10 Perfect Rock Guitar Riffs

Before the '70s, people were still just getting used to what the idea of a riff was. Though most of the musical fragments of the '60s came in the form of horn lines from R&B songs or the occasional garage rock outfit, the era of riff based rock didn't really exist until Flower Power started to kick into high gear. If there was any point where the tides started to shift though, you need to make the case for Whole Lotta Love.

Granted, there's a good chance you could thrown a dart at any number of Zeppelin cuts from their early days and walked away with a decent riff. Kicking off their second outing though, Jimmy Page's riff just announced itself right out of the gate, dripping with sleaze while also being the perfect foundation for Robert Plant's vocals to come booming in.

Even though this was released towards the tail end of 1969, this was a precursor for what the '70s were going to sound like later. We had already seen what Flower Power was able to do, and now it was time to start moving into the more dangerous side of rock and roll. in just a few short years, rock and roll had grown up pretty quickly.