I get cross with those kind of comments too. Then I think 'what does Steve think about it ?' and I'm pretty sure he couldn't care less. Those who dislike Steve's music, for whatever reason, are the ones missing out.
All that really needs to be said isn't it. Even if he had never recorded anything else, this piece of magnificence should have him on top of any list
My goodness Mark! Are you a mind reader too?! You summed it up perfectly. I remember watching the video on MTV. I mean, speak of shell shock! My jaw was hitting the hardwood floor, I was probably in tears and had never before experienced such love for music and certainly not to that depth (to this day, I can count on the fingers of one hand who/where/when else I got struck by the music thunder anywhere around the magnitude of "For the Love of God"'s. There are tons of Steve's songs I have worshipped over the years but this has to be in my top 5 (possibly 3!. I speak from a passionate and music loving place, not a guitar playing place. This is just sky parting and takes an incredible composer to come up with such blend of craft. This is is why Music is the Best.....thanks to all contributing to this thread. It's nice to hear and read from so many people and their personal experience. We probably were all around the same age (give or take a couple of years, right?) when P&W was released. We probably all made the same face when hearing it for the first time on so many different parts of the globe. We are gathering up together 30 years later and it still feels as vivid as it was before to me.
For The Love of God is one of Vai's defining moments as a guitarist, one of the best pieces of music he ever recorded.
The Audience Is Listening I think to me this track is one of the examples of why this album works so well as an instrumental album. We get a bit of Steve's humour, and it is well presented and in the theme of the songs being often based in dreams, I can hear it in this song. We get the teachers introduction, which is really well portrayed by Nancy Fagen. Jamie Firlotte plays young Steve, and the it all just comes together. We get some beautiful layering of guitars, and some great riffs. If we pay attention to the music side of things rather than the unfolding drama in the classroom, we also get a nice variety of stylistic movements, and textures. This track is really good fun, but it is also an excellent piece of music. Of those of us who followed the rock and roll dream, whether successes of failures (depending how we measure those terms) who hasn't thought about, dreamt about, getting up in front of a bunch of detractors from our youth and just blowing them away to the point where they either need to concede defeat or stay silent ... I don't know, perhaps I am a bad person, but I can really visualise this whole scenario. Great track in every way. Entertaining, coherent, and insistently musical across many themes and styles.
A great fun song. "That sounds like noise Mister Vai and I want it stopped" makes me laugh every time I hear it
I Would Love To This has a very eighties sounding opening chord theme ... not sure why I am hearing that at the moment, but immediately it started it made me think of the eighties. Then we move into this excellent melody that has this moving centre and smoothly rolls through some different sections. To me I hear Vai trying to sing a complex melodic theme with his guitar as the vocal. There is a bit of a breakdown with some almost synth sounding chords, and then we move into a nice rhythmic stuff, with some nice drum fills and then into a nice melodic lead break that builds to a harmonised guitar crescendo. As with a few tracks on here, there is some spoken word stuff added. It works texturally and thematically, but I think you would probably need to read the book released about the album to fully know the theme. Did they ever release that book? I remember when this came out, we had the album and the tablature book, and there was talk of releasing a book written about the themes on here.... I never saw it though. Do you guys know if that happened?
Another good song on this album. The video used to crack me up back then Steve Vai - I Would Love To (1990) (Enhanced)
TAIL Not my favourite. At the time I felt it was too much of a wannabe ‘Hot For Teacher’, and I’ve never been able to shake that initial impression. There are some great moments, and it’s fun in places, but... IWLT I’ve always loved this. It’s such a positive, optimistic track. I remember an interview where the interviewer asked whether it was a deliberate nod to ‘Blue Wind’, which took Steve aback somewhat, but I think he did acknowledge a passing similarity. I like the little vocal bits-throughout the album they provide a little bit of some sort of context, and I think Steve’s choices about them were very considered.
I Would Love To is all manner of brilliant! I can't get over how wonderful it is. It's got Steve's trademark heavenly atmosphere, a totally catchy and singable melody with a few nudges and winks along the way. One of the things that makes it so beautiful is how much emotion is packed into it even as it charges ever onward. The way the chords change under the melody makes it sound positive and uplifting one moment and turn to wistful and longing the next. Just another show of masterful composing and arranging by little Stevie Vai. You know... It's when they look you in the eyes and they say...
Blue Powder This was an advert/trial or something like that (sorry it's early and my head is cloudy) of Carvin amps. In spite of all that, this is a magnificent piece of music and guitar playing. We start off with this beautiful semi-blues thing, and then move into a series of wonderful and amazing changes, that build in intensity and structural technicality, until we crescendo and move bad down to a variation of the opening theme. We then go through this cycle again and there is a bass lead break that is quite sensational of its own accord, and move into some really interesting guitar parts. At the end we get a very mellow section, that reminds me a lot of some of the live coda's that Vai did in For The Love Of God ... it then builds into a fabulous explosion of guitar to finish the song. Great great track.
Yeah, Blue Powder is another trip. When it starts you think you know what you're in for, but the music proves you wrong soon enough and takes you several different places in the space of, what... 4 or 5 minutes? What a gem. There's a very entertaining short feature on Vai's Astoria DVD with Billy Sheehan seeking advice in order to pull off the lead bass break on Blue Powder.
