90s guitar riffs

June 3, 2012 2:10 PM

Fifty guitar riffs from (mostly) early 90s songs, with and without drums.
posted by curious nu (48 comments total)

This should be great for people who have ADHD.
posted by goethean at 2:19 PM on June 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

Sounds like all went through the same bland filter. A riff without the appropriate pedal effect just isn't much of a riff. (please, correct me if I'm wrong).
posted by furtive at 2:22 PM on June 3, 2012

I also think the tempo is what's making it sound wrong in my head.
posted by furtive at 2:22 PM on June 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

The songs remind me pleasantly of my mid 90s explorations of tabs downloaded from OLGA. For anybody who lived next door to me at the time: oh my god - SORRY!
posted by rongorongo at 2:30 PM on June 3, 2012 [12 favorites]

It's been said before, but the "without" link is exactly what it sounds like to hang out at Guitar Center.
posted by hydrophonic at 2:35 PM on June 3, 2012 [23 favorites]

This guy pretty good at playing with himself. I also thought that the songs that were missing overdrive and other effects were a bit..odd, but I still enjoyed the video.

It makes me want to play Rock Band. Or better yet, Phase Shift.
posted by wierdo at 2:37 PM on June 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

furtive: "I also think the tempo is what's making it sound wrong in my head."

No, this is precisely what rock and metal songs sound like if you turn the gain knob down to zero. No, I've no idea why anyone would want to do that either.
posted by vanar sena at 2:38 PM on June 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

technically good, but he's pretty much stripped these riffs of a lot of their personality, not to mention balls
posted by pyramid termite at 2:49 PM on June 3, 2012

Moist! Wow that takes me back. For the benefit of you Americans who might not have heard of them, you're welcome.
posted by jimmythefish at 2:51 PM on June 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

I must be the only one who thinks these sound way better than the originals. I like a little twang and jangle. Almost makes 90s rock palatable.
posted by Fnarf at 2:53 PM on June 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

It says "Zombie," but that's Salvation, isn't it? Or are Cranberries riffs really that samey?
posted by Sys Rq at 2:57 PM on June 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

Amazed at how many of those that I recognize. I spent the early nineties working in construction with the local rawk station always blasting from a boombox on site. The funny thing is that if I dial around in the car and hit that station now, it's still playing Nirvana, Soundgarden and Temple of the Dog as if it were still 1992.
posted by octothorpe at 3:02 PM on June 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

This kind of music is one of the only things that makes me wish I was 15-20 again...
posted by MelanieL at 3:05 PM on June 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

Honestly without looking at the titles about half the time I can't tell what song he's playing - and I know the song.

Particularly the thrash Megadeth, Metallica and Pantera.
posted by bitdamaged at 3:06 PM on June 3, 2012

weirdo, if you've got a Xbox or a PS3, an electric guitar, and live in N. America, you might like the look of Rocksmith. It's not perfect, and there were some weirdly annoying design choices made, but the note detection technology works really well and it's taken me from someone who'd never touched a guitar in his life to someone who can find his way around a fretboard pretty easily (with some bad habits that I'm only now starting to recognize and get to grips with). They're supposed to be announcing bass support for it at E3, and I think the PC version should be shipping this year.

As for the FPP, the video works so well, it took me a while to realize it was a single medley instead of a cut-together set of separate takes.
posted by figurant at 3:06 PM on June 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

Do people really want to see a guitarist in a 90's cover band practice their setlist in one key? Haha, I'll get to work on a video response of me playing the bass guitar parts.
posted by zephyr_words at 3:16 PM on June 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

For all this isn't something I'd, you know, sit and listen to more than once, he's actually done a pretty clever job of threading these together.
posted by nebulawindphone at 3:17 PM on June 3, 2012 [4 favorites]

It's been said before, but the "without" link is exactly what it sounds like to hang out at Guitar Center

Close but, I think this is what it sounds like at guitar center.
posted by zephyr_words at 3:20 PM on June 3, 2012 [23 favorites]

Bass Guitar Amplifier section.
posted by zephyr_words at 3:34 PM on June 3, 2012 [4 favorites]

If only he had better tone, I would totally watch that again. It's horrible with the drums, though, but kinda charming without. Also - wtf, no Candlebox?
posted by pazazygeek at 3:54 PM on June 3, 2012

Also - wtf, no Candlebox?

