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The riffmeister on the greatest riff of all time
In a recent interview with Metal Hammer maestro Tony Iommi, a riffmeister extraordinaire himself, weighted in on the greatest riff of all time question:
Apart from your own, what’s the greatest riff of all time?
That’s even harder. There’s so many great riffs out there from the past, and up to date stuff. But you’ve got to have Deep Purple’s Smoke On The Water. And of course there are a lot of Zeppelin songs. Jimmy Page has some great riffs.
So there you have it.
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Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Tony Iommi, Ritchie Blackmore & Jimmy Page. Say no more, nothing else needs to be said! Cheers.
January 20th, 2019 at 09:21Smoke On The Water The Best!
January 20th, 2019 at 13:06he´s soooo right..good ol Toni Iommi!!
January 20th, 2019 at 17:38also Angus and Malcom.
January 20th, 2019 at 22:26SMOKE ON THE WATER SENZA OMBRA DI DUBBIO IL MIGLIORE RIFF TUTTI I TEMPI
January 21st, 2019 at 08:53In my opinion ‘Burn’ is the most enjoyable riff of all time.
January 21st, 2019 at 10:29Strangely enough, I always dug what the Sabs did to it (with a little help from the Javelins singer they had at the time), they somehow made it their own with their idiosyncratic dinosaur juggernaut groove. Geezer Butler’s bass runs are to die for. Godzilla plays Smoke on the Water …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGti9gUT6h4
But then the whole Gillan & Sabbath era is vastly underrated me thinks. Born Again is one of Gillan’s “outside of DP”-masterpieces.
January 21st, 2019 at 21:03Honestly, ‘Money Talks’ from ROTD is ridiculously underrated!! That riff is absolutely booming! The whole album is incredible
January 22nd, 2019 at 11:58Burn and Highway Star for me.
January 23rd, 2019 at 14:40AC/DC – As a new old guitar player, their riffs are fun and rock. Instantly recognizable by friends and fairly easy for a new guitar player. When you are trying to get from just awful to a decent crap level :)…
January 23rd, 2019 at 19:33Iommi’s right. Into the Void & Smoke on the Water.
January 24th, 2019 at 14:22@ 7, Uwe Hornung:
IMHO, there’s no better tone than Ritchie’s mixed with Jon’s Hammond/Marshall. If you play Smoke with just an overdriven guitar it’ll never sound as dense, heavy and big, no matter how much overdrive you put on that guitar. In addition, I prefer Ritchie’s tone over Tony’s any day if there was only guitar.
Regarding Gillan’s time with Sabbath: To describe it as totally weird is an understatement. You know that it served as a template for the movie “Spinal Tap”. The Stonehenge-reference is unmistakable. I had to laugh really hard when I heard “Disturbing the Priest” for the first time – and it still makes me laugh. You don’t have to take their efforts too seriously, they had a lot of fun but I’d never say it’s “underrated” or a “masterpiece”, though it’s still really entertaining for sure. Do you know Gillan’s story from that time (which can be found within his autobiographical movie “Highway Star – A Journey in Rock”)?
January 24th, 2019 at 15:33Agreed Jesse.
January 24th, 2019 at 17:59Morse era is underrated.
You’re all missing the blindingly obvious…
January 24th, 2019 at 21:54‘Wake up Jeff’ by The Wiggles!… For sure. 😄
Yikes, Smoke is way overrated surely….I know, I know…they have to play it, everyone knows it but man, Purple and RB had far better riffs than this over the years. If I never hear the song again I’ll be ok with that!
January 27th, 2019 at 22:03@ 14, That’s funny……check out Jim Breuer on utube……his comparison of Iron Maiden and the Wiggles is some funny stuff.
February 14th, 2019 at 18:48Sorry to upset anyone but Burn is the greatest riff of them all in my opinion.
March 30th, 2021 at 18:00Peace
@17 Adel, c’mon man, you must recognise the virtuosity of this song…. Just checkout that guitar solo!:
March 31st, 2021 at 03:22https://youtu.be/xyJeJcPrln0
😁🎸