Tag: Yngwie Malmsteen

The Collection: Ep. 80 – October 2025 Wrap-Up

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October draws to a close, so it is time for the monthly wrap-up so lets see what 2 Loud 2 Old Music added to the collection this month. This is the October 2025 Wrap-Up and we have a little vinyl, a whole lot of CDs and even a book. Plus, I visited a record store…twice, ordered from Discogs, ordered from another record store online and went thrifting. So much to go through including a couple new Rock Candy CDs in the collection, Kiss and a Box Set rolled into one. Lots of great new and old stuff to go through and show for this month so I hope you enjoy the show!!

So go check it out as it is live right now on YouTube. Thanks for stopping by and please click “Like” and hit “Subscribe” as it helps out the site when you do.

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Jeff Scott Soto – All The Albums Ranked Worst to First (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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It took me 20 months to get through Jeff Scott Soto’s catalog and have been through 89 reviews of items in my collection. That is an insane amount of albums, singles and collector’s pieces to have in a collection, let alone one artist. Jeff started way back in 1984 with Yngwie Malmsteen and has been on over 50 studio albums, numerous live albums, compilations and tribute albums, soundtracks and anything else you can think of and it was a personal goal of mine to visit every single one. I don’t think you will find any website with a more extensive collection of Jeff Scott Soto Reviews then right here at 2 Loud 2 Old Music.

Not every album he has done is good..not at all, but most of them for me are at least a 3 out of 5 or better. And the ones that aren’t, have at least a few songs to add to an already impressive playlist. Along this journey, I have had the pleasure of meeting Jeff twice after his shows and he has been so kind each time and signed numerous album covers for me. However, I was never able to get the interview I had hoped for, but I am not giving up hope as one day it will happen. Until then, let’s go through every studio album where Jeff is the main singer and rank them from the worst album to the best album and everything in between.

There are 53 studio albums that I have where Jeff is the featured singer and we touch them all. I hope you enjoy the walk though the albums and maybe find something you would like to hear. If you discovered at least one album as a result of this series, then my work is done. If not, “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU???”…kidding. Sorry, lost my head there. Enough of this chitchat, let’s get to the list.

Updated May 2025

First, the ones that scored 2 or less out of 5 Stars

THE WORST: Bakteria- ‘Defecate! Suffocate! Mutilate! Masturbate!’ (1992/2009)

Musically, it is pretty freaking heavy. Uptempo, speed metal vibes at time and as the sticker says, a mixture of Metal/Sludge/Crust/Punk. All I know is it sucks. Jeff sings in almost a growl, that is deep and completely unrecognizable as it is borderline guttural vocals at times. I listened to this in the car on the drive home from work one day and I thought to myself, “If I have a wreck and die, the police and my family are going to wonder what the hell I was in to with that crap playing in my car.” I was actually a little embarrassed to be listening to it. I am a little embarrassed to actually own this and have it in the collection, but my Soto Collection isn’t complete without it sadly. My Overall Score is a 0.0 out of 5.0 Stars! And that is being nice. It is the WORST ALBUM I HAVE EVER HEARD IN MY LIFE!!!

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Friday New Releases – April 25, 2025

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We have around 50 albums for you this week. It is insane. How insane? Well, I have the first 7 on the list on pre-order!! The most I’ve ever had in one week. Thankfully, it was a slow month for new releases for me up to this point so average out over a month, not too bad…I keep telling myself that. What are you wanting to hear or get this week or what did we miss? Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend.

