Why is Yngwie so hated?

[andy7jem]

What's the big deal about Yngwie not changing his style.Many of the "wonderful shredders" referred to on this site are very one dimentional.People post clips of "great" guitarists and it's always fast alternate picked runs,fast sweeps,all the usual crap at a million mph.If it's not Yngwie it's "cool" "awesome" "amazing".If it's Yngwie it's "same licks over and over".
Not many people are TRULY diverse.Eric Johnson is,listen to Ah Via Musicom.I've heard Al Di Meola.Stunning musician,bores the cr*p out of me though.Yngwie ISN'T the only repetitive guitarist out there.

[Epicus Furor]

What it all boils down to is jealousy, and no matter how much you try and convince yourselves you 'hate' him for the 'right' reasons .. it is transparent and blatently obvious you are jealous of his technical skill even if you don't like his music. I find it extremly shallow that people comment on a musicians personality over musicality and seem to judge anothers music based on attitude and personality .. if you like his music good, if you don't like his music fair enough .. but you don't know the guy personally .. so don't dismiss him purley based on biased opinions on rumours and press media - judge for yourself instead of jumping on the 'Yngwie bashing wagon' as many seem to have caught onto over many years. and sure he has an ego and is very self assured but withouht that confidence, he wouldn't be where he is today.

[Epicus Furor]

oh yeah 'repetative?!' please that's pretty funny for someone to call Yngwie that .. I could name so many guitarists who are repetative beyond belief but they don't get the cannon blown at them because they are apparently 'legends' .. look at some blues 'greats' ... bb.king, eric clapadout e.t.c. as great as they may be, all they play is re-hashed blues licks over and over and no-one slaits them for being repetative! Yngwie has such a huge repetoire of techniques and licks - he has such a unique and distinctive sound, what people forget is his masterful variations on themes and idiosyncrasys, that's why any neo-classical shredder since the day he released rising force has been compared to him, and apart from players who flirted with classical music mixed with the heavy rock like Uli and Ritchie, he took it to such a new level and fully embraced the classical approach, basically wrote the rule book ..

[JJEMMER777]

Originally Posted by Epicus Furor

oh yeah 'repetative?!' please that's pretty funny for someone to call Yngwie that .. I could name so many guitarists who are repetative beyond belief but they don't get the cannon blown at them because they are apparently 'legends' ..

I have seen some of those other "repetitive" guitarists you mention live and I have seen Yng live.

Yng is great for two songs....then comes the realization that you've already heard everything you'll hear from that point on (solo wise) And with the "I'm so great" ~tude~ to boot

I don't get that with the others at all.

I respect the man's musical abilities immensely. I just can't sit and listen to him and watch him anymore.

Mix it up Yng!!!

[Ki swordsman]

someone said it's cos he's a confident person, that's not it, plenty of ppl especially musos are confident and adored by the people they know. we're not easily shocked by 'confidence', we're shocked by people being absolute *******s

reepetitiiiiive repetitiiiiiive repetitiiiiive booooooring, if we honestly think that bout his music how could we be jealous?
if it means we are jealous does that mean the players we openly admire like Vai...we actually hate?

that's the music side, been mentioned here many times. so stop saying we are judging his music cos of his personality, we are judging both and not always together and we're giving pleeeenty of reasons why we feel that way.

on the personality side- *******, selfish, egotistical, discriminatory, etc etc list goes on, is anyone actually debating this part??

[Dee]

Originally Posted by Epicus Furor

What it all boils down to is jealousy, and no matter how much you try and convince yourselves you 'hate' him for the 'right' reasons .. it is transparent and blatently obvious you are jealous of his technical skill even if you don't like his music.

