10 Greatest Hard Rock Songs (Without Vocals)

The '70s truly were the decade of over-indulgence. From the way that rockstars were abusing hard drugs whenever they could to the massive size of their song lengths, most of the scene could have afforded to trim the fat off even some of their better material.

How indulgent were they though? How about getting an honest-to-God instrumental to actually chart?

Nowadays, people tend to associate Edgar Winter either with his guitar legend brother Johnny or his freewheeling single Free Ride. On the other hand, his first real claim to fame was Frankenstein, where he plays virtually every instrument. Right off the bat, you can't really deny the guy has chops, going from drum solos at one second and going so far as to play the keytar when he breaks this song out in concert.

The real star of the show though is the riff, whose straightforward bluesy swagger literally sounds like if the '70s were distilled into a single piece of music. It also lives up to its title, with each disparate piece somehow fitting perfectly like some kind of monster.

Though any other track like this would have been filler at best, the fact that this actually found its way onto the hit parade is something that only comes from the sheer power of the lick's hookiness. Now if we can just forget that the rap version of this song exists, we're looking at one of the greatest riffs in '70s rock history.