Strange Beautiful Music

This is the ninth studio album, released by Epic on 25 June 2002 as EK 86294, fourteen tracks, with a Super Audio CD edition following on 10 September. The Japanese edition, EICP-107, came out on 26 June with fifteen tracks, adding the bonus track Eight Steps. The title has two sources. One is the name of Satriani's own music publishing company. The other is a lyric from Jimi Hendrix's Third Stone from the Sun; Hendrix is the musician Satriani has named as his main reason for picking up the guitar as a boy. Recording began in January 2002 and the title was announced on 25 March. The world tour opened in Europe in July, went to North America from August to September, East Asia in October, back to North America from November through February 2003, Central America in March and South America in April. The single Starry Night was released on 10 June and was nominated for Best Rock Instrumental Performance at the 2003 Grammy Awards, Satriani's twelfth nomination. The running order here is the import CD's as printed.