Van Halen

So,
6 perfect albums
a handful of decent albums with Sammy
a couple of clunkers
a few ok b-sides
a couple of greatest hits packages with stellar new songs
and....
the absolutely worst sounding live album ever mass produced.  Whomever was in charge of releasing that needs to be fired immediately and banished from the industry forever.

With that said, imo, Van Halen is one of the top 5 most legendary hard rock/metal bands ever.  Your thoughts?

Btw, here is me n Melissa's latest ink.  Who is gonna be the first to comment on our insightful and significant color schemes???  haha

I heard the Running With The Devil, on the radio, in 1978. It was a game changer.
When VH ll hit the stores - it was over the top excitement from everyone at school
Women and Children came out - even though "Everybody Wants Some" sounded like TUSK...
They were looked upon as super heroes - way higher than GnR was in their hey day.
Fair Warning. Intense compositions. Diver Down. Things began cooling down.
But still. Everyone loved them up to that point. Fun. Party. Quality musicianship.
That's when I moved on to the heavy shit.

I am a huge huge Van Halen fan, especially with DLR, but I did not sell them down the river when Hagar joined.

Those six albums are excellent. The early demos - the zero sessions and the Warner Brothers demos - are fantastic too. I have a soft spot in my old iron heart for 5150, OU812 was a clunker, F.U.C.K. was a good return but Balance is terrible and VHIII is even worse. A different kind of truth is mostly old, re-recorded demos without Michael Anthony so it's merely okay.

All in all, one of the greatest bands of all time and one of the most important bands in the history of heavy metal. Too bad Eddie went straight up his own ass and decided to stop being productive.

I love all the albums with Roth, and some of the Hagar stuff too! Van Halen’s music was the blueprint of good times 80s hard rock. Eddie was one of the greatest in his prime, but he got stuck in a rut and went stagnant in his later years. He basically blew his creative load early on and locked it in cruise control.

Always loved the DLR era, finally started warming up to the Sammy material within the past couple of years after a near-total boycott of those albums growing up.

Van Cherone was, is and always shall be a dud.

I was just listening to the classic stuff yesterday while driving around on my route. I don't own anything VH that doesn't have DLR in it. I have nothing against Sammy, but the VH songs I've heard during his era does absolutely nothing for me. But yeah, I remember back in the day, they were everything. Everywhere you went somebody was wearing a VH shirt, or kids would be drawing the logo on shit. Eruption was what every aspiring guitarists wanted to learn how to play. They were the kings of my youth and definitely one of the bands that sent me on my way to metal.

The DLR era was my gateway to Metal music as a 10 year old and the videos helped shape my preteen world. I have vivid memories of making my own custom VH tee in art glass with Outliner pens and glitter paint. Black tee with the logo in gold on the front and then song titles from 1984 on the back!

The first six are absolute gold in my eyes and ears and I will always carry the flag for 5150. I played the first two to death on my Walkman almost to the exclusion of the others. When I got to high school, I started to play Women, Fair, and Diver as much as the others. Oddly enough, I had some Sammy solo stuff before VH stuff, so I will always love the Ban Hagar stuff too, but it's not all stellar like when they were young and hungry and Eddie had not yet fallen in love with keyboards.

Awesome tats, btw, Johnny B.

A HUGE part of my teenage years. I owned every album as a new release up until OU812. I hold that the 1981 Fair Warning show I saw is still one of the best concerts I ever went to; and the 1984 show was one of the most disappointing as the band was a little too partied up before they hit the stage. Roth especially was a mess...

Fat Freddy wrote:

Van Cherone was, is and always shall be a dud.

This is a funny video about Van Halen III.

Required Fields wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

Van Cherone was, is and always shall be a dud.

This is a funny video about Van Halen III.

Enjoyable. Not agreeing with everything that dude said, but, accurate to a point. 1998 was a mess of a year. Name one mega huge group that ever ATTEMPTED to record and release an album. If you are a true VH fanatic, you already know what Eddie was attempting. But....The songs were not very good. The "Eddie Tone" was on every track. To me? That slays!!! To the generation of music buyers in 1998? Not so much. Eddie was not wearing a red hat, or was trick or treating like Slipknot, or was trying to bring females into metal in a very fucked up [in my opinion], operatic way [insert your fav Amy Lee, Screamo garbage here]. But, if Cherone III was released in 1990? Coulda been a game changer. Jut so you know, I do not like III. I think Eddie and Alex were fighting, Sammy was slamming them, Roth was Roth, and Eddie was in the bottle. Add all that up? Coulda been cool. Didn't happen. This is life as we know it.

the sentinel wrote:

Awesome tats, btw, Johnny B.

I am astounded no one here is a big enough VH fan to know what our ink colors means.  Feel the need to explain:

Melissa choose the Black n Yellow striper from her fav album, VHII:




I went with the classic colors we ALLLLLLLLLL know n love:



Comments, degrading 80's haters, and, if you got bundt cake you need to get rid of....pm me!!!

Wrecked Neck wrote:

I was just listening to the classic stuff yesterday while driving around on my route. I don't own anything VH that doesn't have DLR in it. I have nothing against Sammy, but the VH songs I've heard during his era does absolutely nothing for me. But yeah, I remember back in the day, they were everything. Everywhere you went somebody was wearing a VH shirt, or kids would be drawing the logo on shit. Eruption was what every aspiring guitarists wanted to learn how to play. They were the kings of my youth and definitely one of the bands that sent me on my way to metal.

That's me too.  I really love the DLR stuff and ironically I also love Sammy's solo stuff but somehow VH+Sammy=DUD for me; that stuff always has and still does leave me ice cold. 

For me I think VH is one of those cases of the perfect chemistry between a lead guitarist and a lead vocalist/front man.  Mess with the organic chemistry and the results just aren't the same.  Sort of reminds me of Bad Company without Paul Rodgers or Foreigner without Lou Gramm; the songs may still be there and there's not really anything wrong with the band or the lead vocalist but somehow it just doesn't gel.

And having a successful track record with a specified lineup doesn't help the new lineup either. A band can usually mess with anyone else in the band and not experience a dropoff but mess with the guitarist or especially the lead vocalist and look out...