Van Halen
“Oooooooo! Look at me! I’m the Red Rocker! I’m so HORNY! Ooooooooooo!” – Sammy Hagar
“Well, Sammy is a mindless little bridge-troll drone. You know, everything that comes out of his mouth is word-barf. You know? It's the lowest common denominator. It's meant for children. Jimi Hendrix never made music for children. Children may have loved it, but he never made music like ‘Hey, the 14-year-olds will love this.’ The guys in Led Zeppelin and the Beatles never said ‘I'm gonna aim this at the 12-year-olds.’” – David Lee Roth
“So, Brad…when are you doing the Van Halen page, huh? Is it going up soon? Huh, Brad? Huh?” – Al
Albums Reviewed:
First of all, no, I have NO IDEA what “Corbis” is. This is easily the neatest picture I found of the band online (though there might have been neater ones of the Hagar/Cherone incarnations, but I had to have a Dave-era picture ofcourse, I mean, COME ON!), and the fact that there’s some weird corporate logo emblazoned on the front isn’t gonna stop me from using it on my fine little website of hardcore lesbian pornography.
Now, to the band itself. Van Halen holds the distinction of being the first band I’ve “discovered” (i.e. I didn’t have a truly fully-formed opinion of the band yet) in the time AFTER I started this site. I had most of the Roth-era material at that time, but I hadn’t gotten around to listening to it all that much yet. Turns out this band RULES ASS! Just all sorts of it. Everywhere. Skinny ass. Fat ass. Big, ugly, pimply ass. My shapely (not), muscular (not) ass. You name the ass. They rule it. See, the thing about it is, they were really, at their core, a FIRST-CLASS pop band who just happened to have Eddie Van Halen playing guitar for them (not to mention David Lee Roth providing vocals). If you took out the guitar pyrotechnics, these songs would STILL rule. The hooks, harmonies, etc. are ALL brilliant. It just so happens that the most influential guitarist of the last twenty-five years happened to in the band. That worked out pretty nice for them, I think.
From left to right in that picture with the weird “Corbis” logo above you, there’s guitarist Eddie Van Halen, bassist Michael Anthony, frontman (NOT just “lead singer,” I mean “frontman” in the purest sense of the word) David Lee Roth, and drummer Alex Van Halen, Eddie’s brother. Alex and Michael really don’t do anything except not get in the way, and the reason for the brilliance of this band lies in the combination of Eddie and Dave. Between Eddie’s INSANE guitar histrionics (hammer-ons, dive-bombs, double-tapping, getting all sorts of noises out of a six-string that you never thought could even EXIST…and that’s just in “Eruption!”) and Dave’s antics as probably the coolest, goofiest, funniest, most AWESOMEST frontman EVER, the band had a salad that was pretty much ready-made for greatness, and that’s BEFORE you toss in the wonderful pop hooks that abound on their first six albums (all of which you should get RIGHT NOW). In my humble opinion, for seven years and six albums, this was one of the greatest bands of all time, and I absolutely adore them to death, even if they did singlehandedly spawn hair-metal. Oh well. Not their fault that Warrant blows.
However, Dave left the band in 1985, and Eddie replaced him with Sammy Hagar. As you may have been able to guess already, I’m a diehard Dave loyalist, so I don’t really like the idea of “Sammy Hagar.” Read on for bitching that gets more specific. Sammy left about a decade later and was summarily replaced (after Dave reunited with the band for like two fucking days) by Gary Cherone (otherwise known as “the guy from Extreme”). I don’t have Van Halen III yet. Eventually, I probably will pick it up, but I just finished finals last week and I just do NOT want to sit through that shit right now.
And onto the reviews!
Thomas
Jagoditsch (t.ja@gmx.at) writes:
what me strikes when i read your reviews is my own lack
of knowledge of certain acts and its
funny how much it depends which album of a certain artist/group you first lay
your hands on.
take for example van halen.
for me they were (before your review) just some HR/metal band and i know their
hits from my
youth - but i would have ruled out that i could find anything else. for sure
and as long time guitar
amateur i know that this eddi van halen is known to be a superb guitarhero. and
thats it. i wasnt in
that metal-thing anyway.
so i looked for them in my collection and found - dont be surprised - one
record that states "for
unlawfull carnal knowledge". and i really couldnt remember what it is, how
it got buyied - and thats
no good sign hmmmm ?
theory is that i picked it up as "nice price", heard it to put it
away then ... *lol*
but i got some DLR albums, and they are real fine pieces. he´s a real funny guy
and u feel that in
the whole works.
so what to do now: i asked around and got 2 poor cd´s just to measure it
myself.
one is "VAN HALEN BEST OF Volume 1":
seems chronological ordered and starts with "Eruption", some hits
"Dancing the Night away",
"Jump", etc then "
"Human", "Cant get this stuff no more" and ends with
"Me wise Magic".
and its the best example of your "van roth" vs "van hagar"
thesis.
leaving "panama" to ask "love"-questions puts u in a state
of transit-shock hard to recover. first
lines of "why ..." (good questions arise) sounds like somebody
pressing hard while sitting on some
... hmmm ... sanitary installation.
