With the help of pals including Eric Gales and Vernon Reid, we run down the songs that lit up the guitar-o-sphere this year, including a remarkable hardcore breakthrough, a virtuoso collab for the ages and the prodigy that everyone’s talking about
It’s silly, right? But it’s how we are wired. Always have been. Back in the day, of course, it was goat entrails against the cave wall. This is more hygienic even if it does yield similarly vague results.
Looking at this list, in which the famous players such as Eric Gales and Mike Dawes pitched in with nominations, maybe the key theme is time. This is a Janus-faced list, songs that take guitar into the future, embracing the efflorescence of digital culture, and those that take the instrument back to the primacy of rock ’n’ roll, and the emerging dawn of the pop-cultural era.
And, yes, some of the more brutal tracks from the metal guitar community sound like those goat entrails look… Enjoy.
After a two-year absence, the melodic death metal mavericks return with an overarching comeback that tests the limits of breakneck speed in Arch Enemy’s oeuvre. Their lead-off single and video is a magnum opus that rips with machine gun-like velocity and epitomizes the kind of melodeath-DNA Arch Enemy is known for.
With massive gang vocal choirs bolstered by Alissa White-Gluz’s guttural growl, multiple time changes, and impressively fast and furious guitarwork led by Michael Amott and Joey Concepcion, Dream Stealer is AE’s “go big or go home” return to form. And by the looks of it, they’re here to slay. (PR)
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29. The Heavy Heavy – Happiness
The Heavy Heavy - Happiness (Official Video) - YouTube
Happiness is a warm hug of a song – an uplifting earworm that is dripping in honeyed Stax sunshine and early Stones jangle. However, the band behind it, UK group The Heavy Heavy, seem a world apart from your run-of-the-mill thrift shop rockstars. There’s a confidence in their music that takes it way beyond pastiche or simple nostalgia.
Yes, you can practically smell the tubes toasting away and hear the tape whirring, but it still feels like it has a place in 2024. (MP)
Nominated by:George Vjestica (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds)
In our always-on world of screen time reports, mailing lists and reminders to please leave a review for that self-assemble BBQ you purchased 18 months ago, Caja de la Sala is a means to realign the chakras, to restore oneself to factory settings.
It is a two-minute study in melody as almost-ambience, guitars visiting from behind the wall of sleep. A couple of Ambien and a warm glass of milk has nothing on this choice cut from an album in which Mark Speer’s guitar and production presents human-friendly frequencies only, feel-good psych on the DL.
27. The Beaches – Takes One To Know One
The Beaches - Takes One To Know One (Lyric Video) - YouTube
Jordan Miller’s vocals are always the star of the show, as they should be, but the porcelain-delicate guitar melody that chirrups around them set the table for a wall-of-sound indie-pop anthem so insistent that you might need a few rounds of therapy to expunge it from your memory. Thing is, would you want to?
The Beaches have artfully engineered a sound – or more to the point, have a songwriting sensibility – that has something all occasions: break-ups, funerals, weddings, end-of-term parties, road trips and long afternoons spent in the company of your pedalboard trying to approximate how Leandra Earl and Kylie Miller get those tones. The PRS S2 Vela and Fiore are a big part of it – thinking about sounds to make melody pop in a mix is the ethos.
26. Judith Hill – My Whole Life is in the Wrong Key
Judith Hill’s story is straight out of 20 Feet From Stardom – literally, she is in the movie, but it has taken a turn now as the former backing vocalist to the likes of Michael Jackson, Prince and Stevie Wonder assumes her position under the spotlight, working the nexus of soul, funk, blues… Wherever her musical curiosity takes her.
The immediacy of the human voice is what generations of players have been chasing on guitar, what many of us wish we had. Hill is no different, but she actually has the pipes, and with that feel for groove – great vocalists have great timing – and the warmth from the Gibson SG, it makes material like this so irresistible.