I don't like to be rude, but that's a load of crap. I don't know ANYONE who's jealous of Malmsteen, and to accuse us of "hating" him because of his technical skill is ABSURD. If that was the case, we'd hate MacAlpine, Holdsworth, Garsed, Helmerich, Vai, in fact all the great players. Again, it's an absurd statement to make. Now, you can call me an @sshole if you like, but I think my own playing is infinately more interesting than Yngwie's. Take that how you want, I'm just being honest. There are so many players better than me, though. The ones I just mentioned, for starters. But I guess you think we also hate those guys purely because they are better than us, technically? You're wrong. It has nothing to do with that. Please refrain from making such nonsensical statements. If you're the type of person who suffers from jealousy, fine, but please don't assume we all do. Many of us couldn't give a crap about his style. I won't waste my time listening to the same s*** over and over again when there are insanely good musicians around such as Holdsworth. I have better things to do. I'm not a 15 year old metalhead, I've gotten past that stage, thank you very much.

[jaken777]

Well said (Deeswift) at least you look at it in a good frame of mind = realisticly!
& there are alot of unknown top guitars players out there that would dance notes around Yngwie's style today.

Cheers..Jake.

[jj]

Okay, this is going nowhere fast, so since I started this silly little topic let me clarify my use of the term "shred."

According to Mike Varney (founder of Shrapnel Records and the man who first signed Jason Becker, Marty Friedman, Paul Gilbert, Tony MacAlpine, Vinnie Moore, Ritchie Kotzen, Greg Howe, Joey Tafolla etc.) shred refers to "high speed, technically superior solos with a heavy neo-classical influence." And Mike should know, he did more to further the cause of shred guitarists than anyone. Ever.

So, let's see which pre-Yngwie guitarists fall into this definition:
NONE, because nobody (not Holdsworth, not Uli, not Dimeola, not EVH, not even Blackmore) played with a "HEAVY NEO-CLASSICAL INFLUENCE". Blackmore is the only one to come even close because he would occasionally throw something semi-classical into his solos, but certainly not enough to be called a heavy influence. Oh yeah, and EVH did quote a very famous Kreutzer violin exercise in "Eruption", but that was as close as he ever got to neo-classical.

So someone else must have been the first to play (and record) in this style. Let's see, high speed, technically superior solos with a heavy neo-classical influence. Hmmm, I wonder who that could be???

[Ki swordsman]

firstly- even if he did start some stuff, what? does that mean we have to like him now? i hate his playing, his music and his persona!

secondly he may have pushed a certain aspect of shred but he by no means opened the door, or created/pushed the better aspects of it
surf rockers and some jazz players had already evolved some shred, and guys like hendrix had already pushed the fast/shred playing side, it was all developing and evolving to something, and as it happens you see many players at each step, just because a certain person appears at a certain step in an evolving thing doesn't mean he created or allowed it to happen

it's not like without malmsteen we wouldn't be shredding, many players, i think even vai(til he started to see him before he replaced him) were shredding before they even knew yngwie existed right?

and we go by a modern definition of shred- usually high gain electric guitar solo skills(as far as i can see)
it doesn't matter how one person defines it, terms change and we go by majority feel

[pawel]

Originally Posted by jj

Okay, this is going nowhere fast, so since I started this silly little topic let me clarify my use of the term "shred."....

I told myself I won't be posting in this thread, but well...

Ok, so, Yngwie started "shred" - so what? Masami Akita (Merzbow) might have single-handedly created the modern noise scene, but most people wouldn't classify this as music or even art (I would, but I'm weird). I don't think anyone denies that when "Rising Force" was released, Yngwie might have been the most important person in the rock guitar world, but that doesn't mean we had to like Yngwie's music then or we have to like it now. We might respect him for what he started (though ge doesn't make it easy for us, and with all the tasteless Shrapnel pap maybe it would be better if he didn't), but that's no reason to like it. Personally, I think Jason Becker did more on one album than Yngwie did on all of his.

So, just to make you five up on this thread finally, here is the summary of your (and a few others') argument:

- Why is Yngwie so hated?
- We give valid reasons why we dislike his music or him as a person.
- But these aren't reasons to hate someone, you must be jealous.
- Why should we be jealous of Yngwie if we're not jealous of Vai, Holdsworth etc...
- You say Yngwie is repetative, but so is Eric Clapton and BB King!
- Me: They write songs, they write different songs, and they do change and progress. They don't hail themselves/they are not hailed as guitar messiah's.
- But Yngwie started shred!
- Why should we like him just because of it?

