10 Greatest Rock Music Guitar Solos Of The 1990s
2. Alive - Pearl Jam
When it came time to piece together an outro solo for Pearl Jam’s song Alive - taken from their excellent 1991 debut, Ten - the studio team stitched together two of guitarist Mike McCready’s takes to form one coherent sequence.
But McCready knew he could do better.
He went back into the booth and laid down one more try in a single take. This was the one that ended up on the album and the one that would go down as one of the great solos of its time.
Coming right at the end of Eddie Vedder’s soulful wailing about his own existence is a masterfully executed piece of guitar playing, steadily building over about two minutes until it reaches a glorious crescendo.
How McCready managed to nail this in one take is simply unbelievable. It’s perfect, matching the rest of the song in size and scope and it's strong enough to carry almost half of the track on its own.
Several publications have named it in their lists of the best solos of all time and it’s easily one of McCready’s best ever efforts.