10 Guitar Solos That Changed The Face Of Rock Music Forever

The entire success of the '80s rock scene pretty much lives and dies on the arrival of MTV. The minute that you heard bands like Motley Crue and Twisted Sister lighting up the charts, everything was about being as outrageous as possible, putting together songs that were over the top and little or no emphasis being put on the guitar licks. Prince was too big for just one genre though, and the theme song to his movie let us know we had another stripe of guitar god walking among us.

Considering all of the flashy players that were coming up on Sunset, Prince's solo on this song was a lot more soulful, taking all of the lessons that he had gotten from listening to everyone from Funkadelic to Jimi Hendrix and channeling it into the final solo of this song. Even though he starts off with bends that are best known for appearing in country music, the Purple One seems to bend every sound to his will in this song, wearing his heart on his sleeve and making his guitar truly cry as the rain falls down around him.

This song may have already been a classic, but there was an added layer of legendary added to it during Prince's performance at the Super Bowl Halftime Show, blowing away that football field in the rain as his silhouette treated us to the greatest solo the world had ever seen. Most guitarists were already willing to get their chops down, but it's not always about playing that many notes. It's about telling a story, and Prince gave us a heartbreaker on this song.