that's the thing, i'm not saying his whole career is a crock of shlt , but what i am saying is that it's like panning for gold, you really have to sift through gallons of muddy water before you find the odd jem... and for me those gems are all 2 to 3 second snippets smattered across his songs..
I dont really like that album, nor any other to be honest... I do like maybe 2 to 3 seconds a riff here and there, but as a whole it's hugely obvious, god forbid should not realise that the dude's probably wearing sunglasses and playing "with his heart"...
What i'm saying is that playing technically can be very intresting, take Sato from melt banana, but the way he plays is designed to churn your stomach, and it's quite subtle in that it's hard to tell when he's actually playing the guitar and when hes just using noise, and even though he's playing pretty fast, there arent actually many "solos", buts it hard to judge with him..

I'm not telling you Joe Satriani has no skill or talent... that's not what i said, its just that hes poured out alot of unnecesarry cack... Surfing with the alien is one of the worst albums i've heard (with midnight being the light relief on there).. It just sounds like those fvcking midi files that load up on some moron's hope page...

I'm sure that some of satchs stuff really does appeal to some poeple, and that's fine, but from what i gather a good proportion like it cos the guitar solos are BLINDINGLY obvious, and half the time you can whistle the up and comming melody before it hits, and predictability appeals to alot of edjits... I'm sure the * arpegial run pinch harmonic then whammy* crap makes quite a few poeple, including myself, cringe.. it just the staple of clichies that the genre is built on that makes it pretty unlistnable for me..