Cracked the Billboard Top 200 in years Joe Satriani surfed into the big time with this 1987 virtuoso rock breakthrough, the first instrumental record to crack the Billboard Top 200 in years. State-of-the-art guitar playing--complete with wang- bar dive-bombs, two-handed tapping à la Van Halen, and juicy blues bends--wrapped in heavily layered arrangements, Surfing is textbook "shred" guitar, the oft-imitated style perfected by Satriani's student Steve Vai but born from Eddie Van Halen's dynamic inventions. The swing-metal "Satch Boogie," the ballad "Always with Me, Always with You," and the driving "Ice 9" are the album's standout tracks, though "Echo" is probably the most interesting cut, graced with a wistful melody from Satriani, who for once slows down on this whiz-bang technical showcase. --James Rotondi