10 Perfect Rock Albums For Guitar Players

No matter which way you slice it, rock and roll always comes back to the power behind the guitar. Even with all of the extensions that have come and gone in the world of metal, the core character behind rock music can pretty much be summed up in the random piece of wood with strings on it that makes noise. As the years go by in rock music, there are those few rock albums that seem to use the guitar the greatest.

On every single one of these albums, you can practically hear the musicians trying to push the limits of the guitar that much further. While some of them might just be your traditional rock and roll, the real beauty behind a lot of these involve going in different directions that no one had thought of. That means new techniques on the instrument, new scales that no one had ever heard before, and even some elements that you didn't even realize could be produced on a guitar.

Though the limits of the guitar may get stretched here and there, these are the kind of songs that make the best use of what this six stringed monstrosity is able to do in the rock scene. These are the records that launched a thousand spinoffs and made most of us fall in love with the power of rock and roll.

There are probably a certain amount of guitar players who would turn their nose up at including the Ramones album on a list like this. From the first few notes, Johnny Ramone was never meant to be your traditional guitar hero, always straying away from guitar solos and designating himself to permanent rhythm guitar for most of the Ramones' run. Even if he never went the route of the guitar solo, why are we acting like that's a bad thing?

You have to remember that this was the age when guitar solos were starting to sound overly stale, which made Johnny a breath of fresh air with his endless amount of power chords hitting you in the face on songs like Beat on the Brat. And when you break it down, this is a lot harder than it might seem on paper, causing you to really build up your strumming hand strength by always downpicking everything you do.

Though there are many bands that will play circles around the Ramones, what's here are the building blocks for future generations of heavy guitar music, from the emergence of hardcore punk to being a huge influence to a young James Hetfield when Metallica were first cutting their teeth in the thrash metal scene. Above all else, this is the kind of record that can help get the beginners of guitar off the ground and make them fall in love with music. Rock and roll isn't meant to be flashy, so just cut to the chase and play your ass off.