Auslander (Living Colour ‘Stain’)

Vernon Reid is awesome. He rarely gets involved in something that doesn’t leave me with a tremendous feeling of horrible envy in my gut. What a talented guy. Whilst I spent most of the year reciting the Leave It Alone riff it’s Auslander where I think he’s on another planet. It just seemed so original at the time. Dissonant and groovy.

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Sober (Tool ‘Undertow’)

Tool are definitely one of my fave metal bands, over the years they’ve become masters of intelligent and emotional music. That seems to suit me very nicely as I strive for that in my own music, unfortunately considerably less successfully than Tool! Adam Jones is incredible at layering up such brilliant guitar lines. And there’s always some kind of sound you’ve never heard before. I particularly like what he does with clean tones and his displaced rhythms. Such a very, very underrated guitar player!

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Creep (Radiohead ‘Pablo Honey’)

OK, this single was released in 92 but it didn’t really chart until 93. It’s impossible to have somehow avoided the very nice chord work here. And those crunch and fuzz tones are delicious.

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Ordinary World (Duran Duran ‘The Wedding Album’)

I can clearly remember people having a very sarcastic opinion of this track back in 93. I wonder if they’re so cynical now? Maybe I’ll be criticised for including it here but is there anyone anywhere that can’t sing those guitar lines? It’s not a question of technique, or attitude… it’s all about music and making people feel something. Personally for me, being a Zappa fan, I knew that Warren Cuccurullo was an awesome player of freakish ability. Not for a second would I ever question whether he’s an awesome guitar player. The message from Warren’s playing to me was very different to those cynical and rather unknowledgable guitar players interpretations. It may only be a handful of notes but there still isn’t a single note here that doesn’t drip with emotion. There’s been a few occassions in the studio where I’ve done something I thought was nice… only to realise that it wasn’t that far away from being this! And I bet I’m not the only one either. If I need further justification for including it here’s some pretty nice chord changes too.

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Heart Shaped Box (Nirvana ‘In Utero’)

This song is loaded with just about every single riff and sound that grunge was made of. For me, I think Nirvana, I think Heart Shaped Box. There’s some brilliant layers and double tracking here. And just listen to that fuzz. That’s some gorgeous fuzz!!

I’ve really struggled to get 5 this week. I think I was maybe playing too much Doom and Ultima Underworld 2 in 1993, so if you guys can enlighten me with some great guitar from that year I will be most grateful. So, to make up for my shortcomings 1994 will be online very shortly!

Paul.