The Greatest Guitar Riff Ever: 1980

Opening the decade I was born in, who is gonna take the Greatest Riff of 1980?

AC/DC - Back in Black

Last week, we gave the Riff of 1979 to AC/DC for “Highway to Hell” and I said that it’s probably the last time I will nominate an AC/DC riff for a song I enjoy. That isn’t true because I’m thinking of another riff from 1990 that is associated with a drinking game I very much enjoy. But, in any case, I do not enjoy Back in Black or the title track here. I’d be lying if I said it was a bad riff but I don’t like the song. The vocals, the production - even though it’s the same producer from Highway to Hell, kind of everything about it. Just not a fan. But it’s an iconic riff so it’s here. I’ve done my Journalistic Duty by including it.

Bauhaus - Stigmata Martyr

I know precious little Bauhaus and only really got into them ever at all because of their association opening for what was supposed to be the ““““final”””” Nine Inch Nails tour and the singer joining NIN on stage several times throughout that tour. But man. Bauhaus fucking rules. You can feel the NIN in their music but there’s so much energy to it too. Where would Interpol be without this bass riff?

Black Flag - No Values

Maybe a hot take - Ron Reyes’ era of Black Flag is my favorite era of Black Flag. I would imagine most would say either a) Henry Rollins’ era or b) Keith Morris’. However, to me, Keith is much, much better with the Circle Jerks (more on that soon) and the best songs Henry performed on were written during the eras proceeding him. I do not care for My War the same way you freaks do. Reyes’ voice fits the band perfectly and Greg Ginn’s guitar parts complement him best. “No Values” proves this theory, IMO. Just an incredibly aggressive guitar part in the verses met by an incredibly aggressive vocal. Love it.

Black Sabbath - Heaven and Hell

The GOAT is back. What a strange thing that Heaven and Hell ever occurred. By this point, Sabotage was five years old, Ozzy had left the band and Sabbath had tried out a handful of singers that didn’t seem to stick. I have to imagine most people slightly older than my parents figured the band was done. Enter Ronnie James Dio and the band releases one of their best albums. Tony Iommi has spoken about how Dio allowed him to write riffs differently, because Ozzy wrote vocal melodies that essentially matched the riffs themselves, whereas Dio wrote melodies that complemented, but were separate from, the riffs themselves. I have to imagine that after eight albums writing for one singer who is mostly writing their vocals to match your riffs, you eventually start writing riffs knowing the vocalist will be able to sing them or, put differently, you don’t bother writing riffs they cannot sing. “Heaven and Hell” is a riff Ozzy could not sing. Truly literally zero disrespect to one of the best to ever do it but Dio allows you to, as a band, write music you couldn’t with Ozzy. And, thus, with “Heaven and Hell” you get one of the gnarliest and more unique riffs in Iommi and Sabbath’s discography. The bridge? Hard as hell.

Bruce Springsteen - The Ties That Bind

Maybe the only Bruce song that properly jangles? I love the 12-string riff in the intro as well as the 12-string riff in the chorus. We love a 12-string guitar around these parts. I don’t love the entirety of The River (who does), but when it’s cooking, it’s some of the best pure rock riffing Bruce ever committed to tape.

Circle Jerks - Live Fast Die Young

As I said above, I prefer Circle Jerks Keith Morris to Black Flag Keith Morris. Like I alluded to with Roy Reyes-Greg Ginn, a lot of the appeal of hardcore to me is the marriage between the vocalist and the riffer. In this case, Keith Morris just fits the riffs of Greg Hetson better than those of Greg Ginn. “Live Fast Die Young” lives up to its name. Hetson is out of his mind on this one, dude.

The Clash - The Magnificent Seven

Not an album I particularly enjoy. Does anyone enjoy Sandanista!? The whole thing? All 144 minutes? Stop lying. I am not lying when I say I enjoy Paul Simonon’s bass riff on “The Magnificent Seven,” though. Talk about fucking moving. This thing has a jet engine attached to it. It’s flying. Paul is breaking the sound barrier on this track.

The Cramps - I Was a Teenage Werewolf

Just about as cool as music gets. Poison Ivy (we love a stage name) fucking rules. What if you took Link Wray and made him live through the 1970s in New York and got really into horror movies? This is “Rumble” by way of George Romero. Incredible stuff.