Nominated by:Amit Sharma (Guitar World contributor)
There’s a sense of poetry to the Canadian virtuoso’s compositions that over the past decade or so has cemented his stature as a modern master, fusing emotive brilliance of Jeff Beck and Stevie Ray Vaughan with the technical finesse of Guthrie Govan and Richie Kotzen.
But even by his own talismanic standards, the title track from his latest album is one of the most beautiful pieces of music he’s ever conceived, linking ideas that build in tension over the dramatic chord changes underneath. Dizzyingly chromatic at points and landing on notes few would ever think of, Johnston is reminding us that his take on instrumental guitar is as refreshing as it is mesmerizing. (AS)
24. Linkin Park – The Emptiness Machine
Nominated by:Mike Dawes
Alongside inflation and the threat of nuclear annihilation, nu-metal is back as a trending topic in 2024. But, c’mon, the return of Linkin Park is a human interest story everyone can get behind.
The band had been mothballed since Chester Bennington’s death in 2017. How could they move on? For Mike Shinoda and OG Link Park members Brad Delson, Phoenix and Joe Hahn, it was about rebuilding their lives not getting a band together. But having done that, they drafted in Brad Delson, Phoenix, and Dead Sara vocalist and rhythm guitarist Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara on vocals and rhythm guitars, hired a Colin Brittain on drums and Shinoda shared vocal duties to update their sound for a triumphant second act.
23. Mark Knopfler – Going Home: Theme of the Local Hero
Mark Knopfler’s Guitar Heroes – Going Home (Theme From Local Hero) (Official Video) - YouTube
If struggling for numbers for your 40th, drop the former Dire Straits guitarist a line. As a fisher of men (and women), Knopfler is up there with Simon and Andrew, at least on the evidence here, gathering guitar players of all clans to rework his classic theme to Local Hero in aid of teenage cancer charities.
Rarely do so many guitarists come together like this. Surely, it’d sound like the floor at Anaheim during NAMM, right? Or Guitar Center on the last Saturday afternoon before Christmas… No. A miracle of production brings Knopfler together with Eric Clapton, Joan Baez, Pete Townshend, Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, Slash, Satch, Vai – heck, a phone book’s full of top-tier players – all doing good work.
Hinds' Boom Boom Back showcases co-guitarists and co-lead vocalists (and band co-founders) Ana Perrote and Carlotta Cosials' songwriting prowess in full. The song can be summed up as the encapsulation of finding pockets of joy amid turbulent times, with the hook-heavy chorus the very definition of pop-rock perfection. And oh, Beck also makes a brief appearance. (JB)
21. Andy Wood ft. Brent Mason – Free Range Chicken
Free Range Chicken feat. Brent Mason (Official Music Video) - Andy Wood - YouTube
Andy Wood describes Free Range Chicken as a “musical gumbo” written in tribute to the Dixie Dregs guitarist Steve Morse, and like a good pot of gumbo you can toss whatever you like in it so long as you get plenty color on that roux. Of course, it helps to have a master chef’s secret sauce, and here that is the latter-day Telecaster maestro Brent Mason turning up to drop some Nashville seasoning on that chicken before it cooks.
Bluegrass, rock ’n’ roll, dominant 7 arpeggios played in straight 16th notes, alternate picking or GTFO. That’s how they be pickin’ at this here chicken farm.
With a sound like a low-budget horror flick, Chat Pile’s Camcorder is anything but polished. Lo-fi, heavily processed drums, raw, drop-tuned guitars, and a dulcet, almost spoken word vocal come together with a distinctly eerie energy in this six-minute tour-de-force of noise-rock nihilism.
Coming at the halfway point of their latest album Cool World, Camcorder is jam-packed with grooves and riffs that will get your head nodding, from the hypnotic main motif to the extended outro punctuated with jump-scare strikes behind the nut. (MM)
19. Slash – Killing Floor (ft. Brian Johnson)
Slash feat. Brian Johnson - "Killing Floor" (Official Music Video) - YouTube
Slash’s cover of this Howlin’ Wolf blues standard features the ageless rock guitar god playing as great as ever. He's sporting a Gibson ES-335 to authentically perform the song’s signature funky riffs and serve up two inspired and characteristically feisty, well-structured solos, using his bridge pickup throughout and just enough tube distortion to produce a rich, fat tone that bites but doesn’t muddy up his chords.
