His album Rising Force was the first CD I ever bought. I thought it was really good. But whenever I bring up his name when discussing rock guitarist, people inevitably roll their eyes. He seems to be universally hated. Why is that?
“Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.” (Tom Stoppard)
Squiddly-diddly merchants are basket-weavers.
For whatever reason, Yngwie is pretty much the poster boy for the skill without imagination camp. Even his Rising Force era material is far from the worst in that direction (see almost any band who cites Dream Theater as their primary influence), and his classical work (IMO) proves that he does have some artistic ability.
HA!!
Ditto to what everyone else said, Yngwie’s got skill but no style. But the real reason I like dissing him is because it enrages Yngwie fans. I’ve called many a musician “a talentless hack” over the years, but calling Yngwie that is the only time it earned me death threats. 
There’s an old lyric by the Good Rats in the song “Tasty”:
We had a flying guitar man
Maybe the fastest in the land
But he was going nowhere fast
Speed ain’t nothing without class
I always assumed they were talking about Yngwie.
Yngwie does technical virtuousity for its own sake, but it seemed to me like he never learned to express soul and emotion along with the gee-whiz. His scalloped fretboard allowed a lot of microtonal stuff without sideways string-bending, but I suppose it made it harder to play a straight note when he wanted to.
His stuff was impressive the first couple of times, but it’s not something I wanted to hear again and again.
Well, “everybody” doesn’t hate him. Most people are only vaguely aware he exists.
Among people who DO know his name, there are two camps:
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Those who think he’s an amazing guitarist who can play lightning-fast solos like nobody’s business.
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Those who think, “Yeah, he can play a lightning-fast solo. And the first time I heard him do one, it was pretty amazing. But after a while, it became pretty obvious all he can do is play that one lightning-fast solo. He does that SAME lightning-fast solo in every song, whether it fits or not. Yeah, it was impressive the first time I heard it, but a one-trick pony gets old in a hurry.”
I fall more in the latter category. I think Malmsteen CAN be an amzing soloist. But his biggest problems are:a) He's not a good songwriter. Not at all. So, one has to sit through some very weak songs before one gets to hear the amazing solos. b) He's almost always run his own show. That may be wise financially, but it's been a bad move artistically. He'd be a very valuable member of a band led by somebody else, somebody with both songwriting ability AND the strength to tell Yngwie "Tone it down a bit," or "You've DONE that solo a hundred times. THIS song needs something different."
He’s a session musician with too much of an ego to admit it. I don’t think it’s Yngwie everyone hates so much as those who don’t worship the guy find those who do both fatuous and irritating.
Frankly, I think that what Yngwie is accused of is true for 99% of the hair-metal dweedly-dweedly guitarists out there - Satriani and Vai included. Just boring.
That’s one reason I enjoyed Eddie Van Halen during the first few albums - although he ushered in the hair-metal era of dweedly-dweedly-ness, he had a risk to his playing - it always sounded like he could screw up. As he puts it - he tried to sound like he was falling down the stairs but somehow managed to land on his feet. Not the norm for what I like - I prefer slow tastines in my leads - but for a dweedly kinda guy - Eddie could do it right. He just opened the door for a bunch of pretenders.
Speed with creativity, urgency and risk is glossy and flat - and kinda sad in its empty “look at me” quality. Like a trashy over-inflated porn star that is trying to say “sex” but just says “Barbie doll.”
I like Malmsteen for what he is, what we called a “Bach N roller” back in the day.
It’s not actually accurate to call him simply a speed metal guy because he does have some other serious skills, “feel” is just not one of them. I think if you admire him it’s for the technical virtuosity alone and you understand that’s the total package.
This may just be a musician thing but I remember watching a video where he was playing and at some point noticed a string had gone a little out of tune. He continued to do tapping, hammer on/pull offs single handed and reached over to bring the string in question back into tune without ever stopping. That’s a pretty good ear.
I’m loosing track of the various guitar threads but in a way Malmsteen is the anti Clapton. 
Actually, what I think distuguishes Eddie from a lot of them is he simply had an ear for a good tune. He just had a creative gift as a composer, in addition to phenomenal guitar-playing chops. It’s simply rare to have both so remarkably well developed in one individual. Folks like Yngwie and Steve Vai have, if anything, superior playing skills, but can’t compose their way out of a paper bag. Whatever “it” is that makes a person’s composition something more than pretentious overplayed wank, well, Eddie had it, and Yngwie doesn’t.
Well, for me (a 44 year old former metalhead), a good riff has always been far more important than a good solo. Angus Young and Tony Iommi didn’t always have memorable solos, but they always built their songs around good, catchy, infectious riffs. And in the early days, so did Eddie Van Halen. The first two Van Hallen albums would have made for good, catchy heavy metal even if the solos had been less dazzling, because Eddie knew how to write “hooks.”
And even though David Lee Roth could be a buffoon, he was important in the early days, because he gave the songs humor and personality that they wouldn’t have had if Sammy Hagar or David Coverdale were singing them. Roth could be a jerk, but he gave some life and spirit to the songs.
Hooks. That’s the word I was looking for. Eddie had a gift for the hook, as well as amazing technical skills.
Yngwie wouldn’t know a hook if it were dragging him offstage.
That’s a good’n.
There is also the fact that Yngwie could be a total ass. His ego was (and probably still is) large enough so that it could almost collapse upon itself forming a quantum singularity. I remember reading an interview with him a good number of years ago and he basically dissed every guitarist out there except Ritchie Blackmore. I googled for it but my google-fu is bad today.
I did see a video of Yngwie playing some Stevie Ray Vaughn. I was pleasantly suprised that he did it very well.
But he is still an ass.
Slee
I remember listening to one clip of him playing scales backward and forward, lightning fast, and stopping now and then to offer the most incredibly pompous running commentary imaginable. Rarely have I heard anyone so impressed with his own “genius.”
Still, ya gotta love it when a pudgy middle-aged guy keeps dressing like an 80s rock god 20 years after he should stop:
http://www.39stripes.com/pictures07/Yngwie_Malmsteen__Steve.jpg
Of course, you know he’s a serious musician when you see his custom axe:
http://www.edromanguitars.com/rock/Malmsteen/YM-Custom_950.jpg
I think he shows a little more feeling than he gets credit for and that he’s got an exceptionally fluent understanding of theory to go with his superhuman technique, but yes, he does tend to be all about lickety-split harmonic minor scales above all else. He’s a great soloist but a mediocre composer. I don’t think he’s ever written a single truly cool song (as opposed to a clothesline for the solos) or even a memorable riff.
Plus, he does have a gigantic ego and he has a habit of dissing other guitarist. He used to have a habit of playing Eddie Van Halen’s “Eruption” solo on stage…with his teeth…and then putting a hand over his mouth and miming a yawn. That’s the kind of thing that gets on people’s nerves even though his technical ability as a musician is beyond question.
Everyone in this thread is close to unleashing the fookin’ fury.
When come back, bring tunes.
I was wondering when someone was going to mention that!
For an explanation, click here:
That being said, I did really like the song “Heaven Tonight” that was released when former Rainbow vocalist Joe Lynn Turner was in the band. Later on, when asked why he left Rising Force, Joe answered, “It was over religious differences. Yngwie thought he was God and I didn’t.”