And now for something completely different.
Yngwie Malmsteen is one of those "guitar gods" (at least in his own view), one of those very experienced and skillful "shredders" who play 20 notes per second on the electric guitar and play in extravagant tours for thousands of avid fans, and has been doing since the early 1980's, making him one of them with the longest career.
Yet, many people outside his most rabid fandom just hate the guy. People who love and admire other great guitarists like Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and many others. There's something about Yngwie that just rubs them in the wrong way, something that makes him different and dislikeable. And it's not just a few people hating him, but it's really common, and it's unlikely to be just a trend, a fad, some kind of unearned bad reputation that these people are just believing without reason and evidence, or as a meme (like what has happened with Nickelback.)
Part of the criticism stems from his guitar playing, but the vast majority of it stems from him as a person.
Yngwie is widely seen as extremely arrogant, egotistical and full of himself, completely lacking in humility, and thinking too much of himself. There are tons and tons of particular examples of this, and it would be difficult to research and list them all.
Many people have noted and commented on how he behaves on stage when he is playing with other guitarists, either as a collab between equals, or with other players he has invited to play in his own concerts. It might not happen every single time (especially when he is just one of several big-name guitarists), but it has happened many times. And that's his clear arrogant attitude that he exudes on the stage.
It's quite clear, which becomes evident in these situations, that he doesn't like not being "the star" of the show, the center of attention. He doesn't like if another guitarist overshadows him by, perhaps, playing better than him or receiving more attention than him. Many have commented on how in these rare occasions where he has invited someone else to play alongside him, he is constantly and clearly trying to "show off" compared to the other player, even outright interrupting him (for all intents and purposes) in order to stop him from being able to grab too much attention, and trying to "outplay" him, often with a facial expression that blatantly exudes a sentiment of "oh, you think that's playing the guitar? Well, watch this!" He doesn't allow the other player to shine and grab the spotlight. Instead, it's often like he has the other guitarist there to be, essentially, humiliated by him with his "better" guitar technique. The guest guitarist is not there to be given an opportunity to shine, but to be "crushed" in this "guitar duel" that nobody asked for or expected. Yngwie's facial expression tends to be quite smug after having "outplayed" and humiliated the poor guest guitarist. (Yngwie himself will, rather obviously, deny all of this if asked.)
When he is playing on equal terms with other big-name famous guitarists, as has happened a few times (God knows why the other guitarists even accept to do it; maybe the sponsors pressured them into doing it or something) he may be a bit more well-behaved, but in some cases some people have still pointed out a clear attempt at trying to "outplay" the others, or at least a clear attitude of trying to show off, to try to demonstrate "I'm at least as good as these others, just watch this." Something that, of course, none of the other big-name guitarists even feels the need to do, because they can shine on their own merits without having to "outplay" anybody else or trying to prove anything. In other words, usually the others are there to have fun and give the spectators what they want, while Yngwie quite clearly is there to try to show off and prove that he's as good as them, if not even better. (Again, something that he himself will probably vehemently deny if asked, of course.)
But that's just what can be discerned from his performances on stage. It becomes much, much worse when he is interacting with his fans and other people.
There are many testimonies of people who have gone to concerts of other big-name famous guitarists and gotten a "backstage pass" to meet the guitarist in person with a small group of other fans, and will tell that in the vast majority of cases these guitarists tend to be really nice, amicable, and happy to interact and have a chat with their fans, and will happily spend an hour or two having conversations, giving autographs, perhaps talking about their equipment and guitars, and even demonstrating some guitar techniques privately to them, and so on. In general, most of these artists tend to be humble and very friendly. Overall, a really magnificent experience for any fan who paid for such a "backstage pass".
Not so with Malmsteen, though. There are many testimonies of people, including those who have had such interactions with other guitarists, getting a "backstage pass" for one of his concerts, and it being a completely different and disappointing experience. In one such testimony, for example, Malmsteen had them wait for something like half an hour before he showed up, with his manager trying to hype them up by having them chanting his name or something (which was really cringe), and when he finally showed up he was there for something like 15 minutes giving some autographs, not really chatting with anybody, acting all smug, and then just going away mid-meeting (which was supposed to last for much longer), just because he felt like it. The people recounting this all say that it left them with a really disappointed and sour feeling (particularly because these backstage passes are not exactly cheap).
Another common criticism relates to his playing skills and style, even if we completely forget about his personality and behavior otherwise.
This is significantly more difficult to quantify and explain, but many people just find his playing... boring, particularly compared to the other big-name guitarists. It's hard to explain the exact reasons, but it's like he plays fast, he plays the correct notes, and he even comes up with relatively good melodies which he composes himself... but they just feel mechanical and soulless somehow. He clearly tries to play well, and from a technical point of view maybe he does, but... it just lacks that something that's hard to describe. It is, perhaps, a bit too rehearsed, too mechanical, too soulless, with only faux passion behind it. It often feels like he is a try-hard: He's trying really hard to play passionately and with soul... but it's just that: An attempt, not an actual performance of it. It's like he is mimicking passionate guitar playing, without actually being able to do it. As said, it's hard to explain, as it's so subjective.
Of course it doesn't exactly help that he so often is trying to show off (which somewhat exudes from his playing) rather than doing it out of passion and fun. Sure, he himself will claim that all that is nonsense and that he really does play out of passion and fun, and he probably even believes that himself. But believing it and actually doing it are two different things.
There's a rather interesting example of his arrogant attitude, and that's his appearance in some demonstration video made by some guitar magazine or the like, where he introduces what he is going to play like this:
"The next thing is not appearing on a record, as of yet. Something that I actually composed for this particular video, and I have dubbed it the 'Arpeggios from Hell'. And the reason for this is because it has the most... uh... extreme... arpeggios that I have ever come up with [laughs], in a lot of octaves, in a lot of different modes and... it's very hard to explain. Anyway, here it is: Arpeggios from Hell."
The curious thing (and something that's quite telling) is that this video clip is uploaded to his official YouTube channel, so he clearly has absolutely no problems with it, no regrets.
The thing is, while he most probably didn't consciously deliberately intend it, he's bragging here. He's not speaking like pretty much any other big name famous guitarist, and instead exuding that arrogance that's so typical of him, his subconscious need to brag and to show off, to show how good he is, how much of a "guitar god" he is, how his techniques are so advanced that he doesn't even know how to dumb it down to the lowly ignorant masses who are well beneath him. His superior techniques are "very hard to explain", that's how much above the average they are!
Am I exaggerating here? Maybe a bit. However, I genuinely think that not a lot. I do believe that at some level his mind thinks in this manner, and it just slips through oftentimes, like a sort of Freudian slip, where one reveals one's own inner or subconscious thoughts inadvertently. He might not have intentionally tried to brag here, but he just couldn't help but do it unintentionally anyway.
And that's what many people perceive as one of his greatest character flaws: His complete lack of humility. This is in huge contrast to the vast majority of other celebrity world class guitarists, who never brag and never exalt the virtues of their own skills, especially not like this.
Another small way one can see Yngwie's massive ego is that he really seems to have a problem with being parodied. In the early years of YouTube there were several parody videos of him, and some of them were actually really well made and genuinely funny, poking fun at him but in a very inoffensive manner, not outright painting him as a douche. Yet, he apparently didn't like those parody videos much because at some point in those early years all of them suddenly disappeared. And every time anybody would make or reupload a new parody video, it would quickly disappear as well.
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