Stegzy's Music Project

The Best Air Guitar Album in the World…Ever – Various Artists

This is every Dad’s favourite compilation from the nineties and noughties. Glove boxes throughout the UK had a copy of this album in it and jukeboxes in dodgy pubs were required by law to have this album also.

As much a part of pre-MP3 music culture as Tubular Bells, Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds and other coffee table albums, The Best Air Guitar Album in the World…Ever is one of those compilations that seem to be in every collection. It’s not hard to see why. All the traditionally popular bands are here; Queen, Def Leppard, Skynyrd and Blur but there are also bands and songs that are missing – Stiltskin’s Inside and Mountain’s Nantucket Sleighride for example, surely two of the most prolific air guitar riffs ever? Also there are some bands whose inclusion seems to only be to hook the younger generation in, Blur and Robbie Williams for example.

Still as compilations go, this is one of the better more agreeable ones.

The listing goes something like this:

We Will Rock You/Tie Your Mother Down – Queen; Smoke on the Water – Deep Purple;  Song 2 – Blur; Walk This Way – Run DMC & Aerosmith;  Layla – Derek & The Dominos; You Really Got Me – Kinks
Since You’ve Been Gone – Rainbow; Photograph – Def Leppard; Wild Thing – Troggs; Rebel Rebel – David Bowie; Where were you – Jeff Beck; Rocky Mountain Way – Joe Walsh; Sultans of Swing – Dire Straits; Wipeout – Surfaris; Monkey Wrench – Foo Fighters; Boys are Back in Town – Thin Lizzy; Paranoid – Black Sabbath; Surfing with the Alien – Joe Satriani; Whatever You Want – Status Quo; Freebird – Lynryd Skynyrd; Voodoo Chile – Jimi Hendrix Experience; My Generation – The Who; 20th Century Boy – T-Rex; All Shook Up – Paul McCartney; Johnny B Goode – Chuck Berry; Hash Pipe – Weezer; Apache – The Shadows; Ace of Spades – Motorhead; Summertime Blues – Eddie Cochran; All Right Now – Free; Let Me Entertain You – Robbie Williams; Oh Well – Fleetwood Mac; For Whom the Bell Tolls – Metallica; Gimme All your Lovin – ZZ Top; More than a Feeling – Boston; Crossroads – Cream; Down Down – Status Quo; Can’t Get Enough – Bad Company; Here I Go Again – Whitesnake; Teenage Dirtbag – Wheatus; Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen

Posted in Various Artists

Tags: aerosmith, best of, blur, Compilation, compilations, cream, david bowie, deep purple, Def Leppard, derek and the dominos, jimi, jimi hendrix, metallica, queen, rainbow, run dmc, T-Rex, The Kinks, the who, Troggs, weezer, wheatus