Throughout both solos, Slash approaches chord tones with alternate-picked chromatic walk-ups and walk-downs, which add color and interesting contours to his licks. The guitarist also deftly employs string skips to perform melodic 6th intervals on his G and high E strings, which tie-in nicely with the song’s signature riffs, and utilizes notes from the parallel A major and minor pentatonic scales, as well as A Mixolydian and A blues. (Jimmy Brown)
18. Spiritbox – Soft Spine
Spiritbox - Soft Spine (Official Music Video) - YouTube
Soft Spine plays out like the third act of Tetsuo II: Body Hammer, and just as man becomes the machine of retribution, Stringer’s guitar assumes new forms amongst the digital ordnance of VST and a jacking beat that has made it here from hip-hop via Godflesh.
To call Stringer’s guitar electric is insufficient. It’s like, when it’s on, as it is very much on here, there’s a noticeable brown out in the wider metropolitan area, as though he hired Electro as his tech after a recommendation from Spider-Man, a little high-voltage know-how to help bring his jiu-jitsu riffs to the floor.
Unquestionably, part of Glass Beams' appeal lies in the mystique of its members' faces shrouded in ornate gold masks. However, Mahal stands on its own as a timeless composition, fusing instrumental neo-psychedelia, cyclical guitar riffs you can immediately recall after just one listen, and sounds inspired by traditional Indian music. It's an earworm unlike anything else put out this year. (JB)
16. Pearl Jam – Wreckage
Pearl Jam - Wreckage (Official Visualizer) - YouTube
Nominated by:Josh Partington (Something Corporate), Michael Astley-Brown
Superstar producer Andrew Watt wanted Pearl Jam to work fast in the studio, to recapture the energy of their youth. But Dark Matter’s highlight was this mature, AOR-adjacent rock ballad, which channels their heroes Tom Petty and Neil Young.
Stone Gossard shines on the Wreckage’s supersized chords, while the track’s lithe hammer-on/pull-off riff embodies the sombre and the uplifting – two emotions Pearl Jam have always worn well, but rarely so successfully in recent years. (MAB)
15. Heriot – At the Fortress Gate
HERIOT - At The Fortress Gate (OFFICIAL VIDEO) - YouTube
At the risk of incurring an international arrest warrant for catastrophic damage to speaker cones worldwide, Debbie Gough and Erhan Alman marshal some seriously unholy physics for the rhythm guitar tone. If music were unionized, there would be a demarcation suite filed on behalf of the bass player, whose frequencies are most definitely invaded on a regular basis.
At the Fortress Gates is a mid-tempo, four-to-the-floor chugger with the squeak of harmonics to widen the mix, before taking the metalcore breakdown to its logical conclusion.
14. Julian Lage – Northern Shuffle
Julian Lage - Northern Shuffle (Official video) - YouTube
Nominated by:Jonathan Horsley (Guitar World contributor)
Jazz guitar lights up the imagination and spirit like nothing else but you would be hard pushed to call it catchy, except when it’s jazz guitar like this, the unimpeachable Julian Lage’s mega-mind set ablaze by T-Bone Walker, Muddy Waters et al, hypnotized by the rhythmic possibilities of the shuffle.
Originally written as a solo piece, Northern Shuffle evolved into a full-band arrangement, with Lage tracking it on an Epiphone Coronet that was lying around the studio. Tuned down to C standard, he plays the riff, sets the tempo, and then sets out, one foot in front of the other, dun-dah-dun-dah… Electric, wiry and brilliant, and dun-dah-dun-dah… catchy.
