Part 5: The History of Rock and Roll as Pertains to the Guitar Riff?

See the previous entries here:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

As you can see from our previous entries, the guitar riff has been a major part of music history. By the time the 1970s rolled along, all those influences had resulted in people being more willing to explore the music and to do so without boundaries.

And, they killed it. Yup… They’ll tell you dirty rotten lies, but they killed it. They killed the guitar riff.

This is where it died. It was horrible!

The murderers are a band called King Crimson. The genre they’d create would become known as “Progressive Rock.” They no longer thought in terms of a guitar riff. They thought with fancy terms such as ‘motif’ and ‘phrases.’

Now, to be fair, those could be considered guitar riffs. However, the new genre didn’t rely on the old ways and explored the new ways. They changed their artistic direction and that genre split off and much of it doesn’t have any guitar riffs at all.

Don’t believe me? Hell, let’s just have a listen of their song In the Court of the Crimson King from their album by the same title:

Hear the operatic influence? In ten minutes, when you think back to that song – you will almost certainly not be thinking about the guitar driving the song, providing the simple overtone and compelling you to dance.

Crimson King is a bunch of murderers, is what they are!

Go on… I’ll wait… Go back and listen to it again. I told you that they murdered it! But, thankfully, it not only didn’t stay dead – it even lived on in a genre they pioneered.

Ever hear of a band called Queen? Think carefully, ’cause when you remember those songs you might just be remembering some guitar riffs.

Here, listen to Fat Bottom Girls by Queen:

Queen - Fat Bottomed Girls (Official Video)

That’s right – it kicks in at just about the 30 second mark. The riff had risen from the dead in Prog Rock. The 80s would murder the hell out of it again and with a different set of suspects. But King Crimson marks the first time the guitar riff had been really murdered and it spawned a whole horrible genre called Progressive Rock.

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