seriously, the most reconizable riff in history is...

[thetroy]

Eye of the Tiger!

[semagic]

Wow! alot of opinions... great choices! (I know RacerX it's "recognizable")
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned "day tripper".

[MadJack]

rush-workin man...fly by night...
day tripper came to mind with satisfaction ala April Wine

[ozzuk1]

Eye of the Tiger is a good one, what about House of the Rising Sun?

Iron Man Paranoid are both pretty recognisable aswell...

Ozz

[MadJack]

Rossini's William Tell overture!

[jgcable]

I Feel Fine ---The Beatles

[diablomozart]

hmm...smoke n the water eh?...blackmore has said he tuned his guitar down a half step, and played it using perfect 4ths starting on the 4th fret of the a and d strings...also the rhythm needs to be plucked not picked...try it out and you'll find it is exact...d.m.

[lerxstcat]

hmm...smoke n the water eh?...blackmore has said he tuned his guitar down a half step, and played it using perfect 4ths starting on the 4th fret of the a and d strings...also the rhythm needs to be plucked not picked...try it out and you'll find it is exact...d.m.

Blackmore also said that he had to drink a fifth of Jack before every show to play down to the level of the rest of Purple. He also said he liked to have an enema before the show. As far as the plucking and 4ths go you are right though.

[horns666]

smoke on the water..

my first riff ever..and the only one my dad knows how to play....he still remembers it..when I showed him over 25 years ago..

[diablomozart]

Blackmore also said that he had to drink a fifth of Jack before every show to play down to the level of the rest of Purple. He also said he liked to have an enema before the show. As far as the plucking and 4ths go you are right though.

...d.m.

[jgcable]

Smoke on the Water is a great example but.... is it the most recognizable guitar riff in history???
Nope.
Kids born in the 80's and up don't know the song
Adults born in the 1930's (like my parents) aren't familiar with that song. They might have heard it but they wouldn't know the title or who did it.

That leaves a fairly small group.

The most rocognizable guitar riff needs to have the following:
Universal appeal
World wide notoriety
It needs to appear timeless (not connected to any age group)
It can't be connected to any genre of music.

Let me give you a few FAR FETCHED examples of guitar riffs that are more recognizable than Smoke on the Water

The guitar riff for the theme song in 90210 towards the end of the song.
That guitar riff in the theme song for The Brady Bunch when the show would start.
The riff in Play that Funky Music White Boy
The riff in Rock and Roll Part 1 by Gary Glitter. It is played at every sporting event in the world along with:
We Will Rock You
We Are the Champion
The opening riff to Welcome to the Jungle
I can't think of any at the moment.. but I bet there are some staggeringly popular guitar riffs that have appeared in TV commercials.

[diablomozart]

i would think it would be the melody to "happy birthday" myself...or some old chinese traditional folk song...there are a lot more chinamen than there are the rest of us...lmao...d.m.

[jgcable]

I bet the guitar riff in Staying Live by the BeeGee's is more recognizable than Smoke on the Water.

[jgcable]

i would think it would be the melody to "happy birthday" myself...or some old chinese traditional folk song...there are a lot more chinamen than there are the rest of us...lmao...d.m.

Yea but when he says riffs.. I would assume he is talking about a riff that was written for and performed on a guitar.

[diablomozart]

true true...i dunno...want a really famous riff?...look at album sales...pink floyds dark side of the moon, ac/dc's back in black, or michael jackson's thriller...while guns and roses was big...it's sales didnt get anywhere near thriller...so maybe the answer is "beat it"?...not to mention weird al's parody "eat it"...lol...d.m.