WORST VAN HALEN ALBUM

For me it is a toss up between Diver Down or ou812..not worth the efforts in my opinion.

Thought I would normally rush to say OU812, it's hard to argue against either III or Balance. And I'm going with III.

VH III

I'll take any Roth or Hagar album over that pile.

Troublezone wrote:

VH III

I'll take any Roth or Hagar album over that pile.

There goes!


That is my take as well.


VHIII ($hit)       

Especially that close where Eddie tries to sing--I mean, I can appreciate his attempt at being vulnerable and going for a non-singer/Dylan vibe with his vocals, but he just sounds like shit and the whole song has an awkward flow to it.

VH III by a mile

I like all of the albums for different reasons, but if I had to, I'd say that OU812 is the weakest of the catalog. From my point of view, this album had the most Hagar influence.

The worst album is definitely Right Here, Right Now. This is the one Van Halen album, I hardly ever listen to. Live without a net, for me is a far better representation of the band.

III. No contest. I like everything they've done, with this one exception.

Everybody wants to shit on 'III' when, in fact, it's a strong musical record. It never had a chance since A- the whole world saw DLR come out w/ VH on MTV and made everyone want that and B- much of it didn't sound like then-recent VH. It's a deep record musically and lyrically, filled w/ some of Eddie's and Alex's best playing ever. A couple of the songs were a little weird ("Once" and "How Many Say I") but IMO that speaks to the diversity within Eddie's musical arsenal. Should Eddie have attempted to sing? Probably not. Were a couple of the songs a little long? Yeah. But 'III' is far from a throw away record.

III by a mile.... Cherone is a great singer, but the songs were weak

III - it sucks.

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

Everybody wants to shit on 'III' when, in fact, it's a strong musical record. It never had a chance since A- the whole world saw DLR come out w/ VH on MTV and made everyone want that and B- much of it didn't sound like then-recent VH. It's a deep record musically and lyrically, filled w/ some of Eddie's and Alex's best playing ever. A couple of the songs were a little weird ("Once" and "How Many Say I") but IMO that speaks to the diversity within Eddie's musical arsenal. Should Eddie have attempted to sing? Probably not. Were a couple of the songs a little long? Yeah. But 'III' is far from a throw away record.

I have to agree with this, it took me a few spins to appreciate the album, but its not as lousy as everybody makes it out to be, but IMO still the worst Van Halen album in their discography.

III.

But I don't like Extreme either.

I one of the few Van Halen fans that must have liked both the DLR and Hagar years, I prefer the DLR era by wiiiiiiiiiiiidddddddddddddeeeeeeeeeee margin, but other then 'OU812' which I thought was ok, I liked all of their studio albums with Hagar, IMO 'Balance' is especially good and underrated.

'Right Here, Right Now' is an OK live album, but I agree 'Live Without a Net' is a better representation of this band live.

Van Halen III by a wide margin. I actually revisited this album a couple of years ago to see if I was wrong with my first impression all those years ago, but I still found the album to be really boring. Second worst album would probably go to OU812 and third worst Diver Down.

manny wrote:

I one of the few Van Halen fans that must have liked both the DLR and Hagar years, I prefer the DLR era by wiiiiiiiiiiiidddddddddddddeeeeeeeeeee margin, but other then 'OU812' which I thought was ok, I liked all of their studio albums with Hagar, IMO 'Balance' is especially good and underrated.

'Right Here, Right Now' is an OK live album, but I agree 'Live Without a Net' is a better representation of this band live.

I like both eras too. Agree on Right Here Right Now - according to Sammy's biography it's not really a live album as almost every track was re-recorded

metalinmyveins wrote:

Van Halen III by a wide margin. I actually revisited this album a couple of years ago to see if I was wrong with my first impression all those years ago, but I still found the album to be really boring. Second worst album would probably go to OU812 and third worst Diver Down.

OU812 the production is too bone dry or something about his off putting, I am not an engineer so not sure how to describe it, plus no excuse for that tune 'Sucker In a Three Piece'

I like 'Diver Down' but too many cover tunes, thou I do like their take on the Kinks and Roy Obrision tune. I hated and still hate their version of 'Dancing in the Street'

thejokeriv wrote:

manny wrote:

I one of the few Van Halen fans that must have liked both the DLR and Hagar years, I prefer the DLR era by wiiiiiiiiiiiidddddddddddddeeeeeeeeeee margin, but other then 'OU812' which I thought was ok, I liked all of their studio albums with Hagar, IMO 'Balance' is especially good and underrated.

