Greatest opening riffs

[DanielSimpsonDay]

DUH.

One of the shortest (and non-guitar) opening riffs you'll hear. Steve Harris wanted a big drum fill to open the song and he deemed every one too long until Nikko McBrain "settled" on the greatest metal drum intro of all time. Three seconds is all it took to let you know what you're in for and give you a running start to getting there.

The Scorpions used to be pretty creative thanks to Uli Jon Roth and the heroic doses of hallucinogens he took. The opening riff leads into a guitar solo before the first verse. Really unusual.

For bass, it's gotta be the opening second of Danger Zone.

For stuff you normies will not listen to, the six-second opening to At The Gates' Slaughter of the Soul is the platonic ideal of metal if you love it or hate it. The buzzsaw tone, the staccato riff, and the GO!

 

[No Phonies]

 

[Huggy]

For bass, Whipping Post by the Allmans

 

[Machine Head]

 

[Machine Head]

Layla has to be in the conversation here. (Not the ****ty acoustic version, obviously). Staying with the Clapton theme, his version of Cocaine has an iconic riff too.

Also:

 

[Machine Head]

The Japanese Prime Minister says hell yah

Where I got it from:

Deep Purple thrills Japan's superfan prime minister with a quick visit

 

[Spartan Squad]

The riff is not complex but it’s really good and and metal head or rock fan from the 80s/90s could name that tune in No more than four notes

 

[Slacker]

Great take on TV theme, and pounding riffs all the way.

 

[Jake from State Farm]

The whole song is the opening riff, except for the yodeling of course

 

[Jake from State Farm]

They released the song when they were 4-0. They didn’t make the playoffs

 

[Huggy]

Where I got it from:

Deep Purple thrills Japan's superfan prime minister with a quick visit

That is very cool, I had not seen that. Her fave album has to be Made In Japan, an album I wore out as a teenager.

 

[Huggy]

Texas blues division:

 

[tapintoamerica]

Reminds me of one of the great album titles of all time: White Light, White Heat, White Trash by Social Distortion.

 

[tapintoamerica]

 

[Jake from State Farm]

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

 

[Neutral Corner]

 

[Huggy]

That's a bad ass version of that from Johnny Winter And Live

 

[Neutral Corner]

Took me a while to find a version with the opening scream of "Rock and Rollll!". Most just have the riff and the "Yeah!" that follows it.

Ahhh, memory.

 

[micropolitan guy]

Great pulls from my teen era. Three minutes of musical heaven.