"You" is in triple meter — some kind of slow 6/8 or fast 3/4 — so it wouldn't have fit with everything else.

And if you're going for that Riffs You Couldn't Escape In High School feeling, using any other Candlebox song would be missing the point entirely.
posted by nebulawindphone at 4:02 PM on June 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

Has this bozo never heard of distortion? Does he not understand the necessity of it?
posted by Decani at 4:08 PM on June 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

Twice as impressive 'cause he's playing them left-handed.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 4:12 PM on June 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

A decade of crappy music distilled into 50 crappy riffs from 50 crappy songs played in the most crappy way possible on a crappy Epiphone copy of a Gibson ES-335. I am surprised this guy didn't implode into a black hole of suck.
posted by charlie don't surf at 4:33 PM on June 3, 2012 [3 favorites]

Too much treble, needs more mids; the audio on this (at least playing on my phone) made my head hurt.
posted by mrbill at 4:39 PM on June 3, 2012

Technically this video should be called "47 guitar riffs from the 90's and three from the late 80's I had to use as filler".

Also, no Godlike...
posted by Godwin Interjection at 4:44 PM on June 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

Cemetery Gates on a hollow body without any overdrive and without artificial harmonics is not Cemetery Gates, it's perverted rockabilly simulacrum.
posted by Rhomboid at 4:52 PM on June 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

Shut up 'n play yer fifty guitar riffs from (mostly) early 90s songs, with and without drums.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:53 PM on June 3, 2012

I am surprised this guy didn't implode into a black hole of suck.

Black hole suck
Won't you come
And wash away the rain...
posted by rory at 5:00 PM on June 3, 2012 [7 favorites]

I await the Cemetery Gates (Smiths) vs. Cemetery Gates (Pantera) guitar off.

Also, good job cds on the obligatory blanket I think this music sucks from this decade post.
posted by juiceCake at 5:08 PM on June 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

During the entire decade of the 90s, I only bought 3 musical products, the last 3 Ramones albums, and those were disappointing. This is the kind of "music" I used to hear on the radio and it would incite me to change the channel. Then eventually there was no other channel that played anything but this crap. So I turned off my radio forever. Now I have about 200Gb of music on disk, and I don't have a single song from those 50.
posted by charlie don't surf at 5:42 PM on June 3, 2012

Yeah, yeah. The decade you came of age in sucked musically.

Oh wait, no it didn't. The 90s were awesome, and I like what this guy's put together.
posted by figurant at 6:12 PM on June 3, 2012 [6 favorites]

Transitioning from White Zombie to Michael Jackson was a nice touch. There's a joke in there somewhere, but I'm not going to fish it out.
posted by drlith at 6:44 PM on June 3, 2012 [6 favorites]

Is there one with all the sax solos of the 80's? Of course there's this.
posted by Monkey0nCrack at 6:56 PM on June 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

> Moist! Wow that takes me back. For the benefit of you Americans who might not have heard of them, you're welcome.

This video contains content from EMI, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds. :/
posted by 0xdeadc0de at 7:18 PM on June 3, 2012

Worth it for making me want to listen to Soul Asylum.
posted by swift at 7:29 PM on June 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

New York's alright if you like saxophones.
posted by charlie don't surf at 7:40 PM on June 3, 2012

I think I would have appreciated this more if I didn't have the nagging feeling the whole time that whatsername from Pomplamoose was going to pop up with her stare-y eyes and sing the whole medley without taking a breath.
posted by psoas at 8:15 PM on June 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

The songs remind me pleasantly of my mid 90s explorations of tabs downloaded from OLGA.

