12 Best Ever Hard Rock Riffs

When breaking down every great riff in hard rock history, most people could getting away with calling it "riffs that were derivative of Led Zeppelin." This list could just as easily have been filled with Zeppelin cuts thanks to Jimmy Page, who has graced the rock world with some of the guitar's greatest melodies.

So it's curious that one of the band's most indelible riffs was actually composed by bassist John Paul Jones. Always the secret weapon in Zeppelin, Jones was the more musical side of the band, whose keyboard and arranging expertise gave the band an extra sonic color. Intrigued by the more intricate pieces of their contemporaries, Jones hit upon a riff that was the equivalent of a sonic rollercoaster ride, which John Bonham then followed with his Hands of God.

The riff was so integral to the song that much of the track is made up of a call-and-response between Robert Plant's vocals and the guitar part. Though the riff would have made a great companion piece to a vocal melody, this stroke of arranging genius enhances the riff's stomping nature even more. Though Zeppelin had even grander ambitions for their music going forward, "Black Dog" is the snapshot of a band at the peak of their powers. They didn't need to prove that they were the greatest band of all time; at that point, everybody knew it.