Calvin Lee dude when i saw Metallica & RHCP I no longer took this list seriously lol. Even eruption is somewhat easy to play being mostly pentatonic there's harder VH songs like Spanish Fly. No Yngwie, Synyster Gates, or Nuno, but Kirk Hammett, the laughing stock of the guitar world, makes the list . Fancy techniques do not beat pure dexterity on the fretboard. I know people who may be "more technical" but can't play solos as basic as Crazy Train. I hear the same applies to Tosin Abasi, my buddy saw him live and said he sucks, all he can do is do that tapping crap.
+Johnny Riddle yeah, it's a pretty bad list. not sure about tosin abasi though. maybe all he does is crazy tapping (i dont really listen to his band) but he does that crazy tapping really, really well. (i sure couldn't do it.)
Calvin Lee on second thought, you're right, he is great at what he does, and I forgot that this was a list about the actual songs, not the players themselves. I quit learning multiple songs because that goes way above my head. Albeit unconventional, his playing is very unique and I have to retract my previous statement about him because it is pretty damn hard now that I think about it lol.
Agree! & 'Eruption' as the #1 pick? Sure it may be a challenge to some, but as it is pretty much a pure guitar solo solo(w/o other band elements), any decent rascal that has worked it out at least once can fake it well enough for the local drunks at the tavern down the strip. Basically, given as easy as the riff is to learn well enough for casual performance and it be the #1 pick indicates the whole list is but a joke despite a few mention ones being worthy such as 'Sultans of Swing', but there are plenty of rock songs that have more demanding guitar duties that can easily prove to be very tricky to pull off, especially live than most on this list. It would appear that a non musician and a novice guitarist put this list together as if it sounds difficult, then it must be so. There are plenty of tricky rascals even within the more popular realm of rock music that can mess any good musician up even if it is just the nature of the rhythmic nuances and patterns, etc.
@@rutajitbharadwaj4174 ik is not that hard, i covered it at school like a year ago I'm saying that when you have short fingers it's hard, i tried it when i was 11 or 12 and i couldn't play it i covered it at 16 effortlessly, so, my point is the length of the fingers, not the techniques or anything else
@@interesting_tuna i asked him for Tabs Just a few hours ago, he gave me the tabs and also sheets if i wanted to play with My own touch and to learn the theory, he actually uses a Lot of Diminished sweeps and He seems to really love A Phyrgian as well.... i dont really know if i can play it ;-;
In 1980, Eddie Van Halen was asked - "What does it feel like to be the best rock n roll guitarist in the world?" His response was "I don't know... ask Alex Lifeson." La Villa Strangiato should be on this list. As a matter of fact, you can hear parts of La Villa in Eruption.
Master of puppets: ... If you took kirks path you get the full load of James and tremolo picking, alternate picking and pinch HARMONIES wow really hard stuff yes i play guitar
@@RyanMonty Even if I grant you that, hardest of all time? What about jazz based stuff like Chon that's full of complex chords that lead into each other so there's zero room for error or some Steely Dan songs like Your Gold Teeth ii that change keys about 20 times in one solo?
@@peterstefan6900 metal isn't necessarily faster. Speed and Thrash metal are fast but Metal in general aren't fast. Listen to Black Sabbath's Ironman for example.
WatchMojo is your generic top10 show. They might have some picks that are decent, but they rarely have an intimate relationship to the topics they're working on.
Where tf is Buckethead and Yngwie Malmsteen on this list? Buckethead's done some crazy stuff with noises and he shreds like a god, and I seriously can't believe they didn't put even one song from Malmsteen in the list (even though there's a clip of Arpeggios from Hell) when he has written songs ten times harder than and more intricate than most of the songs on this list. Just because these songs may be somewhat difficult does not mean they are the hardest.