Steve Vai - a rough history The JEM guitar Interview Talking about Zappa Some guitar techniques Stevie's Spanking with Zappa 1981 May 1981 Zappa Tinseltown Rebellion Fine Girl Easy Meat For The Young Sophisticate Love Of My Life Ain't Got No Heart Panty rap, Tell me you love me, Now You See it now You don't, Dance Contest, Blue Light, Tinseltown Rebellion, Pick Me I'm clean Bamboozeld By Love, Brown Shoes Don't Make It, Peaches 3 1981 - Shut Up And Play Yer guitar - Frank Zappa Guitar Book sept 1981 Zappa You Are What You Is Teenage Wind Harder Than Your Husband Doreen, Goblin Girl, Theme From the 3rd movement of sinister footwear Society Pages, I'm A beautiful Guy, Beauty Knows No Pain Charlies enormous mouth, Any Downers, Conehead, You Are What You Is You Are What You Is - video Mudd Club, The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing, Dumb All Over Heavenly Bank Account, Suicide Chump, Jumbo Go Away, If Only She Woulda, Drafted Again NYC Palladium 1981 - with Zappa May 1982 Zappa Ship Arriving Too Late to Save A Drowning Witch No Not Now Valley Girl I Come From Nowhere Drowning Witch Envelopes Teenage Prostitute Mar 1983 Zappa Man From Utopia Cocaine Decisions The Dangerous Kitchen Tink Walks Amok The Radio Is Broken Moggio The Man From Utopia Meets Mary Lou Stick Together Sex Jazz Discharge Party Hats We Are Not Alone Jan 1984 Zappa Flex-able + leftovers Little Green Men Viv Woman Lovers Are Crazy Salamanders In The Sun Boy/Girl Song The Attitude Song Call It Sleep Junkie Bill's Private Parts Next Stop Earth There's Something Dead In Here Flex-able Leftovers You Didn't Break it Bledsoe Blvd The Beast Of Love Burnin' Down The Mountain So Happy Details At 10 Little Pieces Of Seaweed Chronic Insomnia Oct 1984 Alcatrazz - Power Live dvd Oct 1984 Zappa - Them Or Us The Closer You Are In France Ya Hozna Sharleena Sinister Footwear II Truck Driver Divorce Stevie's Spanking - live Vai and Zappa jam Baby Take Your Teeth Out Marque-son's Chicken Planet Of My Dreams Be In My Video Them Or Us Frogs With Dirty Little Lips Whipping Post March 1985 Alcatrazz Disturbing The Peace God Blessed Video Mercy - actual song Will You Be Home Tonight Wire And Wood Desert Diamond Stripper Painted Lover A Lighter Shade Of Green Sons And Lovers Skyfire Breaking The Heart Of The City - live Vai Live at the Spirit Club 1985 Nov 1985 Frank Zappa - Meets The Mothers Of Prevention We're Turning Again Alien Orifice Yo Cats What's New In Baltimore Little Beige Samb Porn Wars Aerobics In Bondage I Don't Even Care One Man One Vote HR2911 Jan 1986 Public Image Limited (PIL) - Album FFF Rise Fishing Round Bags Home Ease Western Vacation July 86 Eat Em And Smile Yankee Rose Shy Boy I'm Easy Ladies Night In Buffalo - correction Goin Crazy Tobacco road (Spanish) Big Trouble Elephant Gun Big Trouble Bump And Grind That's Life Live In Detroit 86 Live In Montreal 86 1986 The Crossroads dual 1988 Skyscraper Knucklebones Just Like Paradise Bottom Line Skyscraper Damn Good Hot Dog And A Shake Stand Up Hina Perfect Timing Two Fools Born A Minute Nov 1989 Whitesnake Slip Of The Tongue Slip Of The Tongue Cheap N Nasty Fool For Your Lovin' Now You're Gone Kittens Got Claws Wings Of The Storm Deeper The Love Judgement Day Slow Poke Music Sailing Ships b-side Sweet Lady Luck May 1990 Passion And Warfare Liberty Erotic Nightmares The Animal Answers The Riddle Ballerina 12/24 For the Love Of God The Audience Is Listening I Would Love To Blue Powder For The Love Of God -live with the Metropole Orchestra
Blue Powder is sublime, isn’t it? I never tire of it. I think you’re right that it was released as an advert for Carvin, as a ‘soundpage’ in Guitar Player. Folks who believe Vai to be a soulless fret w**ker need to listen to this one. The delicate run at 2:15 is one of my favourite moments on the record, but it has intense heavier moments too. The full palette of clean tones, to full-on rock!
Greasy Kids Stuff We start with an odball tech rundown, and then we open with a rocking little track. I love that smooth melody line that he moves into. The sound of the guitar in those sections is like silk sheets. Here we get a small throwback to some Zappaesque melodies. To me this is the strong point of this album, we get a track like this, that really could be a throwaway, but it still has so much to offer, and delivers. Another excellent track.
Alien Water Kiss This is like a pure experiment in sounds and layers. For what it may lack in melody it makes up for in interesting soundscapes. It seems almost like a tip of the hat to Hendrix Electric Ladyland.
Sisters This is a beautiful piece of music. We have a lovely clean tone, and a really beautiful melodic guitar theme. The jem guitars were, in my opinion wonderful guitars, it was my favourite guitar I ever had. They had a beautiful feel, and the tones were great. Any guitar can sound good with effects, but a great clean tone is the base to work from. This track really emphasises how melodic and fluid Steve could be. We even get a few somewhat George Benson type things on here. Really great track.