Most of you know i love guitar like no other. Classic Guitar, Spanish Guitar, the lot. I mean a lot of people like guitar just to play say Paul Murray acoustic songs for sing-along.. and thats awesome too.. but i'm into the REALLY ARTISTIC stuff! So anyway, i thought i'd list to you my favourite guitar solos… I recommend you try out ALL of these. And by the way, forget Van Halen, forget his talent on just "playing guitar well"… It's about writing the guitar solos. Van Halen just equips his guitar with a 1,000 effects and strums it.. that's nothing.

1. John Petrucci with "Lost Without You" - My absolute favorite guitar solo. Seriously, absolutely spectacular. Well, the whole song is kind of a solo; an instrumental with just guitar, bass, and drums. John Petrucci is the guitarist for Dream Theater, so if you see any guitar solos dont by Dream Theater, John Petrucci performed it. However, Lost Without You is a song from John's solo album. The song is blues, and it provides such power in the guitar I cry.

2. Dream Theater with "Hollow Years" (Live at Budokan, Tokyo) - Not sure if I should have included this, as it's only the live version in which the guitar solo is absolutely beautiful. You can watch this on DVD, or in a rare case get the song off the net. John Petrucci plays a spanish guitar at the top, so so slow and powerful; and then after the song has progressed quite a bit, there is an AMAZINGLY SPECTACULAR guitar solo, another tear-bringer.

3. Bon Jovi with "Dry County" - Ok, you all know I adore Bon Jovi. Well, their guitarist, Richie Sambora, is beyond words in his quality guitar-screaming. Dry County was released in 1992 under their album Keep the Faith, and goes for just under 10 minutes. Don't be mistaken by the solo! There are actually two solos, the first isn't so good but then after a bass rhythm/drum rhythm another solo takes place. This solo is very classic-rock style, I absolutely love it!

- Also, Lynyard Skynard with "Free Bird" - A really cool and classical-rock song, with a few-minute long solo. A little repetitive, but really good!

4. Joe Satriani with "Satch Boogie" - Also #55 on a top 100 guitar solos album I downloaded. Joe plays much like John Petrucci, in fact they've gone on tour together (with Steve Vai) in the G3 Concert. This song has such fun in it, really quite awesome.

- Also John Petrucci with "Damage Control" - A lot like Satch Boogie, so these two are together.

5. Dream Theater with "The Glass Prison" - Dream Theater has been around since 1989, performing Metallica style music up until recent years when they've seriously gone tons times better. Dream Theater is a Progressive Rock band, pretty much they mix many genre's together and their songs have different parts to them. Their music is so fine-brushed and theatrical it's unexplainable, and I am convinced there's no band like them. One of their albums, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, has 6 songs, yet 14 tracks. How does that make sense, you ask? Well, their last song (or "degree") goes for 42 minutes, and is split into 8 parts. All the tracks fit together seamlessly, however they can also be listened to separately. The Glass Prison was one of their heaviest songs, and most popular. Around 10 minutes in (out of 14), there is a fast and awesome bass rhythm, and then a screaming guitar solo (accompanied by a keyboard solo; a bit like a play-off). One of the first songs to get me into Guitar.

6. Bon Jovi with "Next 100 Years" - This song doesn't deserve to be in 6th place, it really needed to be in the top 3. Unfortunately the other beat it. Next 100 Years isn't such a popular song, however the unexpected "encore" to the song around 4-5 minutes in is really, REALLY fun to listen to.

7. Bon Jovi with "Good Guys don't always wear White" - A classic rock song, released on Bon Jovi's "unreleased material" album, and the guitar solo is really quite fun.

8. James LaBrie with "Crucify" - James Labrie is the lead singer for Dream Theater, and has released a few solo albums. John Petrucci actually performed this solo, playing in James Labrie's solo albums. This has a really heavy guitar solo, quite awesome.

- Also James LaBrie with "Alone" - A lot like Crucify, different but the same style and likingness. So these two are together.

9. Liquid Tension Experiment with "Paradigm Shift" - LTE is quite hard to explain; they're actually Dream Theater, but as a "Side Project", in which they try out different genre's of music. John Petrucci also has a 10 minute guitar solo (a bit like Van Halens Eruption but much better; with some really-fast classical pieces like flight of the bumblebee at the end), in which he implements the guitar on this song. Definitely worth a listen.

10. Masterplan with "Into the Arena" - Masterplan was a result of searching for "Bands like Dream Theater". They aren't theatrical, yet they have the same chromey feel to them. This guitar solo is really quite good.

I probably have forgotten many songs that deserve being on this list, but that's their fault. Look, I recommend getting songs from these artists:

Bon Jovi / Richie Sambora

Dream Theater / John Petrucci / James LaBrie

Joe Satriani

Masterplan

Eric Clapton

Eric Johnson

The obvious guitar solos like Led Zeppelins "Stairway to Heaven" was not mentioned here, because I'd only like to introduce you to the less-well-known songs. I'd really like to hear what you thought of these songs if you got a hold of them… mention which song it was (or artist if you got a load of their songs) and what you thought of it.

Regards

Rhys Andrews