Best Air Guitar Songs

Ten songs that make grown adults play an instrument that is not there, in public, with conviction.

Entries
10
Category
Music
Updated
  1. An acoustic slide and a bottleneck on a piano lid in a recording studio at night.

    10. Layla

    Derek and the Dominos · 1970

    Eric Clapton wrote it about his love for Pattie Boyd, then married to George Harrison, and Duane Allman's slide guitar takes the riff somewhere else. Then a piano coda shows up and the air guitarists have to switch. Clapton married Boyd in 1979.

  2. A lakeside casino building on fire with smoke drifting over calm water and mountains.

    09. Smoke on the Water

    Deep Purple · 1972

    Deep Purple watched the Montreux Casino burn down during a Frank Zappa show after someone fired a flare gun, then wrote a song about it with four notes everyone can play. Guitar stores have begged customers to stop. Air guitar is the only safe version.

  3. A desert hotel at dusk with two electric guitars leaning against the lobby door.

    08. Hotel California

    Eagles · 1977

    Don Felder and Joe Walsh trade the closing solo back and forth before locking into harmony lines, which means a proper air version needs two people. It won the Grammy for Record of the Year. Most people do it alone anyway and play both parts.

  4. A black funeral bell hanging in a dark arena with an amplifier stack below it.

    07. Back in Black

    AC/DC · 1980

    Recorded months after Bon Scott died, with Brian Johnson as the new singer, it's a tribute that just happens to have one of the most recognizable riffs ever. The album is one of the best-selling of all time. Angus Young's schoolboy uniform is optional for air play.

  5. A steam train rushing off the rails into a stadium full of empty seats with a polka-dot guitar on the tracks.

    06. Crazy Train

    Ozzy Osbourne · 1980

    Randy Rhoads's riff and solo on Blizzard of Ozz made him a guitar hero before he died in a plane crash at 25 in 1982. The riff is in every stadium, every guitar store and every attempt to look cool. It is very hard to play it badly in the air.

  6. A golden record floating in space beside a guitar, distant stars and a planet below.

    05. Johnny B. Goode

    Chuck Berry · 1958

    The opening riff is the template every rock guitarist learned from, and the song is about a country kid whose guitar playing gets him noticed. NASA put it on the Voyager Golden Record in 1977. It is currently the only air guitar song outside the solar system.

  7. A homemade red guitar made of fireplace wood on a chair inside a car with the windows down.

    04. Bohemian Rhapsody

    Queen · 1975

    Brian May plays the solo on a guitar he built with his father from old fireplace wood, and then the song turns into a headbanging section. Wayne's World put it back to No. 2 in America in 1992. One song, six minutes, three separate air instruments.

  8. A huge outdoor stage with three electric guitars on stands and a lone bird flying over the lights.

    03. Free Bird

    Lynyrd Skynyrd · 1973

    It starts as a slow goodbye and turns into one of the longest guitar outros in rock, more than four minutes of three guitars trading off. People still shout for it at concerts by unrelated artists. Air guitarists need to pace themselves.

  9. A striped guitar body propped on a Marshall amp with smoke curling off the strings.

    02. Eruption

    Van Halen · 1978

    Producer Ted Templeman overheard Eddie Van Halen practicing it for a club gig and put it on the album. It is 1:42 of two-handed tapping that changed 1980s guitar. Eddie said he played it wrong and could have done better. Your air version is flawless.

  10. A Sunset Strip house at night with an open garage, a top hat on an amplifier and a red guitar cable trailing out.

    01. Sweet Child o' Mine

    Guns N' Roses · 1988

    Slash was playing a circus-style warm-up exercise and pulling faces at Steven Adler, someone said play that again, and within an hour it was a song. It became the band's only US No. 1. Your fingers know the intro even if you have never touched a guitar.

Honorable mentions

  • A barracuda fish silhouetted against a stage spotlight with a guitar in the foreground.

    Barracuda

    Heart · 1977

    Ann and Nancy Wilson wrote it angry after a promoter asked about a fake rumor their own label had stirred up about them. That galloping riff is fury in guitar form. Air guitarists gallop accordingly.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A long staircase rising into clouds, a guitar store wall of hanging guitars at its foot.

    Stairway to Heaven

    Led Zeppelin · 1971

    Eight minutes long, and Jimmy Page's solo doesn't arrive until about the six-minute mark, so the air guitarist stands around with an imaginary recorder for most of it. Wayne's World made guitar stores famous for banning it. Too long to wait for a payoff.

Every list.
On tap.

No newsletter. Point your AI at our public MCP server, or follow the RSS feed. New lists show up in both.

Get the MCP RSS