10 Greatest Guitar Solos Of The '70s

Queen were always one of the more inventive bands of the '70s. While changes may have been going on left and right, these rock royals made music that was both nostalgic and forward-looking at the same time, as they threw almost every possible genre into their sound. Queen never struck out too often, but the band's greatest achievement involved taking rock to the opera.

Brought to life by Freddie Mercury, "Bohemian Rhapsody" is one of the purest rock songs ever written, combining ethereal harmonies and piano balladry with hard rock in a way no one has seen before or since. Almost everything that Mercury contributed to this song is untouchable, but Brian May managed to equal the singer's brilliance with just a few bars of guitar playing.

Blending hard rock with the more operatic side of the tune, May's solo is one of the most incendiary guitar breaks ever created, as he works his way through complex chord changes without batting an eye. Though the solo starts out fairly tame with intense bends, the crux of the instrumental combines precise shredding that sounds like what a classical violinist might play if their instrument was plugged into a Marshall stack. It's hard to blend the grittiness of rock with the pristine sound of classical music, but in just a few seconds of guitar playing, Brian May showed us all that maybe these two disparate styles could find common ground.