Though I'm no stranger to rock and roll, I was unable to recognize all the riffs, so I copy/pasted the below list from the Brodie Cumming web site for reference:

1 Stairway To Heaven - Led Zeppelin
2 Smoke on the Water - Deep Purple
3 Sweet Child O' Mine - Guns & Roses
4 Wanted Dead Or Alive - Bon Jovi
5 Layla - Eric Clapton
6 Black Magic Woman - Santana
7 No More Mr. Nice Guy - Alice Cooper
8 Beat It - Michael Jackson
9 Crazy Train - Ozzy Osbourne
10 Dr. Feelgood - Motely Crue
11 Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
12 Sweet Home Alabama - Lynyrd Skynyrd
13 Cowboys From Hell - Pantera
14 Enter Sandman - Metallica
15 Mister Sandman - Chet Atkins
16 One Step Closer - Linkin Park
17 Back In Black - AC/DC
18 Purple Haze - Jimi Hendrix
19 Black Dog - Led Zeppelin
20 Crazy On You - Heart
21 Immigrant Song - Led Zeppelin
22 Bulls On Parade - Rage Against the Machine
23 Unchained - Van Halen
24 Bad To The Bone - George Thorogood
25 Johnny B. Goode - Chuck Berry
26 Surfing with the Alien - Joe Satriani
27 Money For Nothing - Dire Straits
28 Cult Of Personality - Living Colour
29 Start Me Up - Rolling Stones
30 Sunshine of your Love - Cream
31 Runnin' with the Devil - Van Halen
32 Hells Bells - AC/DC
33 Foxy Lady - Jimi Hendrix
34 Frankenstein - The Edgar Winter Group
35 Aqualung - Jethro Tull
36 In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida - Iron Butterfly
37 Carry On Wayward Son - Kansas
38 (Don't Fear) The Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult
39 Cemetary Gates - Pantera
40 Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love - Van Halen
41 Walk This Way - Aerosmith
42 Tonight 'm Gonna Rock You (Tonight) - Spinal Tap
43 Life in the Fast Lane - Eagles
44 Come As You Are - Nirvana
45 Zero - Smashing Pumpkins
46 Nothin' But A Good Time - Poison
47 Round n Round - Ratt
48 It's Not Love - Dokken
49 Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo - Rick Derringer
50 Norwegian Wood - Beatles
51 Under The Bridge - Red Hot Chili Peppers
52 Kashmir - Led Zeppelin
53 Train Kept A-Rolling - The Yardbirds
54 Blackbird - Beatles
55 Eye of the Tiger - Survivor
56 All Along the Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix
57 Brown Eyed Girl - Van Morrison
58 Ace Of Spades - Motorhead
59 Breaking The Law - Judas Priest
60 King of the Hill Theme - Brian David Blush/Roger Meade Clyne
61 All Right Now - Free
62 Are You Gonna Go My Way - Lenny Kravitz
63 When I Come Around - Green Day
64 Trilogy Suite Op.5 - Yngwie Malmsteen
65 Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen
66 Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison
67 Day Tripper - Beatles
68 Panama - Van Halen
69 Born To Be Wild - Steppenwolf
70 More Than A Feeling - Boston
71 Cat Scratch Fever - Ted Nugent
72 Bark At The Moon - Ozzy Osbourne
73 Hair Of The Dog - Nazareth
74 No More Tears - Ozzy Osbourne
75 Just A Girl - No Doubt
76 Iron Man - Black Sabbath
77 Sweet Emotion - Aerosmith
78 Pride And Joy - Stevie Ray Vaughn
79 Sharp Dressed Man - ZZ Top
80 Machine Head - Bush
81 Black Or White - Michael Jackson
82 Sultans Of Swing - Dire Straits
83 Hey Joe - Jimi Hendrix
84 Whole Lotta Love - Led Zeppelin
85 10 Years Gone - Led Zeppelin
86 Wild Thing - The Troggs
87 Owner Of A Lonely Heart - Yes
88 Magic Carpet Ride - Steppenwolf
89 I Love Rock N ' Roll - Joan Jett & the Blackhearts
90 Brown Sugar - Rolling Stones
91 La Bamba - Los Lobos
92 China Grove - Doobie Brothers
93 You Really Got Me - Van Halen
94 Wipe Out - The Surfaris
95 House Of The Rising Sun - The Animals
96 Dust In The Wind - Kansas
97 Rhiannon - Fleetwood Mac
98 Susie Q - Creedence Clearwater Revival
99 Voodoo Child - Jimi Hendrix
100 Eruption - Van Halen

