Yngwie Shreeding on a 1959 Les Paul

He does look healthier than he has looked in recent pics and vid clips. Say whatever you will about his now extremely predictable style, damn ... when he’s on, he’s ON!!!
 
You have to love Yngwie even if you don't. Really! Think about it. He is probably the purist guitarist on earth right now. Instantly recognizable technique that has always set him apart from the herd of copycat players.

Hendrix, Van Halen and then Yngwie as far as totally innovative style inventors. Everybody who came along after those three pretty much borrowed their styles. (Jeff Hannaman did something cool and different though, big props to Jeff.) In metal and rock anyway, not talking about other music. The nu-metal, detuned stuff is different.
 
Best and cleanest he's sounded in a while granted lots of splash there. As tired as some of the neoclassical riffs can sound, when he slows them down (and still goes fast) he sounds awesome. Also, his blues chops, his pentatonics and vibrato are incredible. When he plays pentatonics you know it is him instantly.
 
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J.S. Bach, Niccolo Paganini, Uli Jon Roth, and Ritchie Blackmore would like a word with you.

Yngwie refined a style that already existed.
Hendrix and EVH invented their styles.
How do you figure? Love uli and Ritchie but they sure as shit didn't do what Yngwie did. Also, nobody owns harmonic minor, Bach and Paganini didn't have the rights to the notes, nobody does. The 3 string arpeggios and full six string arpeggios are all his own in context of the guitar as was the pedaltone Bach thing he does.

But yeah all those guys are incredible and had their own thing going on. Don't forget the mad axeman Michael Schenker! He also had some 'minor" scale and classical inflections in his playing.
 
How do you figure? Love uli and Ritchie but they sure as shit didn't do what Yngwie did. Also, nobody owns harmonic minor, Bach and Paganini didn't have the rights to the notes, nobody does. The 3 string arpeggios and full six string arpeggios are all his own in context of the guitar as was the pedaltone Bach thing he does.

But yeah all those guys are incredible and had their own thing going on. Don't forget the mad axeman Michael Schenker! He also had some 'minor" scale and classical inflections in his playing.

I just don't see Yngwie on the same mountain as Hendrix and EVH. That's all. He didn't invent - he refined.

Yngwie is Paganini with a Strat and a Marshall.

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I purposely chose Roth over Schenker - but ya, Michael's a major fave of mine.
Use to play an extended Rock Bottom back in the day.
 
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I just don't see Yngwie on the same mountain as Hendrix and EVH. That's all. He didn't invent - he refined.

I purposely chose Roth over Schenker - but ya, Michael's a major fave of mine.
Use to play an extended Rock Bottom back in the day.
YJM deserves that spot, without question imo. He didn’t refine; he REDEFINED the classical rock genre. Just as Hendrix redefined blues/rock, and EVH redefined rock.
 
How do you figure? Love uli and Ritchie but they sure as shit didn't do what Yngwie did. Also, nobody owns harmonic minor, Bach and Paganini didn't have the rights to the notes, nobody does. The 3 string arpeggios and full six string arpeggios are all his own in context of the guitar as was the pedaltone Bach thing he does.

But yeah all those guys are incredible and had their own thing going on. Don't forget the mad axeman Michael Schenker! He also had some 'minor" scale and classical inflections in his playing.
I agree, Yngwie is a game changer and with Eddie gone, the last of the great game changers. He's up there with Hendrix and EVH IMO...of course he's a metal guy so not and politically correct blues derived or drifted into adult contemporary enough for some, and frankly I respect the hell of him for that.
 
YJM deserves that spot, without question imo. He didn’t refine; he REDEFINED the classical rock genre. Just as Hendrix redefined blues/rock, and EVH redefined rock.

You can look at it two ways.

1. Yngwie deserves to be alongside Hendrix and EVH exactly for the reasons you mention.
2. Both Hendrix and EVH re-defined what people expected to hear out of an electric guitar.

The entire popular music world stopped when both Are You Experienced and VH1 dropped. You didn't
have to be a guitar player or even a rock music fan to realize that shit was from another planet.

With Yngwie it was mainly the rock guitar community who was hit off side the head - first with his technique,
then 'the funky scale', and finally the way he melded those with a almost Spinal Tap like Rock God vibe.
 
You can look at it two ways.

