Surgeon
St. Vincent, 2011, from Strange Mercy. Solo by Annie Clark.
The closing solo breaks the song's calm with a wild, glitchy flurry of fuzz.
Surgeon, from Strange Mercy, spends most of its length in a calm, cool mood before Annie Clark breaks it with a wild closing solo. Her fuzz tone is dense and glitchy, and she tears into a flurry of fast, jagged lines that sound almost like a machine malfunctioning. The contrast between the song's composure and the solo's chaos makes the ending feel like a release. It shows Clark's gift for combining precise songwriting with sudden bursts of noise. Listen for how the solo seems to splinter, notes jumping and cutting out, giving the impression of a control system slipping into chaos.
Surgeon by St. Vincent is ranked #323 in our consensus of 79 guitar-solo lists. The solo is played by Annie Clark and the song was released in 2011. It appears on 1 lists, placing as high as #79 (uDiscover Music).
In our lists
- The Greatest Solo of Every Year — #68
- The 25 Greatest Indie Rock Guitar Solos — #16
- The Best St. Vincent Guitar Solos — #1
Sources
- uDiscover Music: The Best Guitar Solos Of All Time: 108 Amazing Moments — #79
- Treble: 10 of the Best Indie Rock Guitar Solos
Who played the guitar solo on Surgeon?
Annie Clark played the solo on St. Vincent's Surgeon (2011).
Where does Surgeon rank among the greatest guitar solos?
#323 in the GreatestSolos consensus of 79 published lists; it appears on 1 of them.