13. The Smile – Zero Sum
The Smile - Zero Sum (Official Music Video) - YouTube
For 15-odd years now, Jonny Greenwood has been content to let his guitar playing take a (distant) back seat to his skills as a conductor and arranger. And therein lies the joy of the Smile’s Zero Sum, a track that finds him concocting something truly insane with a Les Paul and a delay pedal.
25+ years after he made his guitar the vehicle of creeping pre-Y2K dread with apocalyptic solos on Paranoid Android and Climbing Up the Walls, he dialed up a nervy guitar part that echoes both the dizzying progress and anxiety of our current moment. (JM)
12. Bilmuri – Better Hell (Thicc Boi)
Bilmuri - Better Hell (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO) - YouTube
Nominated by:Mike Dawes, Chris Barnes (Ecomm Editor)
Once upon a time you would get the first mix of this back, like, within seconds, you’d be phoning down to the studio to alert them that one of the tracks has the wrong guitar on it. One side of the mix is a mile wide with a super-distorted 21st-century progressive metal guitar doing its thing, the other has some skinny, super-compressed cleans, spanking its way across the stave dropping some kinda bluesy, all-too-chilled lick.
But this is just John Franck establishing the aesthetic parameters, a postmodernist mind trick to let the audience know how things are going down so they’ll enjoy the song better. It’s guitar engineering as an act of empathy.
Back on our radar in a big way for the first time since 2022’s Painless, London-based singer-songwriter Nilüfer Yanya returned this April with a sub-three minute masterclass in how to harness extreme contrast to maximum effect.
Essentially, the song is built around one moreish droning riff, served two ways. Soothing acoustic tones characterize the verses, while unholy levels of ’90s fuzz kick the choruses into another realm. It’s infinitely loopable, surprisingly simple and supremely effective. (ER)
Starburster has a beat like a turn-of-the-century David Holmes track and a guitar sound that sounds like a pastiche of Hank Marvin, the spaghetti western, and the scratchy primitivism of the ’90s alternative canon. It has wide open spaces between the instruments to let your imagination wonder, or to give Grian Chatten’s vocals space to breathe, but really that’s all one and the same on a track that moves with the unconscious confidence of a sleep-walker. It feels like late night, even if you are listening to it first thing in the morning.
9. Jack White – Old Scratch Blues
Jack White - Old Scratch Blues (Official Audio) - YouTube
Much of Jack White’s 2024 might have been spent wearing a white lab coat and a pair of safety goggles as he joined the R&D team in one of the many Third Man Hardware gear collaborations this year, culminating in his signature Fender collection, but he still found time to clock in at his day job and remind us that his anachronistic mastery of the rock ’n’ roll idiom is as vital now as it ever was.
Listen to that tone. You want to play the first 30 seconds of guitar on a loop, a chance to savor it, as though you are swirling a drop of Springbank in the glass in front of a roaring log fire. Then you get the fuzz-sorta-Zeppelin riff, the ebb and flow, tension and release, and a skronky whacked-out pitch-shifted solo to bring it on home.
It doesn’t feature the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist, but it does feature Dave Grohl – and perhaps one of the gnarliest sludge fuzz guitar sounds you’ll hear from a St. Vincent track.
Flittering effortlessly between laid back quasi-lounge rock punctuated with modulation-drenched hooks and a speaker-crushing main riff, Flea is a highlight from St. Vincent’s acclaimed All Born Screaming record, and a masterclass in controlled guitar chaos. (MO)
7. Gary Clark Jr. – Maktub
Gary Clark Jr. - MAKTUB (Official Music Video) - YouTube
On paper, a five-year break may not seem like a long time, but it felt like an entire lifetime between GCJ's critically acclaimed This Land and 2024's JPEG RAW. But the Texas-based virtuoso's return was very much on form, as he dropped one of his best records to date.
