Ah Via Musicom by Eric Johnson

Ah Via Musicom, Eric Johnson's second studio album, came out on Capitol Records in 1990, and it's a guitar player's guitar record that somehow broke out of the practice room. Johnson produced it himself, and every note sounds chiseled and polished until it gleams, all liquid tone and fingers flying without a hair out of place.

Four singles went to rock radio and every one of them charted on Billboard's Mainstream Rock list, with "Cliffs of Dover" leading the charge. That instrumental rave-up went on to win Best Rock Instrumental Performance at the 1992 Grammys, and the album itself hung around the Billboard 200 for 60 weeks and was eventually certified platinum. For a mostly wordless record, that's a remarkable run.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.