingredients just right for the perfect guitar solo is a pretty hard thing in 2014, especially when it comes to live performances. Too much showboating and you're likely to induce memories of the audiences' dads air-guitaring their way across the dance floor at their last-attended wedding. Too little however and the more instrumentally-aware amongst the masses tend to start throwing out the 'well I could do that's at an alarming rate. Whilst the 1980's are already the shining example of when the guitar solo ruled all, effortlessly commanding a legion of the opposite sex to spring out the nebula and lavish your waiting frame should you be able to string together more than a handful of notes in under a few seconds, these days you've got to be something particularly special to avoid falling into the heard-it-before trap. A hero is only as good as their villain, and whilst the sputum of schmaltzy poptarts were riding the afterbirth of the saturday-night talent show in waves, those in possession of a brain stem were carrying on as normal. Let's make one thing abundantly clear: Rock never died, it just went underground. I'm not necessarily saying it's back now to dominate again either, as what's the point in getting involved in a popularity contest where the outcome is determined by how many nipples you can throw together into one video (Yes, Mr. Thicke, you're the latest incarnation of the villain we're talking about). Back to the decade that was, and I've compiled a rollicking good collection of pleasure-face-contorting solo-sections, the compositions within are those that have commanded tens of thousands of fans across fields, clubs and everything in between, making the decade of the 'noughties' just as worthy of remembrance as any other. A truly great solo should encapsulate the mood and feel of a song, taking up just the right amount of runtime to factor in whatever push any song needs to take it to the next level. These are the best that the 00's offered us, and for many artists within, they're yet to be beat.
Gaming Editor
Gaming Editor

WhatCulture's Head of Gaming.