OT: What Vai Albums Are In The Same Vein As Freak Show Excess?

[Megadeth Man]

Dug out the PIL album and checked the first few tracks it does sound pretty good, I will give it a proper listen soon. From my limited view the leads do sound very Vai. The album does seem to be pretty decent as well. I wasn't that into it at the time coz it was too 80's pop for me.

I got Flexable and I'm listening to it now. I recognized the little green men track. It's about halfway through and I'm totally digging it. Noice.

[EL KABONG]

Um. . . thats the same thing.

I think what I meant was that Flexable and Passion and Warfare are in the same vein and similar in that they are both LISTENABLE when most of his other stuff is not .

[Megadeth Man]

I've got some more Vai albums now and have listened to them a few times. What I like about him is he is very free in his creation and execution. My musical sensibilities aren't a million miles away from his. The tracks that are saturated with the freedom vibe are sweet. Unfortunately there are more tracks that I can't stand. So, for my personal pleasure, I rank the albums I've got in this order.


01 & 02 - Flexable & Flexable Leftovers: Brilliant albums. Zappa must have approved of these works. I totally dig them and will probably listen to them regularly for a while to come.

03 - Fire Garden (First Half): It's a cool album, a very sweet listen. Fire Garden Suite is great. Pity the second half is so lame.

04 - The Ultra Zone: Nice, I enjoy this one nearly as much as Fire Garden, except for some of the vocal tracks. I'll prolly listen to it for a while too.

05 - Real Illusions: Basically it's horrible. Better than PAW due to Freakshow Excess being one of my fave tracks.

06 - Passion & Warfare: I can see why I didn't bother checking out Vai anymore after I heard this back in the day. Good playing, and all that, but I'm sure Vai would be the first to say that great playing doth not maketh a good track or listen. I guess it is a good example of what you can do with all the effects that you never use on a multi fx unit.

07 - Fire Garden (Second Half): Just skimmed through this. Every track's got 'orrible vocals, aint it?

The PIL album is good, but I don't know how much credit I can give to Vai for this?


I'll probably just make a "best of" from all the albums except Flexable and Leftovers. I don't know the tracks well enough to name faves besides Freak Show Excess & Fire Garden Suite.

Is there anything else in his back catalogue that I need to know about? I've got that live Zappa tribute thingy earmarked.

[maibock1023]

Well like I said, I think Vai was brought in as an afterthought to give the songs a different quality. It's a strange combo John Lydon/Steve Vai, I doubt they were ever in the studio at the same time.