"The Final Countdown" (Europe) Solo Lesson/Analysis
Objectively the sickest solo from all of the iconic, stadium-filling bangers of the 80s, The Final Countdown is one of my favorite solos ever and encapsulates everything that was sick about guitar playing of that era. Probably also the only solo in a mainstream song of this time that has some Neoclassical leanings!
What's also great is that the solo is very approachable - anyone who's completed level 3 of the 1 Minute Workouts should be able to smash this with relative ease. The only things that might trip you up a bit are the arpeggio picking patterns (though this can be bypassed by using legato instead) and the Bluesy 2 bar run in the middle.
Good luck and don't forget to share your progress with everyone in the Discord server!
0:00 Playthrough
0:35 Intro
2:25 The arpeggios
7:49 Bars 4.5-8
13:54 Bars 12.5-16
Comments (13)
Sorry, but it seems the accentuation in the hammer on pulloff parts sound kinda wrong. Maybe i'm wrong, but it is strange somehow.
I´ve tried it and my approach is a third option: For the first section (arpeggio) this seems to be a bit more economic: Down, Down, Up + PullOff. It´s like a little sweep. What do you think?
Yeah that's just economy picking, works fine!
Awesome!!!!!
Thanks Bradley, one of the solos of my younger days
Beautiful idea 💡 Brad, thank you for revival old heartbreaker solo from ‘80. I never had full details about this. 🔥🔥🔥
Awesome. This was one of the first solos I learnt how to play. Super fun
Good to know how it’s originally played. Would it also be an option to economy pick with downstroke on b, downstroke on d, upstroke on f#, pull off to d? (Tornado of Souls style)
I was just going to ask the same really. I've just really grown to going into that exact picking pattern on, well, pretty much every time I run into this kind of arpeggio pattern. Actually I'm even a bit surprised to not see Bradley The Guy Who Loves Sweeping not doing that.
this is crazy , I was just listening to the whole song and you published this lesson lol
No way lmao
Oh man, this is such an epic solo!!! I'm totally gonna go for this!!!
Lets goooo!