20 Best Classic Rock Guitar Riffs Of All Time
15. Message In A Bottle - The Police
The Police were always a band full of hidden complexity. Where many bands would put their more impressive musical chops front and center in their songs, this power trio always had a knack for making incredibly hard riffs sound like they took no effort at all.
"Message In A Bottle" is one such instance where Andy Summers's guitar part doesn't really feel flashy in the slightest. Once you try to play this riff on your own, you start to realize the harsh reality that you've gotten yourself into. The crux of the tune is centered around just a few chord changes, but the stretches that you have to pull off to actually get each note would leave most guitarists' fingers exhausted. You may get a bit of relief in the chorus, but the actual bends that you have to pull off in the breaks almost feel impossible to grasp.
The otherworldly feel of the riff comes from Summers's flirtations with genres like jazz, which found their way into numerous Police tunes from "Murder By Numbers" to "Wrapped Around Your Finger." The Police were not necessarily known as the heaviest rock band out there, but even some of the most dedicated metalheads can find themselves befuddled by this riff.