WobSucksAtLife IKR eruption isn’t even FUCKING HARD ITS JUST WHAMMY DIVES AND TAPPING LITERALLY whoever made this is a fucking idiot he didn’t even pronounce tremolo right tf
@@wob6776 I guess they used the term "rock" here a bit loosely. But yeah, I was also wondering why throw in clips of some virtuosos who are not on the actual list, but better than most in it. Anyways, anything by Jason Becker would mop the floor with this list.
+Austin Moser Dude, calling it easy is just being in denial, I mean it may not be the hardest, but Damn son, the live version is undeniably hard, it's like a 10 minute shredathon.
YES YOU ARE SO RIGHT I HAVE BEEN PLAYING GUITAR FOR 2 YEARS MASTER OF PUPPETS TORNADO OF SOULS WAS EASY BUT THIS RINGS OF SATURN MAN I CANT PLAY IT LMAO THIS INADEQUATE IS SO HARD
10.This Charming Man (1983) • The Smiths 9. Little Wing (1967) • The Jimi Hendrix Experience 8. Snow [ Hey Oh ] ( 2006) • Red Hot Chili Peppers 7. Master of Puppets (1986) • Metallica 6. Scene Seven: I. The Dance of Eternity •Dream Theatre 5. Through the Fire and Flames (2006) • Dragon Force 4. CAFO (2009) • Animals as Leaders 3. Sultan's of Swing (1978) • Dire Straits 2. Cliff's of Dover (1990) • Eric Johnson 1. Eruption (1978) • Van Halen Here you go. You just saved your 13:37 min. Thanx me later ✌✌😜😜
Sodium Tetraborate... You're right. In fact it should more properly be called a 'vibrato' bar because it alters the pitch. Tremolo is a whole other effect and is usually on the amp or done with a pedal.
@@StamfordBridge "WELL GOOD LUCK BECAUSE YOU'RE GONNA NEED YOUR FENDER STRATOCASTER AND HAVE TO ARPEGGIO AND HAMMER ON AND PULL OF AND TREMOLO AND ALTERNATE PICK YOUR PINCH HARMONIES TO GET TAPPING RIGHT!" - probably some dude at watchmojo
Mentions to add: Every Breath You Take - Police, this song is very hard when you have short fingers, and I got Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding by Elton John, the song has 35 Chords and the song is 11 minutes long. There could be other Elton John songs I could put.
@@ironmota1111 poison was the cure 's riff is obviously much harder as they focused on the main riff there instead of the solo, but in tornado of souls, it is inverted
"And Wonderwall thanks to its difficult and fast change of chords, it is harder than any Yngwie Malmsteen song!" Surprised that line isn't in the video
Umm megadeath isnt known for their gutairist they are litteraly known for having the best drummer, and watchmojo is not talking about song in general he is talking about guitars only
@@Webxs231 That is absolute utter nonsense! Megadeth has never been famous for having a "best drummer" as you say. They have gone through a string of drummers in their history and none of them has ever been praised as "best". Gar Samuelson and Nick Menza stand out as among the best they've had but neither could be called best by anyone who has a clue what they're talking about. On the guitar side of things however, Chris Poland, Marty Friedman, Chris Broderick are all world-class guitarists and acclaimed as such. It's a shame none of them are in the band anymore however.
IKR lmao. Internet wannabe "guitarists" have to be the most pathetically insecure people ever. They bash every type of guitar video by everyone but never seem to post anything of themselves playing. Hmmmm
to be fair watchmojo basically just put on the flashiest shit. I reckon there's 10 andy james songs harder than any listed here lol. The number 10 song is actually pretty damn simple, i've seen plenty of cover bands do it justice.
Mox_au Master of Puppets is pretty straight forward as well. And I just can't hear anything interesting in Eruption. And don't get me started on Dragonforce, the cheesiest of cheese...
Im 15 years old and im guitarist and musician, sometimes i laugh of watch mojo selection... Thanks, remember hardest song on guitar is Smoke on the water
The difficulty in Cliffs of Dover isnt the intro or the fast segments. Those are difficult, but not the depth of the difficulty of the song. The true difficulty is in achieving Johnson's clean sound he got while performing those difficult segments. Its not just his fretwork, its his precision. And Cliffs of Dover illustrated that even in fast segments, you could hear every note clearly
tahwnikcufos it’s under fair use. Which allows its use of the song for educational purposes or commentary as long as they don’t try to distribute the song as their own.
