I was just listening to Let Me Live and I just had to crank up the volume for the guitar solo, that just makes me bend at the knees and play the air guitar, which at my age must look strange to anybody seeing me. The dog is used to it though. That particular solo just does it to me. So much passion and melody. Hard and sweet at the same time.
So which solo makes you just have to stop what you are doing, regardless of where you are , and assume the air guitar position and jam to it?
Writing this I think about the solo in March of the Black Queen also.
Right now, See What A Fool I've Been does it for me...all of the solos and the double layered nature where it seems like there are 2-3 BHM's trading off throughout the track. Unbelievable playing!
Killer queen (Poetry in motion)
Lazy on a Sunday afternoon (Sublime)
Bohemian Rhapsody (Perfection)
Tie your mother down (Too bad he could never duplicate that solo live. One of my personal favorites)
Long away (Makes me dizzy)
Somebody to love (Sheer brilliance)
Good old fashion lover boy (Smooth baby)
Dead on time (Dead on!)
Hammer to fall (Fantastic!)
Well, I don't get the knee bending thing(though, the image I had in my mind's eye, after the the lovely description, was fairly amusing), but, I do get serious freaking goosebumps from most of those mentioned here.
When I was youthful, I used to get a lot of flack, because, while everyone else was crowing about Eddie VanHalen, I was crowing about Brian May. Brian didn't just whack about on the chords...he played MELODIES, and, made that guitar do wonderous things!
Eddie van halen will alway's be remembered as a guitar god before brian may, and that's a fact. It doesn't mean you have to like eddie better, but to say brian's playing is more timeless is wrong. He's still one of the best.
You've both got a point but consider - Eddie's playing didn't change too much. It was the production of the music as a whole that gave it a particular sound (the 80s sound if you will). He himself was still playing in his own bent.
As for Brian, the same could be said. The real change with Brian was again in the production. Earlier on, Brian himself said he didn't add much reverb or echo to his solos like most folks (consider the hollow room sound in some of them like Bohemian Rhapsody) but by Innuendo he'd long since recanted.
But yeah, what the fuck was I trying to say.... uhm.... playing wise, they're both pretty timeless and true to themselves, though I think Brian in particular did try to expand his horizons a bit on The Miracle. Whether or not their music sounds dated really comes down to the rest of the song, I think.
