Review Summary: A journey to a dream made of sounds...
This is the third solo album of the American guitar virtuoso, and probably my favourite one by him. Most of the songs that are featured on the album are instrumental, with some exceptions that feature Joe Satriani on the vocals. He may not be a great singer, but he's quite decent, and the vocal melodies are cleverly adapted to fit his voice, kicking the show-offs out the door. The lyrics of the songs in which he sings, are mainly plain or even shallow and that is one of the major reasons that this album is considered by many to be the "less classic/least favourite" of the Surfing With the Alien, Flying in a Blue Dream and The Extremist era.
Generally, Flying in a Blue Dream has "modern meets traditional" written all over it, and it contains elements from many musical genres such as hard rock, country, 80's heavy metal, blues, funk rock etc. Satriani is in top form, playing some of the most creative and melodic solos of his career. The other great musicians that participate in Flying In A Blue Dream, bind with each other in harmony, giving an extra x-factor of awesomness in the song performances with their prowess.
The "Six String Goddess", which shines through her adorable sound, the constitutive playing of Satriani and the good mixing/production of the album, has the lead role in all the songs. However, the greatest credit of the album lies in the songwriting. Joe Satriani is a guitar master, but he writes songs that can appeal to all people, regardless of their musical skills or knowledge. It's not accidental, that many of his songs have been played again and again on the radio or the television.
The fact that this album was the one that certified Satriani as one of the greatest guitarists of all time (something that had already began with Surfing With the Alien in 1987), was the one that had Alice Cooper tell him to play a few solos in his album Hey Stoopid in 1991, and was the one that Deep Purple listened to and invited him into their band as a replacement for the great guitarist Ritchie Blackmore (Satriani accepted and stayed from 1993 to 1994), are all three good reasons, to say the least, that you should give it a listen!