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida - Iron Butterfly
Apache - The Sugarhill Gang
Made You Look - Nas
Get By - Talib Kweli
Just A Friend - Biz Markie
Shimmy Shimmy Ya - ODB
Award Tour - A Tribe Called Quest
Fuck With Dre Day - Dr. Dre
Throw Some D's - Rich Boy
This Is Why I'm Hot - MIMS
It's Goin' Down - Young Joc
Snap Ya Fingers - Lil' Jon
Planet Rock - Afrika Bambaataa
Push It - Salt n' Pepa

Yes, Iron Butterfly and I have though of a few more since I posted and I will probably think of many more. I think a best of list is very subjective to the list makers personal taste. I mean if you hate Nirvana, for example, you will not put Teen Spirit on a best of list. It doesn't make it any less of a good riff you just personally don't like Nirvana. Like choosing a favorite song. I would be hard pressed to pick one favorite song or one favorite band even because my moods change from week to week. This week it's death metal(Morbid Angel, Deicide, Suffocation ect.). Last week it was black metal(Venom, Mayhem, Darkthrone ect.). And next week it may be something else. Depending on which week you ask you may get an entirely different answer. I wrote about this condition one time and I coined the term "multiple music personality disorder" or m.m.p.d. for short. This is an affliction that render the person broke from trying to keep up with and collect so many different genres of music. I blame the internet for making all these obscure band readily available. Thanks for the background on the Black Sabbath riff. Oh that reminds me that riff in the middle of Chapel Of Ghouls(Morbid Angel) and Crazy Train(Ozzy) and Whiplash-Metallica,now thats a huge riff and Holy Diver(Dio) and The Trooper(Iron Maiden) and..........................................................

No angry post here. savethecircle has added some good ones. I also forgot Zeppelin's Black Dog, and one of the very early, Iron Butterfly's In-a-gadda-da-vida.

save, you might find this interesting. You say about Black Sabbath, "I swear that riff invokes the devil himself." That's because it's built on the "tritone" interval. These are 2 notes, separated by 3 whole steps. In medieval times, the interval was generally banned.

From Wikipedia,

"Because of that original symbolic association with the devil and its avoidance, this interval came to be heard in Western cultural convention as suggesting an "evil" connotative meaning in music. Today the interval continues to suggest an "oppressive", "scary", or "evil" sound. However, suggestions that singers were excommunicated or otherwise punished by the Church for invoking this interval are likewise fanciful."

Amazing how music invokes images. You have a point about "Stairway to Heaven." The reason I said you shouldn't play it in a guitar store is this, it's easy to play. Beginners learn it, go shopping for a guitar and play those opening chords in the store. The staff of the store are so sick of that tune, they will give you dirty looks, no kidding.

These are fixed, Eric. Please take them off your *dead list.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Texas-Chainsaw-Massacre-Trailer

http://www.videosift.com/video/Iron-Butterfly-In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

http://www.videosift.com/video/Dire-Straits-Walk-of-Life

http://www.videosift.com/video/Dobie-Grey-Drift-Away

http://www.videosift.com/video/Pink-Floyd-Astronomy-Domine

http://www.videosift.com/video/A-Flock-of-Seagulls-And-I-Ran-So-Far-Away-80s

http://www.videosift.com/video/Wizard-of-Oz-Trailer-A-Trip-Down-Memory-Lane

http://www.videosift.com/video/REM-Man-On-The-Moon




Thanks for your diligence!

Sc