Joe Satrioni and Steve Vai Mocked as Soulless Wankers

[Nickdfresh]

[nick500]

I would say there's some truth to that.
As good a technician as he is, I never like Vai's solo stuff.

He should never have quit Dave's band.
He could have done this crap on the side.
There was one record, The Ultra Zone, that was particularly tough to listen to.
There wasn't a memorable melody to a lot of the so-called instrumental tracks.
It sounds extremely dated today.

His other record, Passion and Warfare, sounded, for the most part,
like a series of strenuous guitar exercises.

At least the Swedish King of wanking and pomposity, Yngwie Malmsteen, actually wrote some good instrumentals,
like Far Beyond the Sun and Blackstar, which still sound good, overplaying and all.

[Nitro Express]

I’ve been trolling the Sammy/Joe fans over the current tour. Talk about some tone deaf, lame ass, clueless bastards with a lower IQ than pond scum. Alex is the smart one. He wouldn’t even talk to Sam and sold off his gear as a Fuck You! Message. When Al gets over his grief he can laugh driving his fast Porsche around the track knowing he didn’t give Sammy Hagar the time of day and only lame old fucks went to his shows.

[Terry]

To me, the whole lot of those 80's shredders have aged terribly.

Like, even by the end of the 1980's, those million miles an hour kamikaze hard rock guitar solos...I was like, enough already. THAT shit got worn thin before the 1990's had rolled around.

That style of playing...I dunno. As I said, by the end of the 1980's to my ears that stuff was no longer even special and all of it had been overdone.

Admittedly, I haven't listened to much of what either Vai or Satriani have done since the late 1980's so it'd be unfair for me to characterize either of their careers as nothing but soulless wanking technician navel gazing on the whole. On the other hand, if either of those guys have written a great SONG since the 1980's, I have as yet to hear it.

I was a much bigger fan of Yngwie than I was Vai or Satriani, yet by the end of the 1980's I was no longer interested in hearing Yngwie shred his classical scales at light speed, either.

Technical ability can be a jaw-dropper to witness in the short run. So are bitchin' guitar solos. If that's all a player has to offer, my ceiling of interest is gonna be low.