You know the thing about musical indulgence is, the guys who are well and truly absorbed in their own technical prowess, don't realise that their music is at risk of being persecuted for it's tedium and intensely frustrating arrogance.
I think the thing is, we can all appreciate guitar solos here and there, if they have soul and meaning and have a place inside a composition, to add something to a piece is great and great guitarists over the past 60 years have been able to utilize their talents in complimenting their music that's made.
But artists like Steve Vai, Satriani, Yngwie Malmsteen etc. Abuse their prowess and put on clinics for everyone. Now don't get me wrong, these guys should be well respected for what they've accomplished with the guitar and they are brilliant technically. But it is not music for people who aren't guitar players! It's as simple as that.
If you go to a concert of any of these guys, you're guranteed of one thing. High velocity riffage and nothing more. I play five million notes a second to impress people and that's the price of admission.
They are very popular amongst musicians circles, and rightly so. They inspire a lot of keen admirers who would kill to play like these guys. What I fear is that they might sink into the same mediocrity as the likes of Vai & Co.
I don't want this to happen, develop songs use space wisely and inspire people. Not make people flabbergasted by utter wankery with solos going on for 18 minutes at a time.
Malmsteen does make me upset inside a little. The quote of "the death of Hendrix was the birth of the guitar for Malmsteen" not quoted correctly, but that makes me sick inside in a way because Hendrix could very well be rolling in his grave at these statements.
He should feel flattered, but the truth is guitarists have modeled themselves on his spirit and claim to have been soo inspired by him, that his spirit lives on in millions of guitar players worldwide today.
The difference with Hendrix, is that he used space. His songs were of beauty and you can't take that away. He did love to show off and there's no doubting that, but he had a great way of perfectly balancing between the song and the solo, it was needed for a song so he would play a solo. Moments of indulgence are evident on live occassions, but the albums were particular tight with the exception of voodoo chile off electric ladyland.
What can anyone do, well I just write opinions on this blog, so anything I say has a right to be critcized well and truly and I accept that. There's nothing that anyone can do. But realise now that the art of the guitar solo in popular forms of music has kind of died a little.
I've got evidence to support this one too!
Metallica St. Anger 2003- SOLOS HELLO (okay Metallica switches to defcon 1 in an attempt to revitalise their career, something they are yet to accomplish but may see in a few days time when Death Magnetic is launched)
Popular music from 1992-present: Solos anyone, grunge died in the ass at that point we were beginning to see the emergence of brit pop in a few years time, and shoegazing bands played one chord through a flanger pedal for five minutes and practiced their affectations for tommorow night.)
TOOL- They are a force to be reckoned with, they use space in their solos which counts and the compositions are spaced out evenly, a lot of soul in their and interesting. After this progressive shift in metal, other bands would approach their sound less riff conscious.
Grindcore and speed metal- After years of bands playing at such high speeds, it became unattractive to play like this after a while they got sick of it.
Bryan Adams-Those emotion drenched solos during the middle of his ballads don't exactly give you hairs on you chest.
With these contributing factors we have to bury the insane guitar solo's and let them resurface every now and then.
Who is to blame for this? Well all the baby boomer generation's brains were dulled a little bit by all the excess of the late 60,s early 70's. So that's really too coincidental for my liking...
The origin of musical excess starts here:
1966- Artist: Cream Album: Fresh Cream
Track: TOAD
The debut album of cream unleashed Ginger Baker's beast toad, in this form it is only five minutes of percussionist wankery. But we all get treated to a delightful to a 16 minute rendition on the live side of 1968's Wheels of fire.
Baker is partly to blame for the intiation of the drum solo in rock music, it would continue to plague all of man kind until punks put all the prog rockers out of business.
1967- Artist: Pink Floyd Album: Piper at the Gates of Dawn
One of the biggest selling bands of all time had a lot of potential even in the beginning, however focus on material and the right combination of experimentation and songcraft would take a few years to master. Their psychedelic debut contains almost all mellow filter music which is quirky and definately intriguing for any floyd fan, however the quality of the material was very low.
1968- Artist: The Beatles Album: Self Titled (The White Album)
I am ironic to criticise this one because it's one of my all time desert islamd discs, however by this Beatles could do no wrong having established themselves and moved with the times. They could and would do anything they wanted musically whatever the consequence and most of the time it payed off.
The White Album is 94 minutes of pure lunacy, and that's why I love it. It jumps around from genre to genre and you're not quite sure what's around the corner.
Revolution 9 was the key to it's eccentricity. A sound collage which was avant garde and inspired that asthetic with a lot of the musicians around at the time.
1970- Artist: The Who Album: Tommy
Well Pete Townsend conceived this rock opera about a deaf dumb and blind boy who becomes a rock star.
And it was mostly filler. That is blasphemous considering that it rocks up on a lot of critics lists..sorry
The Canterbury Scene
Miles Goes Electric
Deep Purple: Three Words "Made in Japan"
NO MORE ORGAN SOLOS PLEASE
So we've firmly established a trend here, and it wasn't only guitars that were excessive, but just the music itself. Prog bands deliver track 1 and track 2. Which turn out to be Side 1 and Side 2 of a record. The main culpirits were ELP,YES,MAGMUM,Soft Machine,Focus, Uriah Heep, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Mike Oldfield.
Listening in between the notes can be important sometimes to, we are always trying to catch up with you Vai. You are crazy and toobad ass for everyone else.
All those notes inside your head would be floating around like that. So if you couldn't play guitar and you were restricted to a straight jacket for let's say 2 months. Would you start having singing lessons?
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