12 Best Ever Hard Rock Riffs

For most hardcore rock fans, Def Leppard seemed to be on a trajectory towards more pop friendly material rather than sticking to their hard rock roots. While the album Pyromania was already loaded with more commercial tracks, "Photograph" showed just how good these lads from Sheffield were at making a pop song wail.

The riff is far from complicated, with most of it revolving around a simple chord change, but the bravado that Steve Clark and Phil Collen put into the riff makes all the difference. Instead of just being a little guitar flourish, the riff gets ingrained in your brain throughout the verses, almost as if to lure you into this tale of teenage lust. Even when the tune opens up, the guitar part holding the chorus together is nothing less than mesmerizing.

Is this riff going to make guitar players slave away for hours trying to learn it? No, not at all, but that's not really the point. In making it simple, Def Leppard created a tune that became one of the go-to tracks for any perspective guitarist to pick a six-string of their own and learn how to play it. It's nothing too intricate, but this riff is the initiator that will turn thousands of potential fans into devotees.