  • Billy Idol – Dream Into It – (Dark Horse Records)
  • H.E.A.T. – Welcome to the Future – (earMusic)
  • Ghost – Skeleta – (Loma Vista Recordings)
  • Harem Scarem – Chasing Euphoria – (Frontiers Records)
  • Whitesnake – Access All Areas: Live – (Rhino Records)
  • Will Hoge – Blackbird On A Lonely Wire (Will’s Version) – (Will Hoge)
  • Frehley’s Comet – Live +1: The Expanded Version) – (Friday Music Two)
  • Samantha Fish – Paper Doll – (Rounder Records / Concord)
  • Willie Nelson – Oh What A Beautiful World – (Legacy Recordings)
  • Sting – Sting 3.0 Live – (A&M Records)
  • The Sex Pistols – Live in the U.S.A. 1978 – (Ume)
  • Stereophonics – Make ‘Em Laugh, Make ‘Em Cry, Make ‘Em Wait – (EMI / Universal Music)
  • Yngwie Malmsteen – Tokyo Live – (Music Theories)
  • Simple Minds – Live in the City of Diamonds – (BMG Rights Mgmt)
  • Coco Jones – Why Not More? – (High Standardz / Def Jam / UMG)
  • Smokey Robinson – What The World Needs Now – (Gaither Music Group)
  • Jeff Goldblum & The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra – Still Blooming – (Decca Records / Universal Music)
  • Robin Trower – Come And Find Me – (Artone Label Group / Provogue)
  • Machine Head – Unatoned – (Nuclear Blast X Imperium Recordings)
  • Wednesday 13 – Mid Death Crisis – (Napalm Records)
  • Art Nation – The Ascendance – (Frontiers Records)
  • Russ Ballard – Songs From the Warehouse/The Hits Rewired – (Frontiers Records)
  • James And The Cold Gun – Face In The Mirror – (Loosegroove Records)
  • Eyes – Spinner – (Prosthetic Records)
  • Sunflower Bean – Mortal Primetime – (Lucky Number)
  • Eluveitie – Anv – (Nuclear Blast)
  • Landmvrks – The Darkest Place I’ve Ever Been – (Arising Empire)
  • Conan – Violence Dimension – (Heavy Psych Sounds)
  • Caliban – Back From Hell – (Century Media Records)
  • Coffin Feeder – Big Trouble – (Coffin Feeder)
  • Ancient Bards – Artifex – (Limb Music Publishing)
  • Game Over – Face The End – (Scarlet Records)
  • Cancer – Inverted World – (Peaceville)
  • Trick or Treat – Ghosted – (Scarlet Records)
  • Employed to Serve – Fallen Star – (Spinefarm Music Group)
  • Cosmic Cathedral – Deep Water – (InsideOutMusic)
  • Oak – The Third Sleep – (Karisma Records)
  • Rodeo Boys – Junior – (Don Giovanni Records)
  • Jawdropped – Just Fantasy E.P. – (Fire Talk)
  • Cloth – Pink Silence – (Rock Action Records)
  • Viagra Boys – Viagr Aboys – (Shrimptech Enterprises)
  • Fib – Heavy Lifting – (Julia’s War Recordings)
  • d4vd – Withered – (Darkroom / Interscope Records)
  • William Tyler – Time Indefinite – (Psychic Hotline)
  • Samia – Bloodless – (Grand Jury Music)
  • WesGhost – Am I Dreaming? – (Columbia Records / Sony Music)
  • Uwade – Florilegium – (Ehiose Records / Thirty Tigers)
  • Hannah Rose Platt – Fragile Creatures – (Xtra Mile Recordings)
  • Stephen Stanley – Trustfall – (Sparrow Records / Capitol CMG)
  • Tucker Wetmore – What Not To – (Back Blocks Music)

Jeff Scott Soto / Jason Bieler – ‘Live at the Evening Muse: May 13, 2023’ – Concert Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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We interrupt the Jeff Scott Soto Series to bring you a new concert review for a show I attended this weekend that included Jeff Scott Soto and Jason Bieler. It was Saturday, I guess that makes it alright, so I headed down to the Evening Muse in Charlotte, NC, for another fun evening with the comedy stylings of Jeff Scott Soto and Jason Bieler…oh yeah…there was a lot of music too. What started out as two grumpy old men sitting on stage, ended with two very drunk men practically falling off stage…ok not quite, but they had a lot fun as people kept bringing them drinks all night long…as well as cookies.

The evening started at 6pm for those that bought the VIP package…and yes, I was one of those. Last year, they mostly sang, but this year they did a full on Q&A section. You had to stand up, say your name and where you are from, then the crowd said it back to you. My question was to both of them asking if we would see Solo tours from them anytime. Jason stated that he is working on doing a Baron Von Belski tour later in the year, but wants to make sure it presents those 2 Baron albums the right way. Jeff got all serious and laid down the truth. That truth is No, there will be no tour. He said there is no demand for his solo shows in the States and it would not be cost effective to pull it off. Sadly, I know he is right and that disappointments me greatly. I guess I need to keep writing the Soto reviews as the word hasn’t reached everyone yet.

After the Q&A, the boys played a few songs for us including the Saigon Kick songs “On and On”, “One Step Closer” (I think) and ‘Sgt. Steve”. All classic SK songs and performed beautifully. The two were in rare form, cracking jokes and keeping the audience in stitches and they even lost it a few times (especially Jeff). Sometimes Jeff would laugh so hard because Beiler would go off on these tangents that made no sense, but were funny as hell. After around 30-45 minutes or so, the VIP experience ended, the boys went to eat and then we waited for the show. Oh yeah, I forgot we were given a secret password and any time they said that word, we were to cheer really loudly and get all excited. They said this would confuse those that came in for the show and by the end the would start cheering and have no understanding why. The word was “New Jersey” as there were several people in the Q&A from there.