1. Yngwie deserves to be alongside Hendrix and EVH exactly for the reasons you mention.
2. Both Hendrix and EVH re-defined what people expected to hear out of an electric guitar.

The entire popular music world stopped when both Are You Experienced and VH1 dropped. You didn't
have to be a guitar player or even a rock music fan to realize that shit was from another planet.

With Yngwie it was mainly the rock guitar community who was hit off side the head - first with his technique,
then 'the funky scale', and finally the way he melded those with a almost Spinal Tap like Rock God vibe.
You can definitely measure the influence any of these players had, by the sheer numbers of guys that picked up the instrument and tried to copy that style. I’d say EVH #1, Hendrix #1a, then YJM #3. IMO.
 
You can definitely measure the influence any of these players had, by the sheer numbers of guys that picked up the instrument and tried to copy that style. I’d say EVH #1, Hendrix #1a, then YJM #3. IMO.

Again, you're talking guitar and I agree. Hendrix and EVH turned rock music in general upside down.

On a side note:

 
I’ll add to the debate. Full Disclosure, I discovered Yngwie during his Alcatrazz stint and then ordered Steeler on Vinyl before the original Rising Force album came out in ‘84. I lived and breathed Yngwie through the late 80s. And have cringed along with the other devoted disciples at his less impressive efforts of late. So I am biased. In ‘78 Ed literally changed the guitar landscape. That does not minimize or trivialize the blistering works of Frank Marino or Pat Travers or Gary Richrath etc. But Ed changed the game. Everything that came out between ‘78 and ‘84 was someone attempting to move (some successfully) the boundary that EVH established on the first VH album. The guitar landscaped changed again after the ’84 Rising Force album in the same way that the landscape changed after the first VH album in ‘78. Vinnie Moore, Tony Macalpine, Paul Gilbert, Marty Friedman, Jason Becker, Steve Vai, etc. In no way am I suggesting that these guys would not have been monster players had Yngwie never come along - but Yngwie’s whole ‘thing’ provided both artistic inspiration and a commercial ‘lane’ for what these guys did. Hendrix - Edward - Yngwie. These guys mark substantively different ‘eras’ of the then existing state of the art of electric guitar. That doesn’t minimize any other players’ contributions. But I think those 3 are fur sure Mt. Rushmore players.

Not everyone on this forum was into the scene back in ‘84, but watch this 5 minute clip - remember he was 19 or 20 when he played this - and ask yourself, was this more of the same of what was going on in 84, or was this just qualitatively different than anything and everything all those tapping in Ed’s wake were doing at the time:

 
Let's not forget what Randy was doing too. The solo in the live version of Suicide Solution was 1981-82.
 
Hearing how good Yngwie can sound even with a phone cam is bittersweet. This clip sounds better than his recent self-produced, reverb drenched records. He really needs a producer that is up to par to his guitar skills.
 
Anyone here ever listen to heavy metal music? I do. I would say the large majority of guitar solos take influence from Yngwie more than any other guitarist. Alot of harmonic minor runs, diminished arpeggios in the style of Yngwie. Jeff Loomis, Amott, just about every metal guitar player you can think of sounds more like Yngwie than Eddie
 
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The phrasing on his first handful of albums was creative and well thought out.
But after the orchestra disc, he devolved into a parody of himself - mindlessly blowing his load on everything he plays.
I hung in until Odyssey, which I thought was a good album (perfect songs for that era) and some of his solos
actually tried to stay a little more on the melody and less on his usual licks. Joe Lynn Turner must have started
getting too much attention so Yngwie had to kill it quick.

I'll try one more argument against YJM being on the Mount Rushmore of rock guitar. Ask a lot of non-players,
but rock fans in general, and they will know about Hendrix and EVH. Step outside of the guitar players biodome,
and Yngwie hasn't left any lasting marks.

First time 'Foxy Lady' was on the radio EVERYONE would stop and listen - not just guitar players. Same when
'You Really Got Me' broke. As soon as EVH started adding those fills it stopped rock fans (and not just players)
in their tracks. Had nothing to do with whether you liked it or not. It was just unlike anything that came before.

Ask guitarists who should be on Rushmore and your going to get Hendrix and EVH and XXXXXX, depending on
the players favorite genres. I know a whole bunch of folks who would argue The Edge is a 10X more important
player than Yngwie (nothing to do with technique). Other's would say Johnny Marr.

Just my pucker hole adding it's stink to the conversation.
 
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