I've been playing a lot of Van Halen the last week or so. Sad to say I didn't know a lot of this stuff before. 'Women and Children First' is a beast of an album.

I think its the epitome of DLR era Van Halen. You have crushing metallic riffage, acoustic pieces, guitar wizardry, and all dripping with that classic Van Halen attitude and Roth delivery. Hands down my favorite VH album.

Yeah, I'm digging the debut (which was really the only one I knew in full) for the kind of raw, youthful energy and 1984 as well as a more commercial take on the sound, but Women and Children First just has a lot more complexity and richness; you can tell that was a band at its early peak.

I don't think anybody is downplaying Malmsteen's talents, he had a revolutionary technique with some brilliant tracks and albums to his name. It's just that he has ZERO appeal to normies compared to Van Halen and Hendrix. It isn't really a good or bad thing, it just is.

I don't think anybody is downplaying Malmsteen's talents, he had a revolutionary technique with some brilliant tracks and albums to his name. It's just that he has ZERO appeal to normies compared to Van Halen and Hendrix. It isn't really a good or bad thing, it just is.

I listened to all four Van Hagar albums yesterday morning. I liked For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge and 5150 but got underwhelmed by OU812 and Balance. As neat as the style can get, they were pretty much a greatest hits band at that point with an absolutely brilliant album hidden in a sea of filler. I'm gonna be trying out III today to see if it's as crap as I hear.

Sorry to insist but I think it was explicitly stated that he is a great shredder and significant guitarist but not a good songwriter. Which I disagree vehemently with. And I would be willing to bet that a lot of normies would very much appreciate some of his songs if they were exposed to them.

The fact that Hendrix and VH appeal to normies more, means nothing to me personally, I mean of course VH will be more popular, they wrote pop hard rock songs as opposed to shreddy HEAVY and POWER METAL like Malmsteen. Sabaton appeals to normies more than Savatage too. Irrelevant to the discussion though.

I would be willing to bet VH has sold significantly more than most, including Hendrix by the way.

“How significant is Yngwie Malmsteen”?

It would be hard to overstate his significance. He completely changed rock guitar as we knew it when he made his debut in the early 80s. It was a time when there were two guitarists every hard rock or heavy metal guitarist was trying to play like: Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhoads. They had both set a new standard for playing and then when Yngwie emerged on the scene, everything changed. He was playing the electric guitar in a way nobody had done before. He raised the bar for what was considered to be state the art technique. Randy Rhoads had added some classical influence to heavy metal but Yngwie Malmsteen used classical music not just as an embellishment to standard heavy metal, but as the foundation for it. His list of influences contained more classical composers than rock guitarists. He somehow managed to combine classical type melodies with the aggression and attitude of rock.

This is him in 1983 with the band Alcatrazz, with Graham Bonnet who had been Ritchie Blackmore’s vocalist in Rainbow. This type of playing was unprecedented then. His tone, the clarity, his vibrato, his precision, the complete authority he has over the guitar, combined with an innate sense of stage presence only the best of the best ever have are all evident here at only 19 years age:

The next year he quit Alcatrazz and released his solo debut album. Within a year of the release of his first solo album- Rising Force - if you were a hard rock or heavy metal guitarist, and I was, you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing guitarists talk about him. A lot of people have written one or two hit songs, or have a few successful albums, but how many have actually changed the way people play the electric guitar? Jimi Hendrix did. Eddie Van Halen did, and then Yngwie did.

It wasn’t just a style of music but a whole way of looking at playing the instrument that he changed. In the 1980s the only guitarist from the past who remained as big of an influence as he had been in the 70s in hard rock and heavy metal was Eddie Van Halen. Yngwie Malmsteen and Eddie Van Halen were the two most influential rock guitarists of the 1980s. They were the two players most people wanted to emulate. You could to any hard rock/metal club and hear bands with their lead guitarists trying to sound like Eddie or Yngwie. Even on the albums of bands with major record label deals, you could hear a difference in the playing. It’s what people tend to call “shredding” or playing with a state of the art technique. Bands were replacing their lead guitarists to get players who were keeping up with what what the new standard for playing guitar. If you were stuck in the past, if you still had 70s technique in the 80s, you got left behind.