'Right Here, Right Now' is an OK live album, but I agree 'Live Without a Net' is a better representation of this band live.

I like both eras too. Agree on Right Here Right Now - according to Sammy's biography it's not really a live album as almost every track was re-recorded

I had forgotten he wrote that in his book, maybe that is why it sounds so stiff in parts

manny wrote:

I like 'Diver Down' but too many cover tunes, thou I do like their take on the Kinks and Roy Obrision tune.  I hated and still hate their version of 'Dancing in the Street'

Twelve songs, and four of them were covers. Whether one liked the covers or not, this album had uninspired written all over it. I'm sure much of it had to do with the fact that this was the bands 5th album in five years. At some point you hit a wall musically, I think "Diver Down" was their wall. They probably should have taken 1982 off.

Speaking of Diver Down...I heard "Little Guitars" on the radio the other day. I am pretty sure that outside of their standard set of 6 or so songs that get played 72 times a day, I have never heard a random VH song pop up on classic rock radio.

Similarly, the alternative/new rock station here as been playing The Cult's "Fire Woman" on a regular basis recentyly. Weird.

I'd go with III. Although I never heard the whole thing through , the stuff I did hear was not good. At all.

metalinmyveins wrote:

manny wrote:

I like 'Diver Down' but too many cover tunes, thou I do like their take on the Kinks and Roy Obrision tune.  I hated and still hate their version of 'Dancing in the Street'

Twelve songs, and four of them were covers. Whether one liked the covers or not, this album had uninspired written all over it. I'm sure much of it had to do with the fact that this was the bands 5th album in five years. At some point you hit a wall musically, I think "Diver Down" was their wall. They probably should have taken 1982 off.

Well you are not wrong, here is a quote from Eddie Van Halen himself:

However, at the time whilst he admitted to the pressure the band was put under to record it, he was able to tell Guitar Player (Dec. 1982) that it "was fun": "When we came off the Fair Warning tour last year [1981], we were going to take a break and spend a lot of time writing this and that. Dave came up with the idea of, 'Hey, why don't we start off the new year with just putting out a single?' He wanted to do 'Dancing in the Streets.' He gave me the original Martha Reeves & the Vandellas tape, and I listened to it and said, 'I can't get a handle on anything out of this song.' I couldn't figure out a riff, and you know the way I like to play: I always like to do a riff, as opposed to just hitting barre chords and strumming. So I said, 'Look, if you want to do a cover tune, why don't we do 'Pretty Woman'? It took one day. We went to Sunset Sound in L.A., recorded it, and it came out right after the first of the year. It started climbing the charts, so all of a sudden Warner Bros. is going, 'You got a hit single on your hands. We gotta have that record.' We said, 'Wait a minute, we just did that to keep us out there, so that people know we're still alive.' But they just kept pressuring, so we jumped right back in without any rest or time to recuperate from the tour, and started recording. We spent 12 days making the album... it was a lot of fun." In addition to this, two of the original songs were around long before the album was made. "Hang 'Em High" can trace its roots back to the band's 1977 demos as "Last Night", which had the same music but different lyrics. "Cathedral" was also nothing new, being played in its current form throughout 1981 with earlier versions going back to 1980. Additionally, "Happy Trails" had been recorded for their 1977 demos as a joke.

I never minded Diver Down (cover tunes and all). It's a fun album to listen to except for Happy Trails which is at least at the end of the cd and can easily be skipped/deleted.

thejokeriv wrote:

manny wrote:

I one of the few Van Halen fans that must have liked both the DLR and Hagar years, I prefer the DLR era by wiiiiiiiiiiiidddddddddddddeeeeeeeeeee margin, but other then 'OU812' which I thought was ok, I liked all of their studio albums with Hagar, IMO 'Balance' is especially good and underrated.

'Right Here, Right Now' is an OK live album, but I agree 'Live Without a Net' is a better representation of this band live.

I like both eras too. Agree on Right Here Right Now - according to Sammy's biography it's not really a live album as almost every track was re-recorded

Yeah, you can tell it was pieced together...in the video/DVD counterpart, they're in different clothes and Ed's playing different guitars within the same song...haha!

III without question.

If I had my way, I'd gather up every copy of that album in existence, load them into a rocket and fire it straight towards the sun.