Task: Sentiment Analysis
Input (English): The reason why shred is dead . When I was 15 and first discovering guitar, I loved this album. Listening to it now, it just sounds incredibly soulless and cheesy.Vai is technically very impressive, but the man can't write a decent song to save his life. Vai's modus operandi is to get a bunch of faceless studio musicians, lay down a generic rhythm track, and go wheedily wheedily wheedily whee for an entire album.  Technique on your instrument is never a bad thing, however, technique should be just a means to an end, not the end itself. And that's what no shred guitarist seems to understand. The fact that shred guitarists like Vai aren't more popular is due to one thing: they're more concerned about playing faster and more cleanly than the next guy rather than writing songs. There's a GOOD REASON why non-guitarists hate this stuff.  Basically, once you get past the "Gee, that's neat" factor, this album, and nearly all of Vai's music, feels incredibly stiff and lifeless.To be blunt, this is what John Tesh or Yanni would sound like if they played guitar rather than keyboards. Not only that, his guitar tone is absolutely awful. Very thin, high pitched, and brittle sounding.  The best thing on here is the blatant Van Halen rip-off "The Audience is Listening": the rest is just masturbation. Vai's best work has always been as a sideman, especially the stuff he did with David Lee Roth, because then he's forced to play actual SONGS, rather than 5 minute long, tedious guitar solos. On his own, he's just unbearable. I considered giving this one star, but I gave it 2 stars due to the fact that Vai CAN play, it's just WHAT he's playing that's the problem.
Output (English): NEG