Urgh, I like to pretend those don't exist. Fortunately, the album also produced "Not Again", "Get You Back" and a couple other great tunes, and I can only imagine how much better it would have sounded with a full band.

But touching on something boo boo mentioned, I'm inclined to agree on some of the Satch criticisms earlier. I like Satch, in fact, I enjoy his music way more today than when I was younger. Kinda like just enjoying it for what it is, rather than what you want it to be. And one of the things I just go along with is that very basic rhythm style, where it's often kinda flat 4/4, straightforward riffs, etc. "Crushing Day" is a good example; even though I like the song, and I think the guitar playing is phenomenal, I can easily see why people wouldn't dig it. I dunno, in my mind it's a bit like early synth pop, in that it tends to be very basic and straightforward, with catchy melodies. I never understood why people talked so much about his soloing, to me Satch's main thing was doing accessible instrumental rock; the solos being the icing on the cake, rather than the main focal point.

One thing that's not talked about very often is the way Satch fit in with Deep Purple, just being a regular band guy. To my ears, he was the perfect fit, he blended far better than Steve Morse, and I honestly would have preferred him in the band, doing solo albums on the side. In a way, I'd love to see him do what Vinnie Moore ended up doing, playing with UFO as a regular band member.

One of my biggest complaints I have with Yngwie has been his lack of blues feel which I think is important in Rock and Jazz. It's almost as if he intentionally tried to strip the blues away completely. A guitarist can influence somebody even if they don't sound like it. The influence can be as simple as encouraging them to start playing guitar even if they weren't crazy about the music. Many people have studied Yngwie's technique and adapted it to their own totally different playing style. In my case as a bass player I really dislike Billy Sheehan's style and sound but I did steal some of his techniques.

That's strange, I think the blues feel is one of the reasons his playing sounds good. He stays mostly in exotic scalar territory, but whenever he dips back into pentatonics, the bends, vibrato, rubato, it's all on point. The fact that he does make that style work so well is one of the reasons I've always wanted him to make it a bigger part of his sound. It got more apparent in the mid-nineties, with albums like The Seventh Sign and Magnum Opus, but it's always been a part of his playing.

Another common complaint, which makes no sense, is that his playing is "metronomic". Any person attempting to transcribe Yngwie will know that this is ludicrous.

It depends really, not all rock music is blues based, when prog, metal, punk, new wave and post-punk all emerged in the 70s they began distancing themselves from the blues and drew more from other genres of music. Most modern rock music whether you're talking metal or indie or punk is pretty far removed from the blues. Any rock band these days that still has a blues based sound will inevitably be called dad rock.

Which is fine, time marches on and there's room for all kinds of music, Yngwie's forte has never been the blues but for some God forsaken reason he keeps trying.



Blackmore can blend blues and neoclassical in his guitar playing pretty seamlessly, I think Malmsteen tries to do that whenever he attempts the blues but he's just not very good at going outside of his comfort zone.

I just don't see people complain about Steve Howe, Robert Fripp or Steve Hackett not being bluesy enough. It's weird, it's almost as if it depends on whether you like the guitarist or not.

And I Don't Know is blues based and kicks ass

It's difficult to explain. I became enamored with the Blues in the early 60s when I was in high school. I also played in Blues and Blues Rock bands as well as Classic Rock and Metal inspired bands. I can feel the Blues influence in Howe, Fripp and Hackett but not Yngwie. It's probably because was he 2 generations removed from the Blues while the other 3 came directly from it.

I reckon it has more to do with personal preference than anything else. If you grow up listening to blues, and you play it, you're gonna develop a feel no matter when you're born, or where. It was never a problem for Clapton to sound authentic, despite being a white boy from Surrey, whereas black American guitarist Tony MacAlpine has none of that sound in his playing. Lots of younger guitarists who started playing in the '80s became highly proficient blues rock musicians, like Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Philip Sayce, John Mayer, and then you have even younger guys like Kingfish Ingram, who sounds like a gritty old blues cat despite being born in '99.

i think your comments here boil down to you just preferring a straight forward bluesy approach to rock music than anything inherently wrong with yngwie's playing. i've spoken with yngtchie privately about this, and while to a casual listener yngwie's music can sound very classical-inspired, his phrasing and taste is very much based in the blues/blues-rock/rock tradition. if he didn't favour the harmonic minor so heavily and instead favoured the pentatonic and blues scales i'm sure you'd have an entirely different opinion.

With blues it's not just what notes are played but the way you play them. It has to do with more subtle things like slides, vibrato, bends the length of time a note is held and how it interacts with the vocals. BB King plays very simple stuff but I never get sick of listening to him because he communicates to me on a subconscious primal level. If you had 20 different high level blues players each playing the exact same notes they would sound completely different from each other.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8IDXdoqZz8

all of what you said is completely subjective and essentially boils down to "this is the kind of music i prefer, and yngwie doesn't fit into that, therefore he is lacking as a player."

No I never said Yngwie was lacking as a player. You are right, that it is my subjective opinion and has nothing to do with his skills as a player. In fact I would say all music is subjective. If you like Yngwie it's your subjective opinion. I am trying to explain why I don't like Yngwie, not disparage him as a player. I don't enjoy listening to Yngwie because he is lacking in blues feeling to my satisfaction. There is no doubt he is a great player. No musician is good at everything and all styles. By that criteria every musician is "lacking". Very few Rock players are good Jazz players for example. It's almost as if you are mad at me because I don't like him.

I don't agree that rock guitarists need a feel for the blues, you know, unless they're trying to play the blues.

I wouldn't say Fripp or Hackett are very blues based, neither is Howe for the most part, he did start out playing in British R&B bands like The Syndicats and The In-Crowd but his playing became a lot more eclectic and influenced by a variety of different styles by the time he joined Yes.

That's fine. We all have a right to our own opinions

- 80s Yngwie easily had better feel than the vast majority of blues/blues rock guitarists

- Satch's tunes are boring (boo boo is right about his songwriting) and his playing is pretty mediocre for the most part, the comparisons between him and Vai make no sense given that Vai is vastly superior in every respect.

- Lane is still the king and powers of ten slaps apart from the piano suite, tri tone fascination is a bit more problematic though unfortunately.