Whatever happened to the face-melting guitar solo?

Jimi Hendrix. Eric Clapton. Slash. These guitarists are all famous for producing fast, lengthy and quite astonishing solos which would leave audiences reeling in awe. Hendrix’s cover of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” contains perhaps the best distorted guitar solo I have ever heard whilst Clapton’s two solos in “Crossroads” are completely out of this world.

Putting it simply, the solos in both of these songs are the ingredient which makes them iconic. In “All Along the Watchtower”, the positioning of the distorted solo as the centrepiece of the song makes it easily the song’s most memorable part whereas without Clapton’s solos in “Crossroads” the song would be distinctly average.

It may have appeared in the late 70s and early 80s that punk music and its associated power chords had killed off the guitar solo. However, this was not the case, Slash and Kirk Hammet producing amazing solos that formed the centrepieces of songs well into the 90s. Despite the fact Slash and Kirk Hammet may still be touring to this day they have rather faded from the limelight and been replaced largely by indie bands who place rather less emphasis, (or no emphasis at all), on the killer solo.

This is not to say that there are no bands around today who produce rapid, face-melting solos, (The Strokes and The Darkness being two obvious exceptions); it is just that many bands in the sphere of popular music choose not to include a killer solo or prefer to incorporate synthesisers into their songs.

Why is this the case? Obviously, the development of synthesisers and their ever growing popularity make it almost inevitable that bands such as The Killers, The Wombats and Friendly Fires use them to appeal to a wider audience. But why should they choose not to include a killer solo in addition? You could argue that it has something to do with rapacious record labels demanding the quick release of albums, forcing bands to churn out rushed material which will appeal to today’s lovers of popular music with electronic elements.

However, this would be an extreme view; it could just be that these bands feel the face-melting guitar solo has run its course. Yet bands such as Kings of Leon in “Use Somebody” and even Tinie Tempah in his collaboration with Eric Turner “Written in the Stars” use guitar solos but place them behind the melody of the chorus and, in the latter case, completely parody the chorus melody. Admittedly, the practice of a band member copying the work of another band member almost to the note is well established, Kurt Cobain for example, almost precisely copying the vocal melody in the solo of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, but do the former examples not show it would be possible for the facing-melting guitar solo to still have a place in popular music?

If the problem is that you cannot fit a killer, stand-alone solo in a four minute song, simply take out one of the intricate parts or one of the choruses which you’ve repeated at least three times already. I would also argue that the killer solo would still be well-received in 2012. My evidence for this claim comes from that fine Coney Street establishment, Willow Disco. On many occasions I have heard Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way” blaring from the speakers to almost universal approval, many drunkenly playing air-guitars to Lindsey Buckingham’s breathtaking solos. Surely this is solid evidence that there is still an audience for the face-melting guitar solo in 2012.