95   "Omaha"
Moby Grape (1967)

This San Francisco band's original lineup was the Summer of Love's biggest hope, and it's clear they fought their way there. On their best single, Jerry Miller, Peter Lewis and Skip Spence compete in a three-way guitar battle for two and a quarter red-hot minutes, each of them charging at Spence's song from different angles, no one yielding to anyone else.


"Omaha" from Moby Grape (Sundazed)


Moby Grape performing "Omaha" live

96   "New Day Rising"
Hü sker Dü (1985)

Eighties hardcore punk was never more simple or stubbornly hopeful: three chords, a three-word chorus and magnificent speed-of-light hammering that never seems to quit but is over way too soon. Bob Mould beats his strings like a homicidal Johnny Ramone, but there's no mistaking the battered-church-bell ring in his stacks of chords and his stressed-amp roar.


"New Day Rising" from New Day Rising (SST)


Hü sker Dü performing "New Day Rising" live

97   "No One Knows"
Queens of the Stone Age (2002)

With this enduring throwback to the T. Rex beat, QOTSA guitarist and overall mastermind Josh Homme found the sweet spot between hooky hard rock and the pulverizing metal he'd grown up playing. More than a few of the last half-decade's modern-rock bands have taken their cues from this hybrid of downtuned menace and AM-radio sugar frosting.


"No One Knows" from Songs for the Deaf (Interscope)


Queens of the Stone Age performing "No One Knows" live in 2005

See all of the 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All TIme