A pop-tart

My brain interpreted that as 3-in-1 oil for a brief second, in which I thought you were really out here trying to murder some folks.

And the Ship of Theses is when you rewrite the seven parts of your dissertation so many times that you’re not sure if it’s even your original intent anymore

Hunter the Vampire would be a great name for a show starring Walton Goggins and Danny McBride

I find it hard to take seriously anyone who throws the term FUD around with no sense of irony.

I think they were a duck a few times during the composition of that comment.

Console diehards enjoy brigading.

That dog is a star

Blackberry jam is my go-to

Why are you cutting a 2x4 with a hacksaw?

Ready or not, like it or not, here they come again…

It’s likely that the use of “Western Liberals” here is meant to include both major US political parties.

The Aquabats

That’s a big reaction for a tongue-in-cheek comment on an unpopular opinion post! Joe, is that you? I’m sorry they used Steve in Crossroads instead of you, but you gotta let it go! Sometimes the student becomes the teacher!

Joking aside, the whole “soul” thing can be seen as somewhat of a compliment in a sense. Blackmore, Yngwie, Satch, Petrucci, Vai, Johnson, and other neoclassical players strove for technical perfection. The bits and bobs of music that are generally lumped into the idea of “soul” are the mistakes, the imperfections, the unintended, the miniscule fuckups. As an off the top example, think of Merry Clayton’s voice cracking as she belted out a vocal masterwork in her pajamas and curlers after being dragged out of bed at midnight to back up Mick Jagger. It’s imperfect, it’s unrepeatable, and it’s amazing.

Contrast that with what the technical shredders were intending to do: they wanted to hit every note with exacting precision every time they played. It’s no less impressive than those one-off moments like Gimme Shelter, but it’s markedly different. Listeners who don’t identify with the sound sometimes perceive a sort of sterility in the style, whether deserved or not. The degree of technicality alone can almost come across as machine-like. That doesn’t mean that it has no merit, or that anyone who feels it deeply is in some way “defective”. These guys wouldn’t have had 40+ year careers if nobody was feeling what they were doing.

Enjoy what you enjoy, groove to what grooves you, and above all else, be secure enough in your own taste that a bit of banter about a genre doesn’t seem like a personal attack. Remember: Barry Manilow has sold over 85 million albums, so there really is a market for everything!

No? Well…

For me, that description fits Yngwie more than Satriani. Satch had at least 1%, maybe even a whopping 2% soul. Vai is probably sneaking up on double digits.

I like the list, but there’s a disturbing lack of Steve Earle.

Interesting thought: if you correct someone on the capitalization of her pen name, is that in opposition with the original intent of the stylistic choice she made?

Between the username and the shopping list, I believe we’ve got a Roman on our hands here…

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