Here's my first post.
Anyone know the book Big Noises by Geoff Nicholson? It has a few pages on some 40 players, including Vai, Satriani and Malmsteen. I quote from the text on Satch:
""If you read any of those glossy American guitar magazines with all the colour pictures of guitars and guitarists you'll find that they take it as a matter of unchallengeable wisdom that Joe Satriani is one of THE great guitarists. And as you thumb through the magazine you'll see Joe's picture staring out at you from all those advertisements where he's endorsing Ibanez guitars, DiMarzio pickups and D'Addario strings, so you know it must be true. As it happens, it very probably is.
Satriani only has one real problem and that is Steve Vai. Now nobody would really deny that Joe Satriani is not as good a guitarist as Steve Vai. And there's no shame in that, few people are. But Satriani would like to be. His music has that same high-tech gloss, that same sub-heavy metal attack, that technical wizardry, that same naff way with a title, only less so. You feel that if Satriani realized all his ambitions and fulfilled his potential he still wouldn't quite be as good as Vai.
His technique, however formidable, is not quite as formidable as Vai's. However impressive Satriani's degree of invention and range of sounds, Vai is more impressive still. And there's an image problem here too. Satriani's cheekbones are high, but they're not as high as Vai's, the dark brooding looks are not nearly as dark and brooding as Vai's. Vai even has a better taste in leather jackets. And whereas Ibanez are prepared to provide Satriani with a special chrome-plated guitar, they're prepared to redesign from scratch a brand new seven-string model for Vai. What must be the worst thing of all for Satriani is that he used to TEACH Steve Vai.
However, despite these odious comparisons, Joe Satriani is his own man and certainly there are times when you'd rather hear him than Steve Vai. His playing, for all its technical virtuosity, is very good at avoiding unnecessary complication. It's not 'fussy'. You wouldn't find Satriani composing a tinkly little tune like Vai's 'Ballerina 12/24' and you couldn't imagine him playing anything quite as silly as 'The Audience Is Listening'.
In three albums I don't think he has come up with a bum track.""
That about sums it up for me..