The lead single and opening track is this fuzz-drenched banger. With its infectious hook, soulful vocals, and an expertly executed face-melter of a slide solo, Maktub shows how old-school blues rock and modern production can work hand in hand. (DR)
6. Grace Bowers – Holdin’ Onto Something
Grace Bowers & The Hodge Podge - Holdin On To Something (Official Audio) - YouTube
Nominated by:Andrew Daly (Guitar World contributor)
This year has been one long vulgar display of Bowers. It really is remarkable, her appearing seemingly ex nihilo as this fully formed pro guitarist and preternaturally gifted musician. As the glossies might say, it’s Grace Bowers’ world and we’re just living in it. Or, like the waiter says to Jack Torrance in the bathroom, “you’ve always been the caretaker.”
Well, Bowers is wielding a very different kind of axe to break on through, and on Holdin’ Onto Something she is cutting to the quick with the funky, strutting feel-good R&B and soul, and those virtuosic Zappa-esque lead guitar runs on her trusty Gibson SG.
Between his sterling guitar work with indie darlings Wednesday, his essential guitar contributions to Waxahatchee’s recent Tigers Blood album, and his own 2024 solo album, Manning Fireworks, MJ Lenderman has had a remarkable couple of years. A highlight of Manning Fireworks, Wristwatch is a biting but charming rocker whose yawning pedal steel is complemented by Lenderman’s tightly-coiled licks, and a wonderfully grimy solo. (JM)
4. Knocked Loose – Don't Reach For Me
Knocked Loose "Don't Reach For Me" (Official Music Video) - YouTube
Clever in its composition and crushing in its delivery, Don’t Reach For Me immediately caught my attention back in April, but most surprisingly, has continued to hold it for the rest of 2024.
Every time I listen, a fresh element presents itself – be it a fret slide, a pause, a siren tone, or any selection from its all-killer no-filler riff bag. It’s a modern metal/hardcore masterpiece that ably balances attack and release, creating a dynamic, devilish, and somehow still sing-along classic in the making. (MP)
3. The Smashing Pumpkins – Edin
THE SMASHING PUMPKINS - EDIN (Visualizer) - YouTube
Nominated by: Sierra Levesque, Ellie Rogers, Michael Astley-Brown
Since three-quarters of the original Pumpkins lineup reunited, their output has been curiously electronic. So when Billy Corgan said he’d made an album that captured the spirit of their ’90s guitar heyday, you’d forgive fans for being sceptical. But doubters were silenced by those first seconds of the album’s opener.
Edin’s menacing clean tones give way to a riff that juggernauts down a supernatural highway, while the psychedelic middle eight could have come straight from Siamese Dream. And, yes, there are wailing leads throughout. It’s crushing and mysterious, with off-the-charts guitar tones. Exactly what we’ve been waiting for, basically. (MAB)
Nominated by:Ellie Rogers, Ryan Guldemond (Mother Mother), Matt Parker
Utilizing a baritone-tuned Fender Jaguar and an old Tascam tape recorder for its uniquely brittle preamp break-up, Michael Gordon – aka Mk.gee – has been responsible for some of the most talked-about tones and tunes of 2024.
He might have been quoted as saying he doesn’t “really relate to the guitar anymore”, but woozy little lo-fi pop masterpieces like this one have certainly made the guitar resonate with fresh intrigue for countless others around the globe. (ER)
1. Marcin feat. Tim Henson – Classical Dragon
Marcin, Tim Henson - Classical Dragon (Official Video) - YouTube
The undisputed guitar track of 2024 brings two great iconoclasts together on a composition whose title makes us think that this is some 21st-century analog to Classical Gas.
There is a more prosaic origin story for this collab (Henson started following Marcin on Instagram, Marcin wrote it in 2000 with the Polyphia man in mind) but it does sound for all the world like some fevered mind dared generative AI to put something sick together. A la, “Hey, ChatGPT, cook me up some TikTok-era Mason Williams shit and stick some crispy jalapeño chips on top to give it a little crunch.”
“It’s Polyphia-esque, I’m not afraid to admit that,” said Marcin. “It had a lot of 808s and trap-y hi-hats. I sent Tim a cold message asking him about the song – back then I was a fraction of who I am now. He got back to me pretty quickly, like, ‘This is sick, we should do something on it together!’”
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.