Here is one of Yngwie Malmsteen’s best known songs: “Black Star” from the album Yngwie J. Malmsteen’s Rising Force. It was his opportunity to play the type of music he wanted without having to fit into someone else’s band. This was released in March of 1984 when Yngwie was only 20 years old. It is the album that changed electric guitar playing forever.

A new standard was set. The result was a tremendous number of players trying to emulate Yngwie Malmsteen. Not surprisingly, Yngwie and Eddie Van Halen were the two guys you were most likely to see on the cover of guitar magazines in the 80s.There were players who did manage to learn to do some of what he did, but one of the things they always lacked was the vibrato Yngwie has. His sense of freedom on the instrument, his complete sense of mastery over the electric guitar by 1984 standards was unparalled before he was even old enough to legally buy a beer.

How does somebody accomplish that? Here’s a brief explanation of that. Yngwie talks a little about his upbringing in Sweden, what caused him to move here at 18, and how quickly that changed his career:

Other players play solos they have rehearsed hundreds or thousands of times, but Yngwie improvises his solos. You could have followed him around every night and you’d never hear him play his solos the same way twice. He wasn’t just playing something he’d memorized; he was creating music spontaneously. His tone and vibrato alone are instantly recognizable. People have a harder time emulating those things than they do playing his music, which is saying a lot because it is not easy music to play. There are people who learned how to play the notes, but they still didn’t sound like him.

All the greats have their own distinguishable sound and it sets them apart form everyone else. If you’re great, people can recognize the sound of your playing immediately. Only a few have that and Yngwie Malmsteen is one of them. A lot of people tried to copy what he did, to the point a whole new term for that style of rock guitar playing was invented - “neoclassical.” It’s hard rock or heavy metal with a heavy classical influence. He has always wanted to play that type of music and that’s what he has always done. He’s one of the few hard rock/heavy metal musicians whom I’ve never once heard anyone accuse them of “selling out.” He follows no trends and makes no compromises. There have been many, many imitators, but like anything else, the innovator, the original is always the best.

Re: Malmsteen

Agree to disagree I guess. But I have to insist a bit, out of frustration mostly! Don't listen to these guys kids, Yngwie is awesome!

Personally, I listen to Yngwie for the songwriting mostly and I stand by my statement regarding his riffs and songs. I don't play guitar even though I do enjoy tasteful shredders and Malmsteen is definitely one of them in his peak. But overall, it's the pure, heavy/power metal awesomeness in the albums - and his hard rocking side is great too (You Don't Remeeeeembeer...!). I think you (Acrobat/BastardHead) are both underestimating his songwriting. I Am a Viking or Disciples of Hell are just cracking heavy metal songs. And there are plenty more, including some classic instrumentals like Black Star or Far Beyond the Sun. Also, I think Yngwie's contribution to metal has not been appreciated enough (nor how METAL his music actually was). IMO, he is the most significant piece along with Helloween for the definition of the european power metal sound. The Trilogy suite is half Stratovarius' career (and a masterpiece to boot). Finally, just throwing this out there, Odyssey is one spectacular power metal album. Chock full of riffs too. KRAKATAU, such an apt title!

Conversely, while I truly appreciate what Hendrix brought in the world, being the archetype of the rock guitar hero and the sheer new energy he brought on stage, his music was never particularly appealing to me to be honest, some songs are alright I guess.

You asked about dokken songs, well I learned the Dream Warriors solo by Dokken, so you love that song and so do I- This is my absolute favorite solo of ALL TIME:



Patricia Arquette is like "What a great solo!" until Freddie Krueger steals him away.

I've looked around but can't find anything bigger. Anyone have a large image of this photo? I believe this is from the 1984 tour, judging by his pants. Speaker wall riding. Both Van Halens were athletes.

https://i2.wp.com/farm1.static.flickr.c ... 830b99.jpg

I've looked around but can't find anything bigger. Anyone have a large image of this photo? I believe this is from the 1984 tour, judging by his pants. Speaker wall riding. Both Van Halens were athletes.

https://i2.wp.com/farm1.static.flickr.c ... 830b99.jpg