So did you ask us the question in this thread to find out why we "hate" Yngwie, or did you come here to educate us infidels, because you clearly got your answers.

[Epicus Furor]

What some people are jealous of is the fact he is so good and he KNOWS it and is not ashamed to show off his talent in abundence, musicality aside i was speaking of technical skill. Players like Macalpine, Petrucci, Satch are like Yngwie very technically proficient, but you don't see these guys walking around showing off and reminding people constantly 'how good they are' .. and i think that is at the end of it, why people hate Yngwie so much. Please don't take offense of my comments, it's purley my based on my personal opinion.

[Epicus Furor]

'So someone else must have been the first to play (and record) in this style. Let's see, high speed, technically superior solos with a heavy neo-classical influence. Hmmm, I wonder who that could be???'

.. Joe Stump

[Ki swordsman]

Originally Posted by Epicus Furor

What some people are jealous of is the fact he is so good and he KNOWS it and is not ashamed to show off his talent in abundence, musicality aside i was speaking of technical skill. Players like Macalpine, Petrucci, Satch are like Yngwie very technically proficient, but you don't see these guys walking around showing off and reminding people constantly 'how good they are' .. and i think that is at the end of it, why people hate Yngwie so much. Please don't take offense of my comments, it's purley my based on my personal opinion.

lol ok umm.. your point looks something like 'reminding ppl how good you are and being too full of yourself is a good thing'? and that we are jealous of that part??

lmfao

and quit with the jealousy stuff already i think we've loooong disproved that one. no need to come in saying like it's a fact "What ppl are jealous of is the fact that bla bla..." instead of actually trying to rebut what we said or the reasoning we gave why jealousy isn't it.

[Tom Gilroy]

Originally Posted by jj

So, let's see which pre-Yngwie guitarists fall into this definition:
NONE, because nobody (not Holdsworth, not Uli, not Dimeola, not EVH, not even Blackmore) played with a "HEAVY NEO-CLASSICAL INFLUENCE".

I don't see why you're leaving out Uli Jon Roth from that. He both is influenced by classical and neo classical I believe.

Originally Posted by jj

So someone else must have been the first to play (and record) in this style. Let's see, high speed, technically superior solos with a heavy neo-classical influence. Hmmm, I wonder who that could be???

Uli Jon Roth. There you go.

Originally Posted by andy7jem

I've heard Al Di Meola. Stunning musician,bores the cr*p out of me though. Yngwie ISN'T the only repetitive guitarist out there.

I wouldn't call Al particularly repetivive. He's done straight jazz, high octane fusion, pure acoustic albums, used synths for a time and now is taking a pretty back to basics approach. Sure, each one of those styles he has done does get repetitive after a while, but at least he's experimented with different styles, Yngwie is just doing the same stuff over and over again.

[Epicus Furor]

'lol ok umm.. your point looks something like 'reminding ppl how good you are and being too full of yourself is a good thing'? and that we are jealous of that part??'

O.k I'll explain especially for you .. take for example a well respected chef who is modest, people appreciate his talent and dedication e.t.c. and take the food as it is, now imagine that chef was to be the complete opposite of moddest and was self assured to the point of arrogance, claiming how his food is (e.g.) 'the best in the world' e.t.c people wouldn't be as fond of him because it would take away that special something from him

'and quit with the jealousy stuff already i think we've loooong disproved that one'

..no. are you saying to me no-one who hates Yngwie is jealous of him? What my opinion is that there is some people who hate him that are jealous of his skill, hence why i use the word 'some' not 'everyone' .. maybe your not jealous of him, i never accused you of being so but i dislike how people judge a musician based on personality.

'no need to come in saying like it's a fact "What ppl are jealous of is the fact that bla bla..."'

I'm afraid to say i have never stated something as fact, maybe you've just mis-interpreted my comments