Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/06/29/the-history-of-rock-in-100-gui.html
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The very very limited history of rock in 100 guitar riffs
FIFY
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Rite? Doesn’t even get to this century until, what, # 88? And only 2 songs from the past 10 years made the cut? Also, waaaay to much time spent in the 90’s, particularly '93-'97.
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Andy Partridge - The History of Rock and Roll (1950s - 1980s in four riffs):
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There is no such history of Rock-N-Roll without this song:
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“Fortunate Sun?” Really?
Also, “Can’t Explain” sounded… wrong.
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I opened it in another tab and came back here so I couldn’t see the captions to quiz myself. I was scoring very high until Seven Nation Army and then I sucked.
Any list like this is going to be hugely subjective and we can all nitpick what should have been included/excluded, but props to him for including my generation’s true guitar hero, my man Vernon Reid, with “Cult of Personality.”
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That Yes song in context reminds me of this gem by Scatterbrain:
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Man, that whole Here Comes Trouble album was a favorite of mine when it came out, but that is the highlight track. Never saw the video, though—nice!
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When I got to “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” I thought, well, that’s technically Yes. I guess.
(Yes ended in 1978. Or maybe ‘77.)
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I made the list into a Spotify playlist if anyone is interested:
I left out Ted Nugent because he doesn’t seem to be able to play nice with others.
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If this is about riffs and the songs that contain them and the people responsible for writing them, then I must say that Pictures of Matchstick Men is Status Quo and not Camper whoever it was, as claimed in the video.
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MastOdon, dammit! 
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Vernon Reid is bad ass.
I’ve seen Living Colour twice - once when they opened for the Stones a million years ago and once a few years back when they toured doing Vivid in it’s entirety,
Obviously, the Stones tour was a stadium so I couldn’t be close, but the other time I was able to get within a few feet of him. Was awesome to see him play and get a close up look at his cool rig.
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I caught several mistakes.
THANK YOU! You made my day. 
I liked that whole Camper Van Beethoven album—Key Lime Pie—including their version of PoMM but I agree, that’s just wrong.
I suppose he might make the case that CVB was the more popular version. That may or may not be true, but it’s sort of a moot point. It’s not like either group or version was as popular as the rest of the chosen songs. May as well give credit for to original, put it earlier in the chronology and attributed to the Status Quo. Or, y’know, just skip it altogether in favor of Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys are Back in Town” or Brownsville Station’s “Smokin’ in the Boy’s Room” or whatever.
Oh wow, badass. I didn’t even hear about that, I so hermetic nowadays. I saw them on the Time’s Up tour, pressed against the stage the whole night. LC were all such rock-n-roll monsters, but Reid was the man. He was the bandleader, he recruited everyone. I’ve still got the Rock-N-Roll Comix for LC around here somewhere.
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To be fair, guitar solos have gone out of style in recent years. There just aren’t as many iconic guitar songs.
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Well, it may indeed be true or not, depending on your age and exposure to music at different ages and in different countries…
At my age, in UK, Quo’s version is much more famous (seeing as I do not recall ever hearing CVB’s version of anything).
And I still say it ought not to be about ‘fame’, but credit for writing. Francis Rossi might agree.
PS Agree about Thin Lizzy!
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Yeah, kind of like what I would say about prog- there are still people out there doing music that carries on the spirit, but we’re not going to see them having top 10 hits the way they did in the 70s.
Always thought that CVB’s cover of PoMM was one of their weaker moments.
There are just oh so many odd choices with that list but since you mention Nugent I’ll just say I don’t know how in hell they chose Stranglehold over Cat Scratch Fever.
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