In the world of guitar virtuosos, there is a fine line between
\ngenius and overindulgence. If only Steve Vai had discovered not to
\ncross that line.<\/p>\n
A pupil of fellow axemaster Joe Satriani who cut his
\nprofessional teeth with the late Frank Zappa, Vai got the most
\nexposure of his solo career back in 1990 with his album
\nPassion And Warfare<\/i>. Enlisting the aid of fellow Whitesnake
\nbandmember David Coverdale for spoken word asides, Vai tries to
\ncreate his own unique world shaped by his guitar-driven music. And
\nwhile there is no denying that his six-string work is exceptional,
\nif I wanted an autobiography, I would have bought the book at
\nBarnes & Noble.<\/p>\n
The problem, believe it or not, isn’t that Vai tries to get too
\nshowy with his playing. Instead, he takes this whole project and
\nbegins to take it – and himself – too goddamn seriously. C’mon,
\nSteve, it’s a
\nfreaking record album<\/i>! I don’t need to hear such
\nphilosophical comments like, “We may be human, but we’re still
\nanimals”… and I could have lived without the recitation of the
\nPledge of Allegiance in “The Riddle”.<\/p>\n
And the song that’s the best known off
\nPassion And Warfare<\/i>, “The Audience Is Listening,” well…
\nwas the video written for the song, or was the song written for the
\nvideo? This tune just has too defined of a script to not be a
\ncreation for MTV – and that, frankly, is a dangerous use of the
\nmusic. I guess it is a cute idea to try and picture Vai as a little
\nkid shredding away in his classroom, but it also reeks of a “dig
\nme” attitude.<\/p>\n
Musically,
\nPassion And Warfare<\/i> is standard fare, with “Erotic
\nNightmares” being a personal highlight (the work of bass
\nubermensch<\/i> Stu Hamm is especially noteworthy.) This track
\nshows both the style that Vai learned from Satriani as well as
\nVai’s own unique voice in the music. If only there were more
\nmoments like this on
\nPassion And Warfare<\/i>, but they’re few and far between.
\n(“Greasy Kid’s Stuff” is another standout that falls into this
\ncategory.)<\/p>\n
If you’re into good guitar work (or even if you’ve followed
\nVai’s work through stints with Zappa and David Lee Roth), then
\nPassion And Warfare<\/i> will light up your world from time to
\ntime. But, methinks the man regards himself too highly – and he
\nhasn’t earned that right yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6056],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-36137","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-steve-vai","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36137"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36137"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}