The Cure - Boys Don’t Cry

A bit of a cheat here as “Boys Don’t Cry” was officially released in 1979 but came out on an album in the US in 1980, so I’m counting it this year. The riff during the intro and chorus is just an all-time earworm. How do you convey yearning but in a poppy way? You have Robert Smith play the guitar.

The Cure - A Forest

And, almost instantly, we have an entirely different style of The Cure Guitar Sound. “A Forest” is less catchy and less fun but probably more impressive and reminiscent of the band to me. “Boys Don’t Cry” is a bigger song, sure, but it feels like a song that is eternal and could have come from about a dozen other bands of that era. “A Forest” could have only come from The Cure. Or, at least, it could have come from other bands but it would only sound this good coming from The Cure. Something about Robert Smith switching to a Bass VI around this time instead of a traditional guitar made for a sound that almost no one else had even if there were tons of other bands trying to very obviously get that sound. “A Forest” is singular and the riff is the riff from the band I think of the most in this early era of The Cure.

Dead Kennedys - Holiday in Cambodia

I don’t think there is a riffer in early hardcore that is better than East Bay Ray, mostly because he - crucially - isn’t dogshit at playing the guitar. He is actually fucking sick at it, injecting all kinds of surf rock licks and rockabilly style into a genre that, at the time, was married to down-picked power chords. Nothing sounds cooler than his riff during the verses of “Holiday in Cambodia.”

Diamond Head - Sweet and Innocent

I’ve never listened to Diamond Head before or heard the name Brian Tatler as a riffer but this is just fucking sick heavy metal. Nothing you haven’t heard before but just a great version of That Thing. I’ll check out more.

Discharge - Fight Back

Remember where I kinda denigrated down-picked power chords before? I’m telling my past self to shut the fuck up. When they sound this cool, you literally do not need to play anything other than this.

Echo and the Bunnymen - Crocodiles

Post-punk really is so important for the bass guitar. Like, it isn’t funk music and virtuosic playing or anything, but it puts the bass front and center in the mix and remembers that repetition is everything for a riff. The main bass riff here loops like 12 billion times and it never gets old.

Grateful Dead - Althea

Not the last important original song from the Dead but the last one with a real timeless riff. John Mayer is still honking on this shit today. Not one of my favorite GD songs but certainly a riff with merit. The intro guitar is so effortlessly Jerry.

Iron Maiden - Charlotte the Harlot

Jesus christ, man. Usually, when I focus on bass, it’s because the guitar is lacking, but Iron Maiden is the perfect pairing of guitar and bass in metal. It helps when you have both Dave Murray AND Steve Harris in your band. This song is fucking insane. What a band.

Joy Division - Twenty Four Hours

Maybe the only band who could beat Bauhaus and The Cure at their game. It helps that Joy Division essentially invented that game. For bands who got ripped off as much The Cure and, it seems, Bauhaus did, they had to get it from somewhere. You can boil the recipe of those bands down into Peter Hook’s bass in both the intro, where it’s fairly understated and relies on the chorus effect, and the verse, where it’s driving and puts the punk in post-punk.

Judas Priest - Breaking the Law

Sure it’s corn and it’s cheese but try having fun for the first time in your miserable life.

Minutemen - Joe McCarthy’s Ghost

Sure, Minutemen have much better songs, but the bass from Mike Watt on “Joe McCarthy’s Ghost” deserves mentioning as the first insane bass part he’d commit to tape for probably the best punk band ever.

Misfits - Last Caress

If Minutemen isn’t the best punk band, it’s because the Misfits are. They’re a tough band to chronicle in this yearly fashion since so much of the early stuff from the band didn’t come out for decades due to lawsuits or mismanagement and a billion other reasons. But “Last Caress” is on the Rushmore of punk tracks. Franche Coma’s guitar part is tattooed onto my brain for the rest of time. I would say the same about Jerry Only’s bass part but I can’t hear it.

Motorhead - Ace of Spades

Leo Fender invented the bass guitar in 1951 so that Lemmy could fuck it up like this thirty years later. Have you ever heard a cooler sound in your life?

