From a supernova of tapping and pitch-shifted metal guitar anarchy to all-star team-ups, here is your year in lead guitar – featuring Mdou Moctar, Diamond Rowe and some dudes named Satriani and Vai…
(Image credit: Jackson Guitars/Getty Images)
What can we say about the guitar solo in 2024, besides the fact that 2025 is around the corner and, still, lead guitar remains relevant and vital? And by that we mean it still has the capacity to surprise us, to lift an arrangement, to maybe even change how we think of the instrument and what can be done on an electric guitar.
That’s what all of these solos have in common, even if they sound nothing alike. They are also as good as a fingerprint for knowing who is doing what. There is a lesson in that: a solo could have technical merit but it has to have something of yourself in it, just as the song does.
So, y’know, it’s all stuff to keep in mind when learning the rudiments and what you want to say with the notes in front of you. There are infinite possibilities. Knowing what we want to say is the first step…
10. Steve Cropper with Billy Gibbons and Brian May – Too Much Stress
Steve Cropper &The Midnight Hour (feat. Brian May) - "Too Much Stress" - YouTube
This magnificent coming together of three musical icons was convened the old-fashioned way, via email, an offer from producer Jon Tiven that Brian May politely declined. “Too much stress,” he said.
Well, that’s how the track got its name – and lyrics. When they came back and asked him again, how could May refuse? Anyhoo, he’s on this backbeat groover that speaks to the power of friendship, and the back and forth between Gibbons and May has the same energy as old pals catching up over some drinks, and that’s infectious.
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Only Aaron Marshall has the sleight of hand – and agility of mind – to design a long-form instrumental around stop-go dynamics and still make it flow, a super-smooth musical fondue for the digital era. Crazy to think that the raw materials for this are electric guitar, drums and bass.
Marshall’s got this ability to stop the clock, giving tunes like this the room to execute his musical ideas unencumbered by physics. He makes time march to his tune. Maybe we should call him gravity.
8. Dream Theater – Night Terror
Dream Theater - Night Terror (Official Video) - YouTube
Nominated by:Amit Sharma (Guitar World contributor)
2024 was a great year for prog-metal guitarists looking for extra homework. Why? Because Dream Theater released the lead single from their 16th opus – notable for being their first with Mike Portnoy behind the kit in 15 years – and naturally it featured a slew of dazzling leads from John Petrucci.
There’s the fret-burning unison lines with keyboardist Jordan Rudess, the modulated taps and sweeps that follow shortly after and a half-time melodic section – the kind of thing he’s described to this writer as “standing on the mountaintop with your hair blowing in the wind and eagles flying around” – before the final chorus. Full marks from us. (AS)
7. Tetrarch – Live Not Fantasize
TETRARCH - Live Not Fantasize (Official Video) | Napalm Records - YouTube
Nominated by:Michael Astley-Brown, Matt Parker (Features Editor)
And the award for Best WTF Solo goes to Diamond Rowe for Live Not Fantasize, which had judges examining the EverTune on her signature Jackson single-cut for evidence of foul play. There’s nothing we can see there. It’s the pedalboard, the pitch-shifting…
But wait, this solo was always going to be memorable, effects or not. It’s kind of got that Aristotelian three-act structure, and when the stompboxes are engaged, well, it’s like “Avengers, assemble!” and a textbook example of what a solo should do: power up the song.
6. Spiro Dussias – Python
Spiro Dussias Playthrough of "Python" on the American Series Soloist SL2MG | Jackson Guitars - YouTube
Spiro Dussias is most definitely not sweating the technique on this bruising work of 21st-century metal, all-action, popping harmonics, until that solo emerges, covered in the vernix caseosa of glissando and vibrato, assuming motor skills in quicktime and giving us a decades-late echo of Marty Friedman at the apogee of his metal guitar shred exoticism – ie, the back end of Hangar 18.
In fact, Python sounds like Rust In Peace tuned down and condensed into a three-minute instrumental. No wonder Jackson used it to demo the American Series Soloist.
5. Joe Satriani and Steve Vai – The Sea of Emotion, Pt. 1
JOE SATRIANI & STEVE VAI ' The Sea Of Emotion, Pt.1' - Official Video - YouTube
Nominated by:Noé Efira (hooded guitarist from Paris Olympics)
Of course, artists have to look forward, but it would impoverish the human condition if they stopped digging deep into their past in search of connection.
That’s what electric guitar’s two great kings, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, are doing here – teacher and student, friends since teenage years, taking their story back to the beginning to pool their virtuosity for ’70s-style celebration of friendship and belonging. It’s Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused as instrumental rock guitar.
4. Grace Bowers – Tell Me Why U Do That
Grace Bowers & The Hodge Podge - Tell Me Why U Do That (Official Video) - YouTube
Nominated by:Ellie Rogers (Guitar World contributor)
A good guitar solo might contain an impressive lick or two, but a great one will tell a story – and that’s exactly what Grace Bowers does in this extended call-and-response blues/funk throwdown from her debut album.
From the first fluid flourish, it feels as though Bowers might have mastered powers of expression far beyond her young years. But, as antagonistic licks give way to articulate jazz-inflected runs, inquiring hammer-on and pull-off passages and a finale of sweet guitarmonies, there is absolutely no doubt about it. (ER)
Nominated by:Chris Holt (Mike Campbell & the Dirty Knobs)
Rumor has it that many of his leads from 1973-1974 are still sustaining, suspended like satellites in the ether after a successful launch from a Binson Echorec and Big Muff, so maybe it’s a miracle David Gilmour found the bandwidth for this.
But then, Luck & Strange, the prog icon’s first studio album in nine years, is a work of small miracles. Here, Gilmour makes room in the heavens to write an elegy among the stars, big melodies so the world won’t miss ’em.
2. Mdou Moctar – Imouhar
Mdou Moctar - Imouhar (Official Music Video) - YouTube
Nominated by:Jason Narducy (Bob Mould), Janelle Borg (Staff Writer)
Imouhar belongs to a different era, a time when the relentless drive for efficiency – and human attention – had yet to place its vice-like grip around the throat of art.
This is like Santana’s Soul Sacrifice at Woodstock or Hendrix’s Machine Gun, an act of freeform radicalism, liberation masquerading as virtuosity, with Moctar reminding us of the reward that comes from choosing not to refine established techniques such as two-handed tapping to the point of ruthless mechanization. This is spectacular, imperfect, brilliant, electric, and human.
1. Matteo Mancuso – Paul Position
Matteo Mancuso - Paul Position (Original) - YouTube
Cue the unmissable pun: Matteo Mancuso’s virtuosic homage to Paul Gilbert claims pole position in this year’s rundown of spectacular solos – and he scores extra cool points for performing the whole thing on a Bacci baritone guitar.
Taking to Instagram to introduce the track back in July, he teased that we “may recognize some of [Gilbert’s] signature licks on the solo section”, but it’s Mancuso’s own jaw-dropping signature fingerstyle techniques, his superhuman speed and knack for tasteful melodic touches that make this a truly peerless performance. (ER)
Jonathan Horsley has been writing about guitars since 2005, playing them since 1990, and regularly contributes to publications including Guitar World, MusicRadar and Total Guitar. He uses Jazz III nylon picks, 10s during the week, 9s at the weekend, and shamefully still struggles with rhythm figure one of Van Halen’s Panama.
