Satriani is a great guitarist, but a mediocre song writer. He suffers feom what I like to call The Solo Syndrome (not a reference to guitar solos). A song tends to be better when multiple musicians have had input, otherwise there’s too much focus on only one instrument.
Take for example Satrianis “Made of Tears”. How much better wouldn’t the song have been if an actual basist had written a cool bass riff to go along with it?
Or another example from Satriani: “Searching”. Excelent guitar hook in the beginning and the end, but I would’ve loved it more if there were other bandmembers who could tell him that the middle section is long and boring and would be better spent playing WITH other instruments instead of TO other instruments.
I fund that Steve Vai is a better (and comparable) songwriter (although a lot of his songs aren’t to my taste)
For me, that description fits Yngwie more than Satriani. Satch had at least 1%, maybe even a whopping 2% soul. Vai is probably sneaking up on double digits.
I really hate the “soul” accusation. It’s so arrogant and pretentious. Look, I get it, their music doesn’t tell you anything, it’s not your thing, it’s OK. It’s about you, it’s not about them. Not saying there’s anything wrong with you because of it. There’s a lot of great music I simply don’t like. It’s normal.
You don’t feel anything with their music. I do. Lots of people do. Is our “soul” bone defective? Are you the judge of musical taste? Can’t you see we laugh and cry with their music just as easily has you do with what you consider “music with soul”?
My experience is that the same people who accuse them of being 100% technical and souless are precisely the ones so fixated on the technique they can’t actually just see past it and just listen to the music itself. Do you think we get goosebumps because of how fast we see the dude fingers move?
Regarding the actual musicians. I can’t say much about Malmsteen because it’s not my taste but the dude singlehandedly created a new genre. I can’t put him down just because his music is not my preference.
Satriani is certainly the most melodic of them. The guy launched multiple great albums. Until the early 00s. Every album until then was simply amazing. Vai could only launch 2 or 3 with the same quality. But after Super Colossal he lost his edge. He still makes good stuff but never like what he made between 1984 and 2006. It was out of this world (wink, wink).
That’s a big reaction for a tongue-in-cheek comment on an unpopular opinion post! Joe, is that you? I’m sorry they used Steve in Crossroads instead of you, but you gotta let it go! Sometimes the student becomes the teacher!
Joking aside, the whole “soul” thing can be seen as somewhat of a compliment in a sense. Blackmore, Yngwie, Satch, Petrucci, Vai, Johnson, and other neoclassical players strove for technical perfection. The bits and bobs of music that are generally lumped into the idea of “soul” are the mistakes, the imperfections, the unintended, the miniscule fuckups. As an off the top example, think of Merry Clayton’s voice cracking as she belted out a vocal masterwork in her pajamas and curlers after being dragged out of bed at midnight to back up Mick Jagger. It’s imperfect, it’s unrepeatable, and it’s amazing.
Contrast that with what the technical shredders were intending to do: they wanted to hit every note with exacting precision every time they played. It’s no less impressive than those one-off moments like Gimme Shelter, but it’s markedly different. Listeners who don’t identify with the sound sometimes perceive a sort of sterility in the style, whether deserved or not. The degree of technicality alone can almost come across as machine-like. That doesn’t mean that it has no merit, or that anyone who feels it deeply is in some way “defective”. These guys wouldn’t have had 40+ year careers if nobody was feeling what they were doing.
Enjoy what you enjoy, groove to what grooves you, and above all else, be secure enough in your own taste that a bit of banter about a genre doesn’t seem like a personal attack. Remember: Barry Manilow has sold over 85 million albums, so there really is a market for everything!
Right on. I was kinda holding back from saying his music is boring, but you explained it better. And I agree, Vai, while also making guitar solo driven music, actually makes interesting songs that you don’t tune out after the first 2 minutes of listening,
Satch for sure is an extremely talented guitarist and understands that the key to a good song is a melody (or “hook”) that is simple, memorable, and catchy. Almost every song he wrote has this at its core. The problem is simply that this is insanely difficult to do and he struggles with it, especially on his later albums
I never got the hype for Satriani’s music. He’s a virtuoso for sure, but I never really found his music interesting.