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Jeff Scott Soto – ‘The Authorized Biography’ by Frank Tunney and Ronny Hahn’ (2014) – Book Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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Back in December 2021 when I announced I was doing a Jeff Scott Soto Series, I got a lot of response on the picture of my collection. One such person contacted me on Facebook and offered to send me a hard back edition of a biography on Jeff Scott Soto, so I quickly thanked him and agreed. He quickly mailed out this glorious copy of the book. His name was Sundeep Pooni and that book has been a massive reference guide for my review series up to this point. So, a big thank you to Sundeep and his very generous gift!! From here on out in the review series, we are past the date of the book so none of the albums I’ll be reviewing from ere on out are in the book, so I am on my own.

Before we get to the next review, let’s go through this book. It was originally written by Ronny Hahn and it was written in German and only an electronic book. For the 30th Anniversary of Jeff’s career, it was released thanks to Frank Tunney who took the original book and added more chapters and re-organized the structure. It is now a hard back book and chock full of the details of his career that all hardcore fans love to know. The book is called “Authorized” so it has the blessing of the man himself and that is good enough for me.

The book starts off with the original foreward written by Ronny Zahn and then there is a great dedication to the late Marcel Jacobs who played with Jeff in several bands and was a very close personal friend. It was a terrible loss, but thankfully he left behind a great legacy of music. Afterwards you get a brief biography of Jeff’s very early life, but the rest of the book is all Jeff’s music career.

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Jeff Scott Soto – ‘JSS: Live at the Gods 2002’ (2003) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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2002 was a big year for Jeff Scott Soto. It was the year of his coming out as a solo artist. Yes, he released a solo album back in 1994, but the intent was not to tour and showcase as a solo artist. He had signed with Frontiers Records and was getting ready to release his 2nd solo album ‘Prism’, but before that Frontiers’ promotional crew were in high gear. With press releases and having Jeff involved in the 10th Anniversary of The Gods Festival. The festival consists of artists/bands from the Frontiers Records label as well as Now & Then label.

The festival occurred on June 2, 2002 and was to be released as a live album and a DVD. I only have the live album, I need to get the DVD still. The line-up was pretty impressive as it had Eric Martin, Hardline, Harem Scarem, Honeymoon Suite, Ten, Soto and several other bands. It took place at Pennington’s in Bradford, England and what I’ve read, it was a helluva show by all.

Jeff’s band that night consisted of some old familiar friends including Alex Papa on drums, Gary Schutt on bass & acoustic guitar (did an album review of his for this series) and on guitar, Howie Simon. JSS is listed as “Top Dog” and he is right. It is his show, his songs, his voice everyone came to hear. He proved that when he came out on stage, alone, dressed all in black and did “2 Your Heart” a cappella. The song is from the debut Human Clay album. Jeff proved that voice is for real. The band comes in full force as the race through the Queen cover “Let Me Entertain You” which is appropriate because Soto does just that.

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Talisman – ‘Live at Sweden Rock Festival’ (2002) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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By 2001, Jeff Scott Soto and Marcel Jacob and had been playing together for a decade. The longest project Jeff had ever been with and probably the most fulfilling as he and Marcel were able to craft Talisman out of all the types of music they both liked. To celebrate that 10 years, a tour was needed and they wound up playing at the Sweden Rock Festival in 2001 on one of the smaller stages.

The place was packed up to an hour before the show. The crowd was chanting their name and was ready to hear some Talisman. Jeff Scott Soto, Marcel Jacob, Pontus Norgren and Jamie Borger were ready to take the stage and give the fans what they wanted…Talisman!! They played on the Rockklassiker stage with a 2000 crowd capacity. But it started off a little rough…two days prior to the show, Marcel’s gear was left in Stockholm where he, Jeff and Pontus were working on the new Humanimal album. So, Marcel had no bass. He wasn’t going to play, but when he heard the crowd chanting, he ran and found a bass from another band.

There was another band at the festival that had some recording gear and so they decided to record the show. Marcel and Pontus were a little unhappy with the recording as the bass sound wasn’t what Marcel really sounded like (remember, not his guitar), Jeff’s microphone had issues and the guitar sounded a little out of tune at times…they re-recorded a lot of the record in the studio and played as if it was the show to capture that essence…and honestly, you can’t tell. It all sounds fantastic.

This was 2001, so this was prior to Humanimal project and prior to the giant riff between Marcel and Pontus which forced the end of Humanimal and the end of Pontus in Talisman. So, if this is the last recording with Pontus on lead guitar, then we get a wonderful time capsule. The album was supposed to come out in April 2002, but the release was delayed (probably due to the Humanimal issues going on). It finally saw the light of day in December 2002 and thankfully it did as it is a fantastic show.

