As long as rock’n’roll continues to thrive (which it will) the guitar solo will never die. There’s nothing quite like hearing someone absolutely tear a guitar to pieces mid-song. The sensation of hearing a great solo is like a form of primal excitement, and it’s a feeling that’s shared across all forms of rock music. From punk to hard rock to black metal to psych-rock, there’s never been a shortage of impressive shredders stepping into the spotlight, and this last decade was no exception.
It’d be an immense challenge to numerically rank the best solos of the 2010s, given the variety of approaches one can take with their solo and the variations between genres. However, we compiled the 20 best we’ve heard in the last 10 years into this list. We made sure to include solos from death metal pioneers, punk rock savants, thrash legends, djent technicians, and everything in between. It was a tough call and some hard choices were made, but here are our picks.