10 Guitar Solos That Changed The Face Of Rock Music Forever

For the first half of his guitar playing career, Tom Morello made it his mission to follow in the footsteps of his guitar gods like Randy Rhoads and Eddie Van Halen. When he came out of college though, the era of the guitar gods seemed to be officially dead, as the grunge movement ushered in fairly simple solos and guitarists that played from the heart instead of just ripping your face off. The name of the game had changed, and Tom was ready to melt some faces even if he couldn't shred.

Working outside of the confines of normal guitar playing, half of Rage Against the Machine's tunes were constructed with strange sounds in mind, like Know Your Enemy starting off with what sounds like a keyboard line from Tom played using the toggle switch. Before we got to soloing though, Killing in the Name helped introduce the world to the futuristic sounds of Tom, as the chunky drop D riff leads you into the guitar solo, which used a digital whammy pedal to create a flurry of notes around your head as you listen back to it.

Compared to the strange sounds that were coming out of bands like Soundgarden, Rage even had to leave disclaimers on their future albums for songs like this, letting the rest of the world know that all of this was accomplished by just using a simple guitar, bass, and drums setup. The mission statement of alternative music was always about going against the grain, and Tom Morello may be one of the few guitar players who hasn't played an unoriginal lick in his life.