Just started Yngwie Malmsteen's Inspiration cover album. I like it and play it quite regularly, but it does have a downside. Every single song sounds like it could be a Malmsteen song. I realise that can be positive and negative. One thing I appreciate is when artists give a cover their own signature. The thing with Malmsteen is that his choice of covers sticks so close to his usual antics that the signature comes without doing much different than the original. Kansas, Deep Purple, Rainbow, Jimi Hendrix, Scorpions, UK....the only thing that is even slightly from standard Malmsteen is Rush's Anthem.

Most of it sounds so Malmsteen that the uninformed listener would automatically assume it was his own. Happened to me when I first heard Metallica play Diamond Head's Am I Evil. Of course in that case Diamond Head was very underground when they recorded the original and didn't even exist anymore by the time I got into Metallica.

Back to Malmsteen's coveralbum and I must admit to one brave step. He felt confident (or arrogant, you never know with Yngwie ;)) enough to take on Child In Time. That's one of those classics I think you have to be really careful with when you cover them. Child In Time, Bohemian Rhapsody, Hotel California, Paradise By The Dashboard Light...I suppose those are the songs that you'll find in the top whatever of all time all over the planet. First of all the originals are so good that almost any artist is almost certain to make a worse version. Also they're songs that have such a unique character that it's almost impossible to cover them without sticking very very closely to the original. Dream Theater just about got away with including Bohemian Rhapsody in their big medley on A Change of Seasons, but I recall a pop duo called the Braids or something like that committing total blasphemy by turning it into an R'n'B chart hit.