# Mean Street guitar solo > The guitar solo on Mean Street by Van Halen (1981) starts at about 2:40. From the album Fair Warning. Ranked #184 of all time across 80 lists. Canonical URL: Van Halen, 1981, from *Fair Warning*. Solo by *Eddie Van Halen*. Mean Street opens with one of Eddie Van Halen's most inventive passages, a percussive burst of slapped and tapped harmonics that sounds closer to funk bass than rock guitar. It shows him treating the fretboard as a drum and a keyboard at the same time. After that intro, the song settles into a darker, heavier groove than much of Van Halen's catalog, and his lead lines are tough and bluesy rather than flashy. The tone is thick and aggressive, with the brown, saturated character he was known for. The intro alone inspired countless players to experiment with right-hand technique. Listen for the rhythmic pattern in the opening, where muted slaps and ringing harmonics alternate in a tight groove. Mean Street by Van Halen is ranked #184 in our consensus of 80 guitar-solo lists. The solo is played by Eddie Van Halen and the song was released in 1981. It appears on 4 lists, placing as high as #63 (DigitalDreamDoor). ## In our lists - [Tapping](https://greatestsolos.com/list/tapping/) — #9 - [Best of Eddie Van Halen](https://greatestsolos.com/list/evh/) — #5 - [The Best Van Halen Guitar Solos](https://greatestsolos.com/list/van-halen-guitar-solos/) — #6 - [Top 20 Guitar Solos of 1981](https://greatestsolos.com/list/best-guitar-solos-1981/) — #5 ## Sources - [DigitalDreamDoor: 200 Greatest Metal Guitar Solos](https://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/best_metal-guitar-solos.html) — #63 - [Bombay Lives (Substack): 100 Greatest Guitar Solos](https://bombaylives.substack.com/p/100-greatest-guitar-solos) — #79 - [Topito (now 10h26.com): Top 100 des plus grands solos de guitare de l'histoire (Benoit Floyd)](https://www.10h26.com/top-100-des-plus-grands-solos-de-guitare) — #79 - [Guitar Tricks: 200 Best Guitar Solos of All Time](https://www.guitartricks.com/blog/200-Best-Guitar-Solos-of-All-Time) — #108 - [Digital Dream Door: 250 Greatest Rock Guitar Solos](https://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/best_guitarsolo.html) — #108 ### Who played the guitar solo on Mean Street? Eddie Van Halen played the solo on Van Halen's Mean Street (1981). ### What guitar was used on the Mean Street solo? A frankenstrat, according to widely reported accounts. ### Where does Mean Street rank among the greatest guitar solos? #184 in the GreatestSolos consensus of 80 published lists; it appears on 4 of them. --- GreatestSolos ranks the greatest guitar solos by consensus across published lists. Agent guide: [llms.txt](https://greatestsolos.com/llms.txt) · [Sitemap](https://greatestsolos.com/sitemap.xml) · [Dataset (CSV)](https://greatestsolos.com/data/greatest-guitar-solos.csv) · [How we rank](https://greatestsolos.com/method/)