The Elusive Light and Sound Vol.1

I am a big fan of Steve Vai. I think too many people listen to this with the wrong kind of ears. Sure he is playing rock type music, and he is a technically wonderful guitar player, but it seems too many folkks discount his music as soulless shredding, which is absolute nonsense.His music is written extremely well and if it wasn't a lead guitar holding the melodic structure together, but an orchestra instead, folks would be raving about the wonderful melody, and structural brilliance of his music.This is a collection of soundtrack music, and bits and pieces, and I think the Vai fan will love it..... If you want more complete tracks, rather than the bits and pieces assembled here, I would recommend Passion and Warfare (one of the best guitar albums of all time, and wonderfully written.) Sex and Religion (a sort of power rock band project with some fantastic tracks and the wonderful Devin Townsend on vocals) or any one of a number of excellent albums Vai has made.Also there is the work with Zappa, David Lee Roth, Whitesnake, PIL and many others.A fantastic musician worth looking at.This is an interesting collection of tracks, and worth getting, but I would get some Vai albums first.

A great collection of Vai movie scores proving that he is the best guitarist to ever pick up a six or seven string guitar.Any fan of the movie Crossroads, and who isn’t, will love Jack Butler and Eugene’s battle! These tracks are the centerpiece of this CD!!!

This is an interesting collection of Steve Vai's movie related music creations.Of course it is worth the price alone for the music from CROSSROADS, which many today still think is Vai's best single recorded work ........... kind of his ERUPTION so to speak.Speaking of CROSSROADS, at first listen I thought my memory was tricking me because songs like BUTLERS BAG sounded different than I remember from the movie.So I popped in the movie and watched/listened again compared to the versions on this CD.For the movie, they apparently edited the songs and removed 12 full measures during the first minute of the song around the A9 chord vamp.On this CD it is a section that involved some right hand tapping --- you can see in the movie Vai starting to play this sequence, but then the video cuts to the classic blue repeating cliche played in the high 17th fret A position.Actually I think the movie version is better as these extra 12 bars heard here on the CD get a little "out there" playing with the modes and seems to move a bit into some alien world.I think Vai gave us the full studio recording here as he originally recorded them.

Great CD wonderful overview of Steve Vai guitar style. Got it because of the music from Cross Roads Movie. Lots more great tracks on this CD to appreciate. Buy it I think you will like it!

Buy this album or get your head cut! There are some tracks that aren't great but come on it has songs from the film Crossroad's and others on it. This is a generous collection of songs which will keep you occupied for a while and take you on a journey back in time!

It was a gift and my friend was more than pleased. He enjoyed it so much that phone me inmediately

This album includes his famous duel with Ry Cooder (more like a call and response jam) from the movie Crossroads. It includes a solo version of "Amazing Grace" and the introduction he did for KISS' "God Gave Rock and Roll to You II" that wasn't used for their album. It includes the entire score that Steve Vai did for the movie PCU. This album is basically a collection of the stuff he did for movies, plus a cover version of "Celluloid Heroes" by the Kinks. The funny thing about his version is there's less guitar playing in this version than the version that I heard from the Kinks, yet Steve Vai is the one famous for playing guitar. I think it shows that he's more about the big picture than the guitar playing, or he wants people to think that.Another highlighting part is "Love Blood," which was written when Vai had the idea of doing a movie of Interview With A Vampire, until he found out that a film company already had made it, and had already cast Tom Cruise for the role. He put this on the album because he thought the guitar solo was cool, but I really like the harmony vocals that he did with himself. I really like how compatible his voice is with itself; usually we think of harmony vocals as being done by multiple people, but it works with one person. I think "Weird Al" Yankovic has done a lot of harmony vocals with himself as well."The Head Cuttin' Duel" with Ry Cooder is the only reason I bought the album on it's release date, and I think that the price was about forty bucks. Along with that, it includes some stuff that Vai did from the film just before the duel. He commented that there was a deleted scene where he won a duel against a poor soul. I feel that "Eugene's Trick Bag" is definitely a highlighting point. However, I'm not so sure about the part where Jack Butler (Vai's character) loses the duel being on there. It's basically exactly what Eugene plays, but done more poorly and ending with the sound of a guitar being taken off and dropped onto the floor.I haven't seen the movie, Dudes, yet. However, the stuff Steve Vai did for the film is here, and it sounds really good. It includes a couple of really good solo performances. One of them is a really beautiful version of "Amazing Grace" the other one is more of a slide guitar thing.The stuff from Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey is more loud. I think "The Reaper" and "The Reaper Rap" are both highlighting points. There good tunes, and they work well.I haven't seen Encino Man, yet, it's high up on my families list of Blockbuster DVDs to come in the mail. I think that the tunes he did for it are awesome. They're high in energy, they're well written and arranged.PCU was a crappy movie, in my personal opinion. I think they should have had a crappy guitarist do the score for the film. However, it's good on this album. I like the final track on the album, which is a mix of some of the different cues and stuff from the film, mixed together into one big composition.In general, I have to mention that this was what really influenced me to switch from being more interested in singing to being more interested in playing guitar. This is a fantastic album, but I will comment that it's not my favorite of his albums, that would be Alive in an Ultra World.

This 40 track features much of the superb guitar work from the film 'Crossroads' (which, rest assured, has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with a now defunct motel in the Midlands area of England) as well as a myriad of other stuff. As you can imagine from a disc with so many tracks some of the tunes are quite short, but for the Steve Vai aficionado & collector this is a must have.

Can play guitar but NO from me

What a great selection and you get the main guitar solo from the film Crossroads which bizarrely is not on the Soundtrack. Assume that was because of rights to the track. Steve you rock!

A collection of riffs and short pieces from the guitar master. Excellent

Great quality and a fantastic CD