Van Hagar was better than you remember

[lxskllr]

Dave was half of VanHalen. VanHalen without Dave was half a band.

 

[nutxo]

emoji of shocked

what ?

no !

I gotta say VH got weaker and weaker. Diver down and 1984 just sucked. Van halen 2 was unimpressive. I remember sitting talkin with my friends and talking about future of music and hoping it wouldn't be this....

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Had this battle many times with friends in the late 80s early 90s.
DLR far superior to Sammy.
Sammys solo music is great.
Band took a pop turn when Sammy joined and it never sounded the same.

I will admit I was wrong about one unimportant thing. That is absolutely a gay man singing.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I gotta say VH got weaker and weaker. Diver down and 1984 just sucked. Van halen 2 was unimpressive. I remember sitting talkin with my friends and talking about future of music and hoping it wouldn't be this....

Diver Down was basically a cover album, was good Party music tho....
84’ you are wrong

 

[DigDog]

before i go into a rant i'd like to say that Diver Down is great *because* it's funny. VH fans get offended that they put out songs like Happy Trails and Big Bad Bill because "they don't rock". Where have all the good times gone, dancing in the street are great and Pretty Woman is fantastic, worth the price of the record on its own.

Van Hallen is a band i love to talk shit about because it's the quintessential "this is how you do music" study piece for music production geeks.
DLR was fundamental to the success of the band because HUMANS like to have a frontman they can relate to. Nobody cares about the career of Tina Turner's sax player, or whoever is playing bass on Bowie's latest album.
You don't *need* to follow this formula, so it's totally ok for bands like Primus to exist, but they are all niche products. There are no "big" bands without a good frontman:
1. queen has freddy
2. iron maiden has bruce
3. mick jagger
modern music even drops the band altogether in favour of only having a frontman. Obviously the opposite exists, but Aphex Twin isn't as famous as Cardi B.

Now, what i find shocking and almost laughable is that Eddie didn't see this. VH have never been honest with the public and the official explanation they gave was "artisitc differences" because DLR wanted a more pop-friendly sound and EVH wanted to go more metal. Which is fine if you stick crayons up your nose but yours truly thinks that Eddie was jealous of Dave, the same way that Tomi Iommi was jealous of Ozzy; the guitar player thinks he's the band leader, but the public identifies the band with the frontman.

And so he fired him.

Now, VH were never "popular". Sure, people knew who they were, they got big concerts n' all that, but they were not Guns N Roses, or even Iron Maiden. Or Sabbath, or Ozzy soloist. Or Megadeth. Or Metallica. They got some airplay and sold good records but they were a band "for rock connoisseurs" and while the typical metalhead would be perfectly happy to jump from Slayer to Sepultura, they would probably not be attracted by the idea of checking out Van Hallen.

They were also not metal. The 80s was big on metal and you were either in with the metalheads or with the pop artists, and VH are not pop artists. Or rather, they *could* have been, DLR wanted them to be, if not for artistic integrity, for the money.

1984 sold what, 12 million copies?

5150 sold 6 million.

0U812 sold 4 million.

Because this is a business, it doesn't matter if your guitar player has retained artistic control of the band material, if the paying public identifies with the previous band "ownership".
Jump and Panama are the two songs that put VH on the map, because Fair Warning sold TWO MILLION copies, and EVH hated both songs. So there. Eddie Van Hallen is an idiot and ruined himself.

 

[IronWing]

Now, VH were never "popular". Sure, people knew who they were, they got big concerts n' all that, but they were not Guns N Roses, or even Iron Maiden. Or Sabbath, or Ozzy soloist. Or Megadeth. Or Metallica. They got some airplay and sold good records but they were a band "for rock connoisseurs" and while the typical metalhead would be perfectly happy to jump from Slayer to Sepultura, they would probably not be attracted by the idea of checking out Van Hallen.

I was all prepared to unleash a torrent of internet outrage but I decided to look up album sales first. Holy cow, metal groups that no one but Beavis and Butthead ever listened to sure sold a lot of albums. I figured Guns N Roses would be the only group listed to beat Van Halen on album sales. I was wr… I guess Van Halen just happened to be popular when I first started listening to rock.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

before i go into a rant i'd like to say that Diver Down is great *because* it's funny. VH fans get offended that they put out songs like Happy Trails and Big Bad Bill because "they don't rock". Where have all the good times gone, dancing in the street are great and Pretty Woman is fantastic, worth the price of the record on its own.

Van Hallen is a bad i love to talk shit about because it's the quintessential "this is how you do music" study piece for music production geeks.
DLR was fundamental to the success of the band because HUMANS like to have a frontman they can relate to. Nobody cares about the career of Tina Turner's sax player, or whoever is playing bass on Bowie's latest album.
You don't *need* to follow this formula, so it's totally ok for bands like Primus to exist, but they are all niche products. There are no "big" bands without a good frontman:
1. queen has freddy
2. iron maiden has bruce
3. mick jagger
modern music even drops the band altogether in favour of only having a frontman. Obviously the opposite exists, but Aphex Twin isn't as famous as Cardi B.

Now, what i find shocking and almost laughable is that Eddie didn't see this. VH have never been honest with the public and the official explanation they gave was "artisitc differences" because DLR wanted a more pop-friendly sound and EVH wanted to go more metal. Which is fine if you stick crayons up your nose but yours truly thinks that Eddie was jealous of Dave, the same way that Tomi Iommi was jealous of Ozzy; the guitar player thinks he's the band leader, but the public identifies the band with the frontman.

And so he fired him.

Now, VH were never "popular". Sure, people knew who they were, they got big concerts n' all that, but they were not Guns N Roses, or even Iron Maiden. Or Sabbath, or Ozzy soloist. Or Megadeth. Or Metallica. They got some airplay and sold good records but they were a band "for rock connoisseurs" and while the typical metalhead would be perfectly happy to jump from Slayer to Sepultura, they would probably not be attracted by the idea of checking out Van Hallen.

They were also not metal. The 80s was big on metal and you were either in with the metalheads or with the pop artists, and VH are not pop artists. Or rather, they *could* have been, DLR wanted them to be, if not for artistic integrity, for the money.

1984 sold what, 12 million copies?

5150 sold 6 million.

0U812 sold 4 million.

Because this is a business, it doesn't matter if your guitar player has retained artistic control of the band material, if the paying public identifies with the previous band "ownership".
Jump and Panama are the two songs that put VH on the map, because Fair Warning sold TWO MILLION copies, and EVH hated both songs. So there. Eddie Van Hallen is an idiot and ruined himself.

Pretty much this.
Thing I want to add or correct. Dave is more a “show tunes” or broadway kind of musician. He wants big sounds and smooth lyrics.
I have heard the Eddie wanted VH to sound more metal with Sammy. I always found that strange because VH certainly took a pop turn with Sammy and it seemed pretty strange.
I think the David/Eddie music combo was great together. I think the David/Eddie egos were impossible together.

 

[Fritzo]

Sammy Hagar committed one unforgivable sin… he was boring.

Sammy is about the most colorful personality out there...he was just presented as boring on stage due to conflicting egos.