That's more or less exactly how I learned to play guitar, and of course during this same era. I wonder for how many people, like me, that "Live Forever" solo was the first solo they ever learned to nail down.
posted by Navelgazer at 8:46 PM on June 3, 2012

I love '90s rock, but I could only get through a couple seconds of this before instinctively turning it off. There's no reason to expect that kind of music to sound good with no guitar effects, no other instruments, and at super-fast speed.
posted by John Cohen at 9:38 PM on June 3, 2012

Yeah, yeah. The decade you came of age in sucked musically.

Actually, I think only people who came of age in the 90s think this. Which is pretty 90s, actually.
posted by dirigibleman at 11:34 PM on June 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

I didn't come of age in the 90s, and I still think the 90s sucked musically. When the Pixies quit, I tuned out. Permanently.
posted by readyfreddy at 12:52 AM on June 4, 2012

Why Chris Isaak's Wicked Games in 1989?
posted by stormpooper at 3:52 AM on June 4, 2012

Few things, why did he use a camera angle that did not allow us to see his fret hands most of the time and still see lots of guitar? As people have pointed out it says 90's, but is there one after 95? Furthermore, great? I would have trouble picking 10 of them as better than good. Then again I taught guitar at a Music Center around then and worked on all of those songs for my students, and heard them over and over and over. The music was pretty weak stuff to start out with, constant repetition has only increased my disdain for them.
posted by oshburghor at 5:10 AM on June 4, 2012

During the entire decade of the 90s, I only bought 3 musical products, the last 3 Ramones albums, and those were disappointing.

This is an unusual sort of brag for anyone who claims to know anything whatsoever about music.
posted by Wolof at 6:00 AM on June 4, 2012 [6 favorites]

Few things, why did he use a camera angle that did not allow us to see his fret hands most of the time and still see lots of guitar?
--Because he doesn't care if anyone sees his fretting hand the whole time.

As people have pointed out it says 90's, but is there one after 95?
--Because it says "Early 90s" in the title of the video and in the description.

The music was pretty weak stuff to start out with
--Nuh uh!
posted by zephyr_words at 8:16 AM on June 4, 2012

> weirdo, if you've got a Xbox or a PS3, an electric guitar, and live in N. America, you might like the look of Rocksmith.

I've been waiting for that one for a long time but I don't have a game console and the version for PCs has been put back so many times it's in Duke Nukem territory by now. Wikipedia article for Rocksmith says "based on the technology in Guitar Rising." It's probably not a good sign that trying to go to www.guitarrising.com now just takes you to godaddy's buy-this-domain page. Foo.
posted by jfuller at 1:17 PM on June 4, 2012

jfuller, not wanting to come across as a complete shill but I really have a soft spot for Rocksmith. Last I heard, they were saying September for PC and overseas console releases, and it looks like they'll be demoing it for PC at E3. I suspect the delay is more down to licensing and manpower issues than any technical hurdles.

It's not a great fit for digital distribution, unfortunately, because of the required quarter-inch-jack-to-USB cable. Although it's not doing any special signal processing in there, it's really just a USB mic interface wired up to the jack. There must be other products out there that would do the job, although I suspect the Rocksmith cable is priced as low as possible. It works just fine with Garage Band if I plug it into my desktop machine.

Anyway, I love the game to bits, and I'm still playing it pretty regularly 8 months later. It takes guitar practice and makes it into the special kind of compulsive repetition you can get with a properly addictive game mechanic. It's definitely not as good as a proper guitar teacher, but it seems like an enthusiastic and good-faith attempt to try to bring newcomers to the instrument. I have no idea how much an experienced guitarist would get out of it though.
posted by figurant at 10:36 AM on June 5, 2012