The secret playlists of rock legends
Rock musicians’ favorite songs often come from unexpected places, revealing private influences that shaped their artistry far more than their own hits or public image. When guitar heroes and shock-rock showmen talk about the tracks and albums they love, they expose the craft, curiosity, and contradictions behind the riffs, costumes, and stage explosions that fans know best. These offstage choices—from deep cuts in their own catalogues to quiet folk records and synth-heavy experiments—show how famous players are still students of music, taking notes from styles that challenge them, comfort them, or even cause internal creative battles.
Angus Young’s Bon Scott-era favorites: riff worship over radio singles
If you want to understand one of rock’s greatest guitarists, ignore the obvious AC/DC anthems and follow Angus Young’s own obsession with riffs. Asked about rock musicians’ favorite songs from the AC/DC Bon Scott era, he doesn’t pick the biggest hits—he points to “Riff Raff” from Powerage (1978) as one of his favorites, calling it a “cooking guitar riff” and “a perfect rock piece” for players. That choice tells you everything: Angus values groove, swing, and the Chuck Berry–style bite that defined his sound more than chart success. He also singles out “Bad Boy Boogie” from Let There Be Rock (1977), a track he loves because it “has got a flavor” and “a little bit of a twist” in it. These picks are a quiet manifesto: the soul of AC/DC, in Angus’s mind, lives in feel-rich, guitar-driven songs that fans may not hear on mainstream playlists but musicians talk about in the studio.
Alice Cooper’s folk devotion: Laura Nyro, Bacharach and the craft of melody
Alice Cooper’s persona screams horror, but his record shelf whispers folk, soul, and classic pop. His tastes explode the stereotype that shock rockers only care about noise. This is the same performer accused of devil worship who spends his free time playing golf and befriending crooners, and whose love of soulful folk music is central to his identity. When asked to name his favorite singer-songwriter album, he chose Laura Nyro’s 1968 folk-rooted classic Eli and the Thirteenth Confession, praising it because “there’s not one mistake anywhere on it” and calling every song “absolutely perfect,” on par with the Beatles. He also holds up Burt Bacharach’s greatest hits as another model of flawless writing. For fans chasing guitarist musical influences and broader rock musicians’ favorite songs, Cooper’s picks are a reminder that meticulous melody, not theatrical shock, is what endures—and that a supposed villain can be a devoted student of gentle, spiritual songwriting.
Rush, Subdivisions and the uneasy evolution of guitar-driven songwriting
Rush deep cuts say more about the band’s creative evolution than their most celebrated epics, and nowhere is that clearer than “Subdivisions.” The track emerged from jam sessions driven by Geddy Lee’s throbbing synth pulse, and its suburban alienation theme—“In the high school halls, in the shopping malls, conform or be cast out”—spoke directly to the background from which the band and most of their audience had sprung. But this song also sparked a battle over guitarist musical influences inside the group. While Lee’s synths surged forward, Alex Lifeson sat in the mixing room thinking, “I can’t hear guitar,” and pushing the fader up, only to see producer Terry Brown pull it back down. Signals and “Subdivisions” marked a keyboard-heavy shift that many fans saw as a problem, making Signals the most divisive album in their catalogue even as opinions softened over time. For musicians, that tension is the point: the band were listening to The Police and Ultravox as they stripped down the guitar component, using outside influences to challenge their own comfort zone.
What these tastes reveal about inspiration beyond genre
Put Angus Young, Alice Cooper, and Rush in the same room and you get wildly different sounds—but their listening habits share one theme: curiosity beyond the billboard version of rock. Angus’s love of Bon Scott-era non-singles like “Riff Raff” and “Bad Boy Boogie” shows a guitarist fixated on feel and nuance inside his own catalogue, rather than the safest crowd-pleasers. Cooper’s devotion to Laura Nyro and Burt Bacharach proves that even shock-rock icons build their work on the bones of careful songcraft and pop sensibility, not pure provocation. Rush’s embrace of synths and contemporary influences such as The Police and Ultravox during the Signals era displays a willingness to risk fan backlash in pursuit of growth. Together, these rock musicians’ favorite songs and albums argue for a simple conclusion: lasting rock artistry comes from stealing inspiration everywhere—inside your genre, far outside it, and even from music that unsettles your own band.
