Kenneth R. said:
It's an interesting moment in guitar rock history. It was like a shot fired over the bow, you know. "Check this shit out! Top that!" And I remember hearing it and going, "Holy fuck!" Then I learned to play and was a bit less enthused about it. Now, I realized it spawned a lot of shitty imitators. But I do think it pushed technicality.
It's like a pendulum: you had Eric "Slow Hand" Clapton (whose solos EVH learned note-for-note, incidentally) doing really cool, feeling-laden solos. Clapton was God at the time. Then EVH blows the doors off the joint and all of a sudden the way is paved for Yngwie and Satriani. Then some ten years later, you get Phil Anselmo telling Dimebag that people don't want to hear solos anymore... and then the oddly sololess (and productionless) St. Anger. It swings back and forth. We're in sololand again for a while, I think. But it won't last long.
Bad solo: basically any Maiden solo by Janick Gers. I'm a hater, what can I say?
