Yngwie Malmsteen
Inspiration

For those who are passionate about Classical Music and also Rock, there is a continuous search for Artists who manage - sometimes with thrilling results and sometimes dreadful - to marry these two musical expressions. Yngwie Malmsteen is certainly, for better or for worse, one of the foremost and dedicated representatives of this union; a union that historically and predominantly occurs in the fields of Progressive and Metal.

Besides, Paganini was the first metalhead in history (...) Emulated by masses of pimply basement guitarists all over the world, hailed, disparaged by the most intransigent true metallers, despised. Surely one of the musicians who has attracted the greatest controversies upon himself: on one side the talebans ready to sacrifice themselves for him no matter what, and on the other side hordes of enraged inquisitors who will never grant leniency to the chubby thrasher, even under torture. Malmsteen was a revelation to me at the beginning of my adolescence, around the age of 13; the age group most prone to infatuation with him. I don't know how many times I've listened to his "Concerto Suite...". Then luckily one takes other musical paths; but every now and then I listen to him with pleasure. After all, it couldn't have been otherwise, since he was the one who exaggerated the concept of my favorite guitarist - along with Stevie Ray Vaughan -; that is, Ritchie Blackmore. I can picture young Malmsteen in chilly Sweden drooling as "Burn" spins on his player and captivates him. He'll also have the luck to raid the career of our common hero, snagging a good number of musicians who have shared the road with Richard: David Rosenthal and Joe Lynn Turner, the first two that come to mind at this moment.

With all these premises, obviously an album like "Inspiration" had to represent the pinnacle of my Malmsteen, grappling with many songs that meant and still mean a lot to me; yet that album marked the beginning of the end of my blinding infatuation with him. In certain ways, I knew what I would find, knowing Malmsteen and his approach, but this time he had truly gone overboard: "Child in Time" (or "Bombay Calling" eheheh), is one of the songs with the most pathos in the entire history of Rock, so you can't defile everything right from the start with that chubby and redundant intro on which Rosenthal will indignantly slop all over the face of Jon Lord. This won't do. I don't doubt Malmsteen's good faith, being a fan himself before becoming a musician. I also understand his style and the coordinates that have created considerable influence in the history of music I'd say, but with songs like these he should have found a proper compromise, something he failed to do, dangerously tipping the scale in his favor.

If things don't work out with someone like Blackmore, a guitarist of strong European-ness, just imagine with someone like Hendrix. Hendrix was another hero of Malmsteen, but I don't think from a musical standpoint, rather for what the guitar, with Hendrix, became as a protagonist in Rock. Different worlds, different cultures, hence the questionable "Manic Depression" and "Spanish Castle Magic", in which the true essence of Hendrix is ruined. Here, the "Manic Depression" of Vaughan, certainly his kind of stuff. In theory, aside from Jimi himself, all the musical-cultural elements were there to create a good tribute; with the presence of the Scorpions, again Deep Purple ("Pictures of Home" and "Mistreated" just decent), Rainbow (the magical chemistry of the Blackmore-Dio duo, a thing unto itself in the entire history of Hard Rock and Hard 'n Heavy, is not found on every street corner, so Malmsteen and Soto produce a confused and noisy "Gates of Babylon"), and Kansas, Rush and UK, rounding it all off.

All bands with strong content and would have been congenial to dear Yngwie, but the album doesn't take off; remaining in my opinion a missed opportunity, where the true (overbearing) protagonist remains Malmsteen and not his love and respect for his heroes.