"There are three approaches to any given problem: The right way, the wrong way and the Yngwie."
Yngwie Johan Malmsteen (born Lars Johan Yngve Lannerbäck, 30 June 1963) is a highly influential Swedish-American guitarist. His music is the Trope Codifier of neoclassical metal, and he is considered to be one of the best guitar shredders around, having built an impressive selection of albums across his solo Rising Force project after his earlier work with bands like Steeler and Alcatrazz.
Yngwie's technique consists of high speed picking and sweep picking in the harmonic minor scale, diminished arpeggios, and phrygian mode.
Along with Eric Clapton, he was one of the first artists to have a signature guitar released by Fender.
Former members:
- Let's just say there are a lot
.
Albums:
- Rising Force (1984)
- Marching Out (1985)
- Trilogy (1986)
- Odyssey (1988)
- Eclipse (1990)
- Fire and Ice (1992)
- The Seventh Sign (1994)
- Magnum Opus (1995)
- Inspiration (1996)
- Facing the Animal (1997)
- Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar and Orchestra in E flat minor Op. 1 (1998)
- Alchemy (1999)
- War to End All Wars (2000)
- Attack!! (2002)
- Unleash the Fury (2005)
- Perpetual Flame (2008)
- Angels of Love (2009)
- Relentless (2010)
- Spellbound (2012)
- World on Fire (2016)
- Blue Lightning (2019)
"You've released the fucking tropes!".
- Ascended Meme: After an audio tape of a very-drunk Malmsteen ranting at someone for spilling water on him on an airplane leaked and became popular on the internet, he titled his next album (Unleash the Fury) after the best-known line from the rant. ("You've released the fucking fury!").
- Blood Knight: "I am a Viking" from Marching Out (1985).
- Car Song: "Red Devil"
- Chronological Album Title: Trilogy and The Seventh Sign
- Cluster F-Bomb: The aforementioned rant.
- The Onion referenced this in a sidebar article where Yngwie legally changed his middle name to "Fucking".
- Cover Album: Inspiration, most of Blue Lightning.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Apparently, according to this interview with BILE singer Krztoff, Malmsteen was fighting with his girlfriend one time and happened to be right next to a few then-members of BILE. (who, allegedly, were NYC gang members) They asked him to take the argument elsewhere, so he decided to throw his name around in the hopes of intimidating them. The results?Krztoff: "That was it. The flood gates opened. Bad move Fuckface.note Three guys beat Fuckface down to the ground and kicked the shit out of him within seconds. Kill first, ask questions later, that was kind of how it works with BILE."
- Heavy Mithril: On occasion.
- I Am the Band: The first few albums were credited to Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force, but he eventually decided to stop pretending that the band wasn't really him and whoever else was around. Granted, the band name was dropped when the Johansson brothers left.
- Taken to the extreme with his latest album Blue Lightning, where Yngwie played all the instruments and did the vocals himself.
- Spotlight Stealing Character: Joe Lynn Turner tried hard, especially in the videos and live performances. He even wrote the lyrics for an entire album (Odyssey, 1988), although only one other vocalist (Mike Vescera) pulled off such a feat.
- Large Ham: VERY large.
- Instrumentals: Most of Rising Force, all of Angels of Love, and plenty of tracks on his other albums as well.
- My Nayme Is: His professional name is derived from one of his own given names (Yngve) and his mother's maiden name (Malmsten). The spellings of both were changed.
- Power Ballad: "Dreaming"
- Power High: The subject of "Rising Force".
- Power Metal: Some of his music falls into this category, and many power metal bands (such as Stratovarius) were influenced by him.
- Prison Riot: The subject of ''Riot in the Dungeons''
- Stage Names: Yngwie's real name is Lars Johan Yngve (note the spelling difference) Lannerbäck.
