Steve Vai’s five favourite records of all time
He’s played with Zappa. He’s played with Alice Cooper. He’s played with Diamond Dave. He’s even sat in with Spinal Tap. Steve Vai is the virtuoso’s virtuoso, and one of the leaders of the second wave of guitar gods that rolled up in the 1980s. Now 64, he’s also got 11 solo albums to his credit, and recently hit the road on a unique tour with King Crimson’s Adrian Belew and Tony Levin (along with Tool drummer Danny Carey), playing reinterpreted versions of three classic King Crimson records.
Despite the busy schedule, Vai also found time to stop by a Los Angeles record shop called The Record Parlour, where he flipped through the inventory and sat down for a recent episode of the Vinyl Obsession Podcast. The challenge: to pick out five records in the shop as his all-time favourites.
“You just never know what’s going to captivate you,” Vai explained to podcast host Eric Young, before introducing his first selection. “The best time is when you’re a kid, because you’re innocent. You haven’t necessarily fallen into a specific peer group. You’re free to like anything you want without prejudice. And you’ll naturally gravitate to those things that move you.”
Based on the way Vai is setting up this reveal, you might expect that he’s boldly selected something a tad embarrassing from his childhood: maybe the Osmonds? But no.
Steve Vai’s five favourite albums:
Love It To Death – Alice Cooper, 1971
“This was, like, it for me,” Vai said, holding up a copy of the third Alice Cooper LP, best remembered for the hit single ‘I’m Eighteen.’ Obviously, Vai couldn’t have imagined in his wildest dreams that he’d wind up playing alongside Alice one day. At the time, as an adolescent, the record simply “had everything I loved.
“Alice Cooper is about theatre, but everything is virtually for not if it doesn’t have melody. If it’s not something that resonates melodically. But this whole record is just . . . cool . . . melody.”
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars – David Bowie, 1972
Like Alice Cooper, David Bowie was a showman with an interest in bringing a new theatricality into rock. Growing up on Long Island, New York, Steve Vai—like a lot of pre-teens at the time—wasn’t entirely sure if Ziggy Stardust was a character or an actual person/alien. Since Steve had also just started learning the guitar, Mick Ronson attracted plenty of his wide-eyed attention, as well.
“The whole record takes you somewhere,” Vai said. “It’s an atmosphere. It’s a fantasy. . . . [Ronson] was just the coolest to me. That Les Paul with the finished wood cover.” Vai tried to buy that original Ronson guitar at one point, but settled for having a copy made custom for him.
Freak Out – Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention, 1966
Vai was only six years old when this landmark concept record came out, but again, he’d eventually find himself playing with Frank Zappa about 15 years later as part of his touring band. “Frank was an explosion of freedom. He was the boss of him. He made no excuses and didn’t expect anybody to do it for him. And he was constantly creative and most of the time laughing while he was doing it.”
Vai actually bought the Freak Out LP on a whim long before meeting Zappa (he liked the look of the album cover). “I bought it and I put it on and I just couldn’t believe it. It was like heaven in a cup. Because I just heard something that didn’t sound like anything else. And that was enough.”
West Side Story Original Soundtrack, 1961
Whilst generally remembered as both a classic film and stage play, it can’t be overstated just how much of a massive success the West Side Story soundtrack was. Long after the original film hit cinemas in 1961, its vinyl companion album continued to dominate the charts, staying at number one in the US for 54 weeks.
Vai was essentially a baby at that point, but with virtually every household in America, let alone New York, owning this record, it made its inevitable impact once he was old enough to start processing it. “This was my awakening,” he said. “Stephen Sondheim is the greatest lyricist that ever lived, and Leonard Bernstein; the compositions here are so him, the best of him.”
Led Zeppelin III – Led Zeppelin, 1970
Everybody’s got their own firm positions on which Led Zeppelin albums are either the greatest, the most under-appreciated, or both. Led Zeppelin III is often an argument starter: is it where the band came into its own or where it meandered too far off the rock n’ roll path?
Vai actually admits that he was looking for Zeppelin II in the shop but couldn’t find it, and thus he picked Zep III as a stand-in, but still. “This one’s right up there with it,” he said. It was Zeppelin’s second album that was a bit more impactful in Vai’s life, as he decided—once he heard it—to choose the guitar as his instrument. “And then I just absorbed everything Led Zeppelin,” Vai said. “I lived, breathed, and ate Led Zeppelin.”