Ozzy Osbourne - Crazy Train

I almost hesitated to include this because I think Randy Rhoads’ riff on “Crazy Train” has had more negative effects on music than positive. Weezer played this riff in the middle of one of their own songs from an album in 2021. That fucking sucks, dude. But, Rivers Cuomo not having any common sense or decency is not Randy Rhoads’ problem. At the time, this riff just had to fucking rule. I wasn’t born for another nine years so I cannot possibly comment but I just know it did. If I think of Ozzy, Black Sabbath is what I think of, but this riff is the first riff I think of. It will live forever.

Queen - Another One Bites the Dust

Another one in the “Back in Black” category where I cannot get away with not mentioning the riff (we are very obviously talking about the bass here) but I don’t actually like the song. Like at all. If this were some Premier Guitar list of the best riffs, those two would probably be the finalists. They will not be on this list. Get the fuck out of here.

Rush - Freewill

We took a few Rush albums off for the newsletter because, frankly, their proggy bullshit is not always my bag. But when they just release Good Huge Rock Songs, there are very bands better at it than them. “Freewill” is just a great Dumb Song. There aren’t multiple passages. It isn’t 20 minutes long. That rules. I love Geddy’s bass in the verses and Alex’s guitar in the post-chorus. Just a perfect give-and-take riff balance.

Samson - Manwatcher

I never really checked out Samson but knew of them as the earlier band of future Iron Maiden GOAT vocalist Bruce Dickinson. Holy shit! The guitarist of Samson’s name is Paul Samson so I kinda get when you’re Bruce Dickinson and Iron Maiden comes banging on your door that you’re gonna leave so you aren’t just the vocalist of a guitarist’s band. But man. Paul is fucking riffing is heart out here. Definitely going to check out more Samson. I don’t know if I’ve heard more mids on a riff than on “Manwatcher.” That’s bravery, right there.

Talking Heads - Crosseyed and Painless

Tina Weymouth is just plainly and obviously one of the coolest people to have ever lived, which is obvious if you have heard her bass playing on this incredible tune.

U2 - Twilight

Look, say what you want about modern-era U2 and the Edge (his part of It Might Get Loud is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen), but early Edge could fucking riff and so could Adam Clayton, who carries “Twilight.” I know, I get it. The band is corny as all hell. This shit is not. This shit fucking rules.

Van Halen - And the Cradle Will Rock

Again, just not a huge Van Halen guy, but would be out of my gourd if I didn’t say this was a great riff. The fault with this song very clearly and obviously isn’t anything having to do with the guitar. EVH innocent.

X - Your Phone’s Off the Hook, But You’re Not

X is in kind of the same space as the Cramps and Dead Kennedys where the songs just sound a million times better than anything similar to them because of the injection of other styles of music into punk. This riff feels like it could have come out in the 1950s and been something played in Grease. It also sounds like it could have come out yesterday. Perfection.

What is the Best Riff of 1980?

Again, I don’t give a shit about “Back in Black” or “Another One Bites the Dust” so they aren’t getting included in the running here as a finalist. I think we can narrow these nominees down to “Heaven and Hell,” “Ace of Spades,” “Crazy Train” and “Crosseyed and Painless” as the proper contenders. We need to pit Sabbath with Dio and Ozzy without Sabbath against each other. I think, personally, “Crazy Train” is - independent of the bullshit it wrought - just a plainly better and more fun riff than “Heaven and Hell.” And, with “Ace of Spades” and “Crosseyed and Painless” we can pit two different sides of the Bass Guitar Coin against each other. The former shows how a galloping bass riff can be literally all you need to make a timeless song and the latter shows how all you need is four notes on loop for five minutes to do the same. Personally, it is “Ace of Spades,” for me. Where I can ignore “Crazy Train” being kind of annoying while also being great against “Heaven and Hell,” I cannot do the same against “Ace of Spades.” Lemmy & Co. takes it this week.

Does it top the previous Best Riff?

Best Riff of 1980: Motorhead - Ace of Spades

Best Riff Previous Champion: Van Halen - Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love

As much as I prefer “Ace of Spades” to “Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love” (I really cannot quantify how much more I like “Ace of Spades” lol), I don’t think it’s a better riff. Apologies to Lemmy but it’s going to be tough to top EVH.