My top 5 hard Songs: 5 Ethereal Feel (Ichika nito) 4 Overwrite (XChara (i know this isn’t a rock song, more like a game song, but 1. There’s no tabs, 2 lots of tapping, and sweep picking) 3 All hope is gone (Slipknot) 2 Operation ground and pound (Dragon Force 1 Through the fire and flames (Dragon Force)
this list is so true!!!! omg these are literally so hard I have a squire and I cant even play these riffs like what even is a pinch harmony? Man this guy sure knows his stuff
@@elmeri4415 Nope, I practice it until I can play it at full speed excluding solo and simply didn't try to perfect the solo because I wasn't aiming to learn it in the first place. It just was a request from a friend
Michael Pukmel yjm just got a video clip. Also if ur gonna put one of eddies solos on here why not Spanish fly or cathedral, both take much more skill and technique.
Oh? I can play nearly all of these songs (of course given a week to learn them at most). How could you assume that I can't? Also, I am not insulting the guitarists, I have tremendous respect for them. I am insulting the obviously unqualified creators of this video, who know next to nothing about guitar and have no real basis for selecting what is really "hard to play."
Narrator: 'On this song, he was playing the Z cord at 40 trucks a quantum second with triplets every four gigabytes." Me, a non-guitar player: "Ah yes, talent."
i find Girl Afraid harder to play than Charming Man, Marr is a great riff writer but people are stuck on only listening to This Charming Man. A lot of The Smiths songs are harder than that!
I don’t understand why these others are dissing Marr so much. They are saying how simple This Charming Man is, yet not a single one will show they can actually play it. It’s one thing to talk theory, and it’s another to actually do it. I’m guessing 2/3 of the people bragging how easy it is have never even played guitar. And all these people think Marr is no good - it proves they’ve never tried to duplicate his sound. There is a reason the BEST guitarists in the world know who Johnny Marr is. But all these you tubers know better...😜
That's because nobody can actually sweep pick and everyone should stop sweep picking. I'm tired of walking into Guitar Center and hearing 15 year olds scrubbing an arpeggio, every note out of time, half of them not even sounding.
I taught my brother to play right handed and he had to make a 180 from his left handed mind. He's a badd ass bass player now! Its better to learn the instrument right handed the way it was originally made.
I'm pretty sure almost every guitar student has to learn little wing in like their second-third year of playing it's not that hard but it truly is an amazing song with an amazing chord progression to improvise to
yo why the hell is dream theater and animals as leaders behind van halen and why is rhcp even on this list? where's chon? where's plini? where's paul gilbert? where's satriani?
I don't agree with most of this list, but i was happy they gave a shoutout to Animals as Leaders. I actually saw them and Chon together in Philly like 3 years ago and I was completely blown away
So basically, you're telling me that Jordan Rudess, John Petrucci, Mike Portnoy/Mike Mangini, John Myung and James Labrie are "not that good" and overrated? Jesus.
So many people claim to have mastered Eruption, yet I rarely hear anyone who captures the feel at all. Most versions are note for note, but lack any musicality. The scarcity of other memorable solos in the 40 years since Eruption is a testament to how brilliant it was in 1978.
OMG! Tina S. is phenomenal! I'd really like to hear her do some more Dream Theater. She looks like she's bored to death when she is doing some of the most incredible shredding! I believe she is French.
I know a guy who's been playing guitar for 50 years, and he says there's stuff that Robert Johnson played that he still can't. It does sound like there's 2 guitars playing
Other harder songs 1.- Metropolis Part 1. - Dream Theater 2.- In the Name of God - Dream Theater 3.- Constant Motion - Dream Theater 4.- Illumination Theory - Dream Theater All Songs Dream Theater is Harder.