| Alien Love Secrets | |
| Type: | ep |
| Artist: | Steve Vai |
| Cover: | SteveVaiAlienLoveSecrets.jpg |
| Released: | [1] |
| Recorded: | The Mothership Studio in Hollywood Hills |
| Genre: | Instrumental rock |
| Length: | [2] |
| Label: | Relativity |
| Producer: | Steve Vai |
| Prev Title: | Sex & Religion |
| Prev Year: | 1993 |
| Next Title: | Fire Garden |
| Next Year: | 1996 |
Alien Love Secrets is an EP by guitarist Steve Vai, released on March 21, 1995, through Relativity Records. The EP reached No. 125 on the U.S. Billboard 200[3] and remained on that chart for two weeks,[4] as well as reaching No. 72 on the Dutch albums chart.[5]
Alien Love Secrets was written and recorded in less than six weeks as a stripped-down guitar, bass and drums record with minimal keyboards. According to Vai, he had wished to maintain a steady output of material following his 1993 album Sex & Religion, but the recording process for the 70+ minutes of his subsequent 1996 album Fire Garden was taking too long. The EP was therefore purposely released in anticipation of Fire Garden.[6] Stylistically Alien Love Secrets marks a return to the more familiar instrumental rock of Vai's 1990 album Passion and Warfare, following the highly mixed reception to Sex & Religion.[1]
Notable tracks include "Bad Horsie", which was derived from a riff played by Vai during the final scenes of the 1986 film Crossroads; "Juice" was featured on the soundtrack of the 1996 PlayStation video game Formula 1; "Ya-Yo Gakk" is a call and response interplay with vocal recordings of Vai's young son Julian; "Tender Surrender", one of Vai's most popular songs, bases itself around a familiar sound, structure and tempo as Jimi Hendrix's "Villanova Junction" from his 1969 performance at Woodstock, although written in a different key; and "The Boy from Seattle", which is a tribute to Hendrix written by Vai.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine at AllMusic gave Alien Love Secrets three stars out of five, calling it a "moodier, more atmospheric collection" than Passion and Warfare. He also praised his "fluid technique, which manages to never become completely mechanical."[1]
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1995 | Dutch albums chart | 72 |
| Billboard 200 | 125 |