The Smiley Smile Message Board

by that I mean a song with a great riff but the rest of the song is meh. Two I can think of are "Sun King" on Abbey Road (Beatles) and "Fire" on SmileySmile. The guitar riff on Sun King could have been used on another song and the basic refrain of "Fire" sounds a lot like Cream. Maybe they could have used the rights to use it as a backing track to one of the songs on "Wheels of Fire".

Any others?

by that I mean a song with a great riff but the rest of the song is meh. Two I can think of are "Sun King" on Abbey Road (Beatles) and "Fire" on SmileySmile. The guitar riff on Sun King could have been used on another song and the basic refrain of "Fire" sounds a lot like Cream. Maybe they could have used the rights to use it as a backing track to one of the songs on "Wheels of Fire".

Any others?

Isn't the Sun King riff stolen from Fleetwood Mac?

Anyway, there are probably thousands of wasted riffs on heavy metal albums. Many bands have great riffs, but no clue on how to construct songs around them.

EDIT: Nevermind

what

I can't do better than that.

[Well I could but why bother?]

"Nevermind" :lol

Doubtful I can come close to touching   " what "  either.

Every time I hear "Bird Dog" with that cool guitar intro, I expect some rocking song. Ditto "Wake Up Little Susie". Everlys had good guitar riffs, even in ballads but their blend lets it down imo.

What, nobody's got any example where they liked guitar riff & the rest of choon is boring?

To add, "Ride a white swan" by T. Rex. Not bad guitarist but wouldn't say he's blessed with good set of pipes. Usually, If I don't like the voice of the artist, to me that is that.

Rolling Stones' "19th Nervous Breakdown" & "Child of the Moon". 2 of their weakest singles. If they came up with interesting melodies around those guitar bits. Mick & Keith could do better.

Apparently not!

To take a different tack, it's no sweat overdoing a riff, however good, but making sparing use of it is a rare quality.

I'm thinking of those thrilling eight bars in the Smile and BWPS versions of "Wind Chimes"  (here at 2:33):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjxK9ojmAT8

Just there and nowhere else. Less is more, indeed!



 

I like Smiley Smile "Wind Chimes". I, maybe naively, revived this thread thinking it would be interesting to everybody as those who listen to music a lot, with diff. taste in music, there'd be plenty examples of songs with wasted riff.
Well then, what about good songs but you don't like guitar riff?

"Dance dance dance" - it's about shakers :3d
"Along comes Mary"
"A world of our own" by the Seekers
"Epistle to Dippy" by Donovan - the riff which played 1st by guitar, (shortly) violins, then both.
"Rain" (45) by San Francisco psych band Kak
"You really got me" by the Kinks - Dave came up with better guitar riff in retread.
"Mrs. Robinson" - terrible "fugitive in jungles" melody. at least this is the picture I get hearing that riff
"Feel a whole lot better" by Tom Petty

Back to topic:

"Shang-a-Lang" by Bay City Rollers (travesty with nifty guitar riff)
"Had to be me" by Ohio Express
"Everybody's talkin'" (nice riff but Nilsson sounding gritty & grating in bad way)
"Expo '86" by Death Cab for Cutie (the lead singer has good voice but as a whole this song is too dark to my taste. I like that riff)
"So Lonely" by the Hollies (I like the A-side "Look through any window" plus here Graham Nash ruins it with his boring voice. They shouldn't let him sing any song imo. Graham can't beat Allan Clarke for good)

By the time Black Sabbath released Never Say Die in 1978, they were pretty much spinning their wheels from a creative standpoint, and it wound up being the weakest album from the original lineup (and the last).  But, there's a song called Air Dance on the album that has such a promising intro riff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWNDCSyl0fM

However, the song quickly switches gears to a slow, almost jazzy song.  It's not a bad song per se, but it never fulfills the promise of that original intro riff.