Name: Top 10 Most Air Guitar Rock Songs Of All Time
Uploaded: 2025-06-17T15:40:57.000Z
Duration: 12 min 12 s
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Welcome to WatchMojo, and today, we're counting down our picks for the rock songs that don't require you to actually have a guitar in your hands to rock out.

Number 10 – Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana Featuring perhaps the most instantly recognizable guitar riff of all time, Kurt Cobain's Magnum Opus is commonly regarded as one of the greatest rock songs ever recorded, although you'd be forgiven for hearing the resemblance to

Smells Like Teen Spirit never lets up for a second, consisting of five straight minutes of defiant, wall-to-wall moshing, despite its now-iconic status.

Cobain himself initially referred to its timeless riff as cliché, to which bassist Chris Novoselic agreed.

Novoselic likely regretted speaking his mind, as Cobain then forced him and drummer Dave

Grohl to play it repeatedly for 90 minutes.

Luckily, unlike Chris, we're not being punished.

No, we are choosing to strum Teen Spirit for hours on end!

Number 9 – Money For Nothing, Dire Straits If you can muster the zen-like patience necessary to make it through this song's slow-burn, minute-and-a-half-long intro, then you'll be treated to an all-timer of a rock riff.

As synths bubble and an uncredited sting repeatedly declares that he wants his MTV, you might think to yourself, when is this thing gonna take off?

You'll be sorry you ever doubted Straits' frontman Mark Knopfler's considerable prowess.

It's possible that you'll even find yourself replaying that first beat drop over and over again.

But we'd highly suggest sticking out the entire song for more killer guitar licks, courtesy of the underrated Knopfler.

Not that we feel it'll take much convincing.

Number 8 – Purple Haze, Jimi Hendrix Look, there's a reason that Jimi Hendrix is regarded as the guitar god to end all guitar gods.

Just check out Purple Haze, a pitch-perfect showcase for his otherworldly skills on the instrument.

In fact, when producer Chas Chandler first heard Hendrix toying with the riff, he claimed to have been knocked out, and without the rest of the song having been composed, declared that it was single material.

Chandler clearly knew what the rest of us didn't yet, as Purple Haze became a smash hit, helping to establish the soft-spoken guitarist as a superstar and setting the stage for hard rock as a commercially viable sensation.

Number 7 – Master of Puppets, Metallica You didn't think we'd put together an air guitar list without including Metallica, did you?

These giants of heavy metal are highly prolific, boasting an extensive back catalog that contains some of the heaviest and most quintessential guitar riffs ever composed.

So that made it especially hard to choose.

Do we pick one of the hits like Enter Sandman, or a beloved cult favorite like The Disturbing

That owes to the fact that it contains a little bit of everything that makes Metallica, well,

It's got punishing riffs, a complex multi-part arrangement, and face-melting solos.

Number 6 – Back in Black, ACDC It seems fair to say that this song is a far cry from the technical complexity of Master of Puppets, and just so it's abundantly clear.

We think that ACDC have reliably delivered muscular, head-banging, air-guitar-worthy rock for over 50 years.

The simplicity of the guitar work on Back in Black is a major part of its enduring magnetism, teaching generations of rockers that you don't need to be Joe Satriani to properly rock out.

Take it from Metal Hammer Magazine's initial review of the song in 1983.

They called Back in Black a song that appeals to everybody, from dads to dudes, to little old ladies beating noisy kids over the heads with their sticks.

Number 5 – Crazy Train, Ozzy Osbourne After supplying the world with some of its most iconic proto-metal riffs during his tenure as the lead singer of Black Sabbath, Osbourne embarked on a massively successful recording career.

Thankfully, Ozzy failed to derail and continued to churn out some of the greatest, most influential heavy metal the world had ever known.

Case in point, Crazy Train was Ozzy's first single off his first solo album.

Of course, he didn't do it all by himself.

Ozzy benefited tremendously from the nimble fingers of guitarist Randy Rhoads, who died tragically in a 1982 plane crash, aged just 25.

So whenever you're shredding to Crazy Train, be sure to open with a moment of silence for the fallen musician.

Number 4 – Sweet Child O' Mine, Guns N' Roses

They were arguably the biggest band of the 1980s, selling out shows across the globe and living appropriately hard.

While they didn't get to that place overnight, the runaway success of Sweet Child O' Mine certainly didn't hurt.

Sweet Child took things to an entirely new level, becoming GNR's only song to hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

However, despite providing the song with the guitar parts that would turn it into an anthem, the band's resident Axeman Slash initially couldn't stand it.

I hated that song with a huge passion for a long time, and it turned out to be our hugest hit.

This is one air guitar performance you'll need to make sure you have the stamina for.

Although multiple versions of Freebird exist, the longest one, appearing on the 1989 hits compilation Skynyrd's Inners, runs just over ten minutes in length.

That said, Freebird never feels overindulgent, or long just for the sake of it.

It tells a heartbreakingly fleshed-out story.

That is, a story that takes five glorious minutes to wrap up.

Via a seemingly endless supply of red-hot guitar theatrics.

Those come courtesy of twin guitarists Alan Collins and Gary Rossington.

In short, Freebird's perfect blend of drama, emotion, and technicality make it a fantastic song to rock out to, sans an actual guitar, of course.

Number 2 – Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin

Except, well of course, regarded by countless critics as the greatest rock song of all time, and an impeccable demonstration of Jimmy Page's guitar mastery, Stairway to Heaven has more than earned its flowers over the years.

The song is a bona fide epic, and without it, we likely wouldn't have such odysseys of rock as Freebird and Master of Puppets.

Sure, Stairway to Heaven wasn't the first rock suite, but its enormous outsize influence has inspired vast swaths of amateur guitar players.

And that's what makes it a perfect air guitar rocker.

It's got a little bit of everything, and executes it at the very highest levels.

You're probably asking yourself, if Stairway to Heaven isn't number one, then what is?

Maybe it's a somewhat unconventional choice for a list that's supposed to be about imaginary guitar shredding.

But that's before you remember the way Brian May makes his Red Special sing in Rhapsody's failing first guitar solo.

After the song shifts into opera mode for its second act, it gives way to the hard-rocking, head-banging section we all know and love.

And for that alone, Bohemian Rhapsody earns our number one spot.

For air guitar supremacy, it's not necessarily about how hard, how fast, or how relentlessly you play.

It's about how you use your time in the make-believe spotlight.

Which song on our list transforms you into a rock star in your own mind?

Be sure to let us know in the comments below.

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Top 10 Most Air Guitar Rock Songs Of All Time

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