Joe Satriani's Surfing With The Alien is a breakthrough album that launched the shred genre into the mainstream. It was the sophomore album from Joe Satriani and was recorded on a very tight budget. In fact, Joe Satriani opted to guitar pickup swapping instead of renting different types of guitar to provide different tones for the album. And the drum tracks of majority of the songs in the album was a drum machine! The album employed complex song writing which popularized and elevated the shred genre for what it is today.
Surfing With The Alien was released on 15th of October 1987 under Relativity Records. The album ranked 29th on the Billboard 200 and is Joe Satriani's third highest ranking album in the US. Surfing With The Alien stayed in the Billboard 200 for 75 weeks and is Joe Satriani's longest running album on the Billboard 200. Surfing With The Alien was certified Gold on 17th February 1989 and hit Platinum on 3rd February 1992, almost five years after its first release. It was Joe Satriani's only studio album to achieve such status.
Surfing With The Alien and the album song Always With Me, Always With You were nominated for the Best Rock Instrumental Performance and Best Pop Instrumental Performance respectively at the 1989 Grammy's. The live performance of Always With Me, Always With You was also nominated in the 2002 and 2008 staging of the Grammy's.
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