10 Greatest Rock Music Guitar Solos Of The 2000s

10. Reptilia - The Strokes

One of the bands often credited with shepherding in the rise of indie music in the 2000s, The Strokes cemented themselves as icons of 21st century guitar music with their album Room on Fire and, most memorably, its second single.

Reptilia, which got a solo release in 2004, was cool, edgy, and had a riff so catchy it is permanently seared into many music fans’ frontal cortices. Yes, that is the plural of “cortex”. You learn something new every day.

The humble six-string does a lot of heavy lifting across the song and not just in the repeated refrain that dominates the track. The solo starts off fairly simple, but gets much trickier as it goes on, expressing the subtle genius present in so much of this band’s music.

Is it the flashiest display of fast fretting ever seen? No, but that’s not the point. So much of 2000s indie rock is about rejecting the conventions of the past, which the solo on Reptilia does whilst still maintaining a slight nod to the finger-shredding displays of old.

There’s a reason so many people still love The Strokes today.