>I've just talked to that guitarist friend of mine. He said: "is he nuts?!
>Malmsteen is OBVIOUSLY more complex." He asked you to be more specific
about
>WHERE Van Halen played like Malmsteen ( in private, if you and the list
>will ).
>
>Bye,
>
>Caio Rossi
This is my problem. I, and everyone I know DO NOT like music that strives
to be complex. It's almost as if the complexity hides a lack of strong
musical ideas. Malmsteen strives for musical complexity, and it feels
colourless and egotistical. He's constantly going "me,me,me! look at what i
can do! surely you understand that I am the fastest."
And yes, I admit, I used to like Malmsteen when I was at the height of my
guitar virtuosity, as the music gave me certain thrill- but once i got over
the excitement of playing fast, the music suddenly became completely empty,
and void of any innovation whatsoever.
Here's my formula for a malmsteen song from beginning to end.
1. starts with a fast neo-classical riff (guitar and bass in unison), which
lurches into a
chunky fast riff, with a short solo. Usually always harmonic minor.
2. Some high voiced gruff sounding guy wails a verse containing extremely
cliched lyrics and slight swedish accent, containing banal embarrasing
lyrics such as 'standing in the fire, or, in the eye of the storm etc."
3. Chorus- a very high, wobbly harmonised line with some trite
fantasy-inspired lyric such as "you are my queen of darkneeeeeeeeeeess, and
we belong togetheeeeeeeeeeeer, as I am your king of destiny"
4. Solo- key change into a blazing harmonic minor solo, occasionally adding
some blues, maybe with a wah. In this solo, yngwie attempts to break his
personal speed record, or at least the speed of sound. Endless flurries of
fast 32nd notes, mixed in with ascending and descending scales, complex
sequences, sweep picking, ostinatos, every trick in the book (it's like he
tries to play every melodic figuration bach ever had in every solo, every
time ..(problem is, he's been doing this since like...1987 or something- he
literally has NO taste). What the superior part of this is...I can't find.
I stopped writing this sort of music at 16, when I realised that music
wasn't about scales (...and when I did year 12 english)
back to the song-
5. another verse, another chorus, repeat twice, maybe another endless solo
exit to some oblivious ending. (maybe a slow classical bit, which always
sounds like albinoni's adagio for strings, but with really with really fast
guitar over it).
6. by this time I've drifted of.
7. Repeat formula 9 more times to complete album, which will be called
'warlord' or something preposterous. Except, for every three songs with
high screechy vocals, insert one pointless neo-classical instrumental, just
to make sure you didn't miss yngwie's prowess on the fretboard.
Is this technically superior???
no.
Will this music last??
no.
Does any non-guitarist like yngwie??
no.
Compare it to radiohead for example- their new album 'kid a' is a 45 minute
song epic cycle of electronic and traditional pop, mixed in with inventive
and extremely fresh ideas (hardly used before in pop music, such as ambient
loops, freeform jazz trumpet breakdowns, mutated guitar textures, vocoder
filters on unusual instruments) breaking rules in form, melody, harmony and
texture. This album is
so new and 'uncliched' yet somehow connects and seems like a logical
progress of 90's british music.
yngwie just repeats his old ideas- how can this be superior???? musically,
technically or in terms of taste?
i think it's inferior in every way.
Mirko
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