21st Century Riff

My daughter has been going to guitar lessons for quite a few months and has been picking up the art of the guitar riff – the repeated musical phrase that forms the hook in much of rock, blues and jazz music. Radio 2 had a vote of its listeners to pick out the best guitar riffs of all-time with some frankly baffling choices although I had to agree with them about Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love winning as it is fantastically well known (it is, essentially, the Top Of The Pops theme) and probably one of the first cases of the riff actually being the song (seriously – I’ve heard it without the riff and it is one of the most peculiar things ever recorded.) Even when performed by others it is instantly recognisable as seen in this clip of the recently departed Prince:


Anyway, I had a discussion with my daughter’s guitar teacher about what riffs they wanted to learn and we came to the conclusion that all the popular guitar riffs tend to be, well, rather old. Just as an example we had Louie Louie (1963) Day Tripper (1965), Satisfaction (1966) Sunshine of Your Love (1967) Iron Man (1970) Smoke on the Water (1973) Rebel, Rebel (1974) and Highway To Hell (1979). We tried to think of some decent modern riffs and it is a struggle. There are plenty out there but how many are really the “Household Names” of the riff world?

I think part of the problem is the current vogue for either laptop produced pop music or rather insipid singer-songwriter acts. In the end the teacher chose Coldplay’s “In My Place” as a modern riff. Dating to 2001 it just qualifies as a 21st Century riff. (I did also see “Talk" from 2011 suggested and it does have a very catchy riff. Unfortunately, Coldplay took it from Kraftwerk’s 1978 album Mensch Machine.)


So what other riffs are there out there that have found their way into the common consciousness. Little earworms that have burrowed into every skull? There are actually a surprising few that have arrived since the turn of the century. The first one I came up with was Queens Of The Stone Age - No One Knows from 2002. This is a great example because I couldn’t have told you what it was by the title but the second it is played I immediately thought, “Oh, it’s that one.”


The next one is incredibly familiar to anyone who has watched football in the last 10 years, The White Stripes – “Seven Nation Army”  from 2003. Aside from the migraine inducing video, this is probably another case of the riff being the song.


And for the last of the killer riffs I’m going to go with Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out”  from 2004. It takes a bit to get going but that’s one of those ones where I’m now trying to think of another Franz Ferdinand tune and failing. In fact if you play other tracks by them many are familiar but the ear worm of “Take Me Out”  doesn’t like company.


So there are brilliant riffs from the 21st Century but all the ones so far are more than 10 years old. I was trying to think of newer ones and Rammstein came to mind. I’m not sure that they are well enough known outside Metal fandom to qualify except for a few tunes that are too old to count for this. However 2011’s Mein Land is a colossal riff so I will include it.


Getting almost up to date yet still very familiar is 2014’s "Do I Wanna Know” by the Arctic Monkeys which has a superb riff, somewhat harking back to the great 1970s blues rock bands.


Then there is the Marmite band of modern rock that is Muse. Personally, I like this band as they are largely bonkers but even for the haters they have produced some superb riffs over the years. One of the more recent offerings was last year’s Psycho which seems to confirm that the art of the killer riff is alive and well. Will it become as familiar as Whole Lotta Love, though?



So there are still great riffs out there, if you know where to look. I think part of the problem is that a good riff needs exposure and that means fate will favour the old guard. Maybe it’s just down to the elephant missing from the room: bring back Top Of The Pops.