20 Greatest Guitar Riffs Of All Time

14. Iron Man - Black Sabbath (1970)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhAZQKl0tnE Pinning down who created a genre can sometimes be pretty easy. Most people will generally agree that Chuck Berry created Rock 'n' Roll, and the Ramones created Punk Rock. However, when you bring up Heavy Metal, there are typically two trains of thought: Led Zeppelin created it, or Black Sabbath did. It's easy to see why they get equal credit when you look through their discography. Their first album, titled 'Black Sabbath' was released in 1970. They followed it up that very year with their second album, 'Paranoid', one of the most critically acclaimed metal albums of all time. And the most recognized song on that album? Iron Man. The song got its name from Ozzy Osbourne hearing the riff and commenting that it sounded like "a big iron bloke walking about". The name stuck, and eventually the lyrics for the song were written around this line (albeit changed from 'Iron Bloke' to 'Iron Man').

13. Layla - Derek and the Dominoes (1971)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSquiIVLhrQ What do you do if you've fallen in love with someone who's married to your best friend? Well, if you're Eric Clapton, you write a song about! Of course! Despite the rather odd and slightly disconcerting subject matter, Layla is rightly held as a great rock song, but especially for its riff, which featured guitar legends Eric Clapton and Duane Allman playing six separate guitar tracks, resulting in an impressive wall of sound. While upon initial release, the song wasn't very successful, opinion of it has greatly improved over the years, with it now being regarded as one of the best rock love songs ever written.