This is probably high school nostalgia kicking in, but Limp Bizkit is great. lmao
Satriani is a great guitarist, but a mediocre song writer. He suffers feom what I like to call The Solo Syndrome (not a reference to guitar solos). A song tends to be better when multiple musicians have had input, otherwise there’s too much focus on only one instrument.
Take for example Satrianis “Made of Tears”. How much better wouldn’t the song have been if an actual basist had written a cool bass riff to go along with it?
Or another example from Satriani: “Searching”. Excelent guitar hook in the beginning and the end, but I would’ve loved it more if there were other bandmembers who could tell him that the middle section is long and boring and would be better spent playing WITH other instruments instead of TO other instruments.
I fund that Steve Vai is a better (and comparable) songwriter (although a lot of his songs aren’t to my taste)
100% technique, no soul
That’s how I describe his music
For me, that description fits Yngwie more than Satriani. Satch had at least 1%, maybe even a whopping 2% soul. Vai is probably sneaking up on double digits.
I really hate the “soul” accusation. It’s so arrogant and pretentious. Look, I get it, their music doesn’t tell you anything, it’s not your thing, it’s OK. It’s about you, it’s not about them. Not saying there’s anything wrong with you because of it. There’s a lot of great music I simply don’t like. It’s normal.
You don’t feel anything with their music. I do. Lots of people do. Is our “soul” bone defective? Are you the judge of musical taste? Can’t you see we laugh and cry with their music just as easily has you do with what you consider “music with soul”?
My experience is that the same people who accuse them of being 100% technical and souless are precisely the ones so fixated on the technique they can’t actually just see past it and just listen to the music itself. Do you think we get goosebumps because of how fast we see the dude fingers move?
Regarding the actual musicians. I can’t say much about Malmsteen because it’s not my taste but the dude singlehandedly created a new genre. I can’t put him down just because his music is not my preference.
Satriani is certainly the most melodic of them. The guy launched multiple great albums. Until the early 00s. Every album until then was simply amazing. Vai could only launch 2 or 3 with the same quality. But after Super Colossal he lost his edge. He still makes good stuff but never like what he made between 1984 and 2006. It was out of this world (wink, wink).
That’s a big reaction for a tongue-in-cheek comment on an unpopular opinion post! Joe, is that you? I’m sorry they used Steve in Crossroads instead of you, but you gotta let it go! Sometimes the student becomes the teacher!
Joking aside, the whole “soul” thing can be seen as somewhat of a compliment in a sense. Blackmore, Yngwie, Satch, Petrucci, Vai, Johnson, and other neoclassical players strove for technical perfection. The bits and bobs of music that are generally lumped into the idea of “soul” are the mistakes, the imperfections, the unintended, the miniscule fuckups. As an off the top example, think of Merry Clayton’s voice cracking as she belted out a vocal masterwork in her pajamas and curlers after being dragged out of bed at midnight to back up Mick Jagger. It’s imperfect, it’s unrepeatable, and it’s amazing.
Contrast that with what the technical shredders were intending to do: they wanted to hit every note with exacting precision every time they played. It’s no less impressive than those one-off moments like Gimme Shelter, but it’s markedly different. Listeners who don’t identify with the sound sometimes perceive a sort of sterility in the style, whether deserved or not. The degree of technicality alone can almost come across as machine-like. That doesn’t mean that it has no merit, or that anyone who feels it deeply is in some way “defective”. These guys wouldn’t have had 40+ year careers if nobody was feeling what they were doing.
Enjoy what you enjoy, groove to what grooves you, and above all else, be secure enough in your own taste that a bit of banter about a genre doesn’t seem like a personal attack. Remember: Barry Manilow has sold over 85 million albums, so there really is a market for everything!
That’s very far from true. The last decades have brought forth countless young talents. Every single one of them smokes satriani in a pipe. Easily.
Right on. I was kinda holding back from saying his music is boring, but you explained it better. And I agree, Vai, while also making guitar solo driven music, actually makes interesting songs that you don’t tune out after the first 2 minutes of listening,
Satch for sure is an extremely talented guitarist and understands that the key to a good song is a melody (or “hook”) that is simple, memorable, and catchy. Almost every song he wrote has this at its core. The problem is simply that this is insanely difficult to do and he struggles with it, especially on his later albums