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Yngwie Malmsteen’s Rising Force – ‘Marching Out’ (1985) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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In a little less than a year after the release of Yngwie’s debut album, he puts out another release and this time a few changes were made. First, this sounded more like a band album. Jeff Scott Soto was still on vocals but this time he was involved in much more of the song writing. He contributed writing on 4 of the tracks and sang on 8 of them. For that reason, this was a more collaborative, band like experience…at least in how the album felt. The other change were a couple line-up changes. They brought in keyboardist Jens Johansson’s brother, Anders, to play drums. They also made a change in bass by bringing in Marcel Jacobs who is key and crucial part to the whole Jeff Scott Soto Story.

Marcel Jacobs is vital to Jeff’s story as the two became fast friends and within a few short years, the two would start what I think is one of Jeff’s best bands ever, Talisman. They would go on to do a couple side projects together called Human Clay and Humanimal, but they would always come back to Talisman and ended up giving us 10 studio albums together and numerous live albums and compilations. Without Marcel coming in to Jeff’s life, would his story have gone the way it did…I don’t think it would have. Even though they didn’t get along at first as Marcel was a stuck up European snob and Jeff was a trashy American, they eventually found common ground and their paths were destined to be intertwined for years to come.

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Yngwie Malmsteen’s ‘Rising Force’ (1984) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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Jeff Scott Soto saw an ad that Yngwie was looking for a lead singer so he sent a tape in to Yngwie’s managment in hopes of getting the job. The songs were from an early band he was in called Kanan. Amazingly, he received a phone call from Yngwie’s manager, Jeff Scott Soto had an easy decision to make so he left Panther, since he wasn’t really a member in the band, to take part in what was supposed to be a side project for Yngwie Malmsteen. I say a side project because Yngwie was in the band Alcatrazz when this was being made, but for some strange reason, he thought Alcatrazz was his band and Graham Bonnet felt differently and fired Yngwie. I guess we now know whose band it was. I guess you could say Yngwie has an ego problem. You could say it is a large ego or you could say it is even gigantic, both would be right as he is notoriously famous for that giant ego.

I know this is a Jeff Scott Soto series and we will get to Jeff, but the album focus is really Yngwie as it is a mostly instrumental album and only two songs feature vocals and those vocals are both handled by Jeff Scott Soto. The album was recorded in 1984 and released late in that year during November 1984. Don’t let wikipedia fool you as the album was not released in March 1984. As Jeff Scott Soto has pointed out that would be impossible as he didn’t meet Yngwie until a little after March as he was still working with Panther at that time. This album did come out before the Panther album and as I said, should’ve been the start but Panther really is the start of the story for Jeff (or at least the story I’m telling).

The debut album from Yngwie Malmsteen was called ‘Rising Force’ and did quite well garnering a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. It is heavily influenced by classical music and is a showcase of the true talent of Yngwie’s guitar mastering. It has been classified as neoclassical metal and I think that is about right. I will admit, I am not a big Yngwie fan and the only reason I own this album is because it has Jeff Scott Soto, however, this is quite an amazing album as I think this is before Yngwie’s ego completely took over and ruined things for me with him. But enough about that. Let us get to the music.

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Friday New Releases – July 23, 2021

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Happy Friday Everyone! We have another long list of releases for you today and isn’t that why you came to this page…yeah, we know it is. Now this week there are only 2 I’m interested in. One that has been bought and will be here today and the other is one I want to try out as I liked the song I heard and my Canadian followers will be happy. My choices are highlighted in Blue. I am sure there is something on here for you as there is so much there is probably something for everyone. I hope you find something you like! Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

  • 81GGJWyPWJL._SX522_  Stone Temple Pilots – Tiny Music…Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop (25th Anniversary) – (Atlantics): This is a MUST HAVE!! I have ordered and it is on the way. The first two box sets in the Anniversary Series they are doing were top notch and this one looks great as well. You get a remastered album, a bonus disc of demos and such and then a live show from the era and that is all you want in a good box set. My Brother-In-Law worked on this one as well and he mixed a bunch of he unreleased stuff (or was it the live show, I can’t remember). Anyway, I am excited and I will be really excited if he remembers to get a me a copy of the 7″ Single that is only available on the STP Site.
  • 61cTmy45YSS._SX522_  Lee Aaron – Radio On – (Metalville): And here is a long standing Canadian artist that has been around for a long time and she still sounds fantastic. I heard the track I posted below and it has intrigued me to want to give the rest of the album a listen. Who doesn’t a love a woman who can rock out with the best of them!!
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