Personally my favorite lyric from YM is "forever is a long, long time".
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Stick and stay with the first album Rising Force. The band is excellent, writing is very strong and Yngwie just blows the doors off with his blazing new shred technique. After that his sweeping arpeggios, blindingly fast speed and neo classical stylings don't break any new ground and goes stale real quick.
Here's a great guitar lesson -
Yngwie hit on my brother's girlfriend several years ago in a South Florida club (Button South, maybe?). He was pretty wasted and gave her his
home phone number. They called it a few days later and listened to his answering machine... pretty standard message ("This is Yngwie; I'm not
home right now. Please leave a message, etc.") followed by him shredding away on guitar.
And yes, Rising Force was pretty groundbreaking. Zappa was complimentary ("Whatever else you say about him, the guy can PLAY!").
I agree that the first few Rising Force albums are great (but like some posts here I too don't care for some of the lyrics, plus I didn't/don't even find out about all the lyrics in those albums such as back in the 80s when I was discovering those albums), and unlike some posts here I'd include the Oddysey album in that bunch too (noting especially the song Rising Force, for which I've bookmarked 4 great covers on youtube in recent years, as it turns out, it's a classic), and somehow I stopped checking out new releases by him after that album.
But approx 10 years after that, I did check out 2 newer albums (UtF, Attack), which had memorable tracks such as Baroque N Roll. I have not remembered much from those two albums but there were some solid tracks, for example I remember enjoying the heavy and live-like sound/production on a few songs, that were crunchy chord-heavy without necessarily being overpowered by his shredding.
And the concerto on DVD which was interesting for the most part (not counting the DVD tracks that aren't a part of the concerto), but it can give me a headache sometimes after half hour.
About covers, also: Vocalist Asha Blaine on youtube sings two of his early tunes really well with a great solid band in the same recording: 1. I'll See The Light Tonight, 2. I am a Viking
Honestly, Yngwie is an amazingly skilled player. However, I would not rank any of his albums beyond the first 4 and his symphonic album.
I actually liked a lot of the stuff on Yngwie's The Seventh Sign, but I wouldn't consider it essential.
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"Yngwie Malmsteen is the best guitarist who ever lived" - Yngwie Malmsteen
"Who would have thought a whale would be so heavy?" - Moe Sizlak
The Rickey Henderson of Neoclassical Metal
Death inspires me like a dog inspires a rabbit
I remember when I was briefly involved in college radio someone was playing something by him but the only thing I remember about it was symphonic keyboards as a backdrop. It was probably from one of his early albums though.
Do not suffer through the game of chance that plays....always doors to lock away your dreams (To Be Over)
^^ What I remember was that song from the Odyssey album, with Joe Lynn Turner singing receiving heavy radio air play. JLT added as much pop sensibility to Malmssteen as he did Rainbow.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
While I certainly knew his name, I don't remember hearing anything by him on the radio although that was also the case with Joe Satriani too. It's funny how you can know someone's name or hear of them but not know anything by them. I don't think I heard any Metallica songs until the black album but I heard of them about five or six years earlier.
Last edited by Digital_Man; 02-22-2023 at 11:06 AM.
Do not suffer through the game of chance that plays....always doors to lock away your dreams (To Be Over)
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