Guitar World archive: Yngwie Malmsteen Critiques the Playing of His Peers

[Matt White]

LOL I remember that issue.....

THey had Yngwie do that on more than one occassion...he was usually BLASTED out of his mind when doing those reviews.....

I remember Mike McCreedy from Pearl Jam popping off back at him in a letter to the editor! Funny stuff!

People take the guy WAY too seriously.............

[sadaist]

His early work is good time metal.

Trilogy was the last Yngwie album I bought. Last tour I saw as well. Motherfucking SAXON opened up! Blew Yngwie the fuck off the stage. Crusader is one of the baddest mofo metal songs ever.

[Seshmeister]

If Gary Moore is 'sloppy' I don't know where that leaves the rest of us...

[ashstralia]

i don't believe he'd never heard 'cause we've ended as lovers'.
an outright lie, i tell you!
it's still better than ten of his viking canoodlings™

[evil_lil]

I don't really like his albums but his interviews are hilarious... albeit unintentionally

[neuralfraud]

A very entertaining article and brutally honest. After listening to the songs that were critiqued, in most cases I agree with him... others, well, not so much because it just so happens that I like Death and Pantera, and so in that respect I disagree with him.

The most shocking were the satch and beck comments, and to be honest, he is absolutely right. That satch tune was painful to listen to.

oh and while i'm at it, this just pisses me off:

All he is is speed. Tiresome after about 1:30 minutes. No groove, no rhythm, no feel. I could record myself practicing my runs and then play it back at 8x speed and call it Yngwie.

Get off my lawn!

That is the most utterly and completely full of shit comment I've ever read; IMHO. It's perfectly fine not to like his music; I don't like his music. Yngwie is an amazing musican regardless of who likes his music or not. He's on a level of his own and very few can truly be called "peers".

Some think he's an arrogant douchebag, other's say he's down to earth, nice, whatever. I see both sides and quite frankly I have no problem with Yngwie J. Malmsteen or the guitar he plays.

Jesus H tap-dancing christ, people.

[jhale667]

Haters will hate..

Amazing when people say things like "I could speed up my playing and it'd sound like Yngwie" - Uh, HIGHLY DOUBTFUL. The guy is a musical genius, love him or hate him - and his Rising Force and Marching Out albums are in a class by themselves as far as guitar shreddery. When he's on, the dude has impecible note selection, technique, phrasing and melody. Has he started recycling himself over the years? Sure. Can most of us mere mortal guitarists get in the parking lot of his ballpark to this day? Not likely...

While I can attest from personal experience he can be a mega-jackass or super cool depending on his mood, I can't find much to fault about anything he said in that piece...except his comments on Jeff Beck, as I think he intentionally bends notes out of tune from time to time for dramatic effect (my guitar teacher once told me "if you play with absolute conviction, even out of tune notes sound like you meant it that way").

[evil_lil]

He's definitely got his schtick. It's good for what it is and a lot of people have copied it. But then he says shit in interviews like he's more versatile than Eric Clapton because the scale he uses has 7 notes and Clapton's only has 5. That and he kept wearing the leather pants and frilly shirt open to the waist even after he got fat...it's just comical, dude.

[ELVIS]

I like this one...

"I think the guitarist bought a Chuck Berry record that had a scratch on it. He repeats the same thing, even though he changes the key."

[ThrillsNSpills]

Amazing when people say things like "I could speed up my playing and it'd sound like Yngwie" -

Where do these walking question marks come from? Who's going to answer to producing such supreme doltlery.
The Jethro Bodean school of logic. He later went on to make the connection If I hit my finger with a hammer, it hurts bad.

[ThrillsNSpills]

The donut clip is great.

[Nitro Express]

I don't know. I prefer an asshole who honestly speaks his mind than some fake positive kiss ass who spouts sugar coated lies.

[ELVIS]

I prefer an asshole who honestly speaks his mind than some fake positive kiss ass who spouts sugar coated lies.

I like you too, Nitro...

[atomicpnk47]

All his shit sounds the same to me.....

[kwame k]

Me too!

Great guitarist, amazing but that gets old quick and the guy's only put out maybe two albums that were worth a shit.