20 Best Classic Rock Guitar Riffs Of All Time
11. My Generation - The Who
As the British Invasion of the 60's began to open up, bands were coming up left and right taking their favorite blues songs and beefing them up into straight ahead rock. The Who were no different when they started out, with much of their first album paying tribute to R&B artists like James Brown through a Mod lens. However, Pete Townshend always knew that the band could be so much more than that.
After countless writing sessions, Townshend finally hit upon a song that he felt could relate with the youth of England. Though the lyrics were great, Townshend was told that the original felt too plodding. Once he sped up the tempo of the original track, The Who had something that no one else had: bravado. The attitude brought across thanks to the speed of the track was the first utterance of hard rock for the 60's generation.
Giving an even greater bite to the track were the amplifiers Townshend used, which made his guitar scream as he thundered away on his power chords. There were definitely great riffs that came before "My Generation," but the omnipresence of the tune signaled a new guard of rock music just ahead. Rock was growing up; now it was time to expand a bit more.