"dreams" sounds like
althou the start of "when its love" with the organ is nice, the
lyrics starts dumb and the chorus
turns you really down then.
and so on. some fine passages to start numbers - but thats it.
you could say "humans being" rocks fine.
"Cant get this stuff no more" is like a relevation to me, DLR is back
and u feal it. "Me wise Magic"
is ok but not too good.
conclusion: a fine cd to compare the different "van halen"´s *G*
i got "Fair Warning" too, but havent time to hear it yet - but im
looking forward to it.
same thing with "yes", wrong album (cant remember its name right
now), will look into that too.
Shannon Carey (kissing_daylight@hotmail.com) writes:
First off, in your Led Zeppelin introduction you state
that, aside from
the Beatles, you cannot think of another band that had as great a six album
stretch as Zep. You later wrote your Van Halen page and gave the first
six
albums (the David Lee Roth Albums of Awesomeness) an equally high ratings
run. I don't really know where I'm going with this except to say that I
COMPLETELY agree with you about the Van Halen albums. They were an
unstoppable machine with DLR. Fuck Sammy Hagar. If you were
wondering (or
anyone else who ends up reading this) VH, LZ and the Beatles all have a run
of 3 10's, 2 9's and 1 8 (in different orders), according to you. I don't
agree with you on all of these ratings, but its certainly an interesting
point to make that Van Halen Mach 1 was a band as good as Led Zeppelin and
the Beatles.
David Dickson (ddickso2@uccs.edu) writes:
Okay, it's final. I AM John Q. Moron. Proof?
I like one guy's
actual singing better than the other guy's hil-AAAAARIOUS ironic
comedy act cleverly disguised as singing. I don't know about you, but
I've never in my life been much of a fan of lounge music, Vegas music,
OR Savoy Brown, and I don't plan to start now.
That said, "like" may be too strong a word. Overall, this band
has
mostly left me cold from '78 to '06, whether Hagar or Roth were on
pipes. It's just that Roth makes even the best songs amusical with
his supposedly "God-cool" vamping on top of it and FORCING you to
acknowledge his "God-cool" ness, whereas Hagar just kind of stands
there and screams at the corner, not trying to turn the music into a
"self-referential" statement or anything like that. Okay,
you're
answering, so you're a moron that prefers his music moronic and
straightforward; I get it. Go figure. And you like
right? My friend, this crap is moronic and "stoopid" no matter
WHO'S
singing. It's unambitious arena rock from the party side of life, for
crying out loud. Trying to dress already lowbrow music in a rosey
cloak of self-parody and Vegasy SHIT vamping doesn't sound "so stupid
it's BRILLIANT," and neither do the Stooges. It just sounds stupid,
sans qualifier. That said, I'm only ranting about the singer side of
things. If you want to talk about good songwriting; well, that's a
different story. Under Roth, Van Halen's filler tracks were just
mildly mediocre; under Hagar, they were bloody awful. After '84,
Eddie clearly cared about nothing but the hits.
Overall, it's hard to pick a favorite for best album, they're so
darned inconsistent. I think I would pick Fair Warning, if only for
the fact that the thing's so f&%!&$ short it doesn't have TIME for
much filler.
Sorry for the length, but those who call Roth the "greatest rock
frontman EVER (possibly)" and try to paint those who disagree as
jello-headed Assy McAssalots from Assville that Ass a lot make me
wonder what kind of anger drugs are in the water. Meh. I guess I'm
just impressed by simple good singin' rather than amusical goofy
self-reference sans impressive hooks. For my money, the only ironic
irony man from Irony-ville that really impressed with his irony-ness
was Frank Zappa--mainly because the irony and humor is NOT the chief
reason to be impressed by him. To me, Roth Van Halen just constitutes
a great guitar player cluttered by a particularly macho class clown
unfortunately doing his "act" in front. Bah. Eddie should
just go
solo and give Satriani a run for his money.
Van Halen (1978)
Rating: 10
Best Song: “Feel Your Love Tonight”
I’m not gonna go be a doozy and look through all the albums I have to see if this statement is actually correct or not, but, off the top of my head, this MIGHT be my personal pick for best debut album of all time. It’s close anyway. Ofcourse, off the top of my head, I can’t really think of anything beyond “beer,” “boobies,” and “Led Zeppelin’s archive release triple live album is coming out in ONE FUCKING WEEK,” but, sure, yeah, why not. It’s either this or Mary Star Of The Sea in any case.
OK, I’m kidding, though I do like Zwan and all. Not as much as Van Halen, though. I forking LOVE Van Halen. Like, I love them UP THE ASS. With FEELING. And they started purrrrrty damn well right here. What’s so great about this record is, like, if you listen to the first, oh, eight minutes or so, and hate it, then you can pretty much give up on Van Halen right there. You won’t like them. And I won’t talk to you, but that’s another issue entirely. Anyway, in those first eight minutes (three tracks), you get ALL the essential Van Halen ingredients. The opener, “Runnin’ With The Devil,” starts off with some weird and cool-as-fuck guitar noise that all their albums seem to start off with (except the one that starts with a minute of carnival synths…but that album RULES!), then goes into that cool one-bass-note intro, and then the main riff, that vintage, first-class, FAT, awesome Fast Eddie V. riff. And David Lee Roth is doing all sorts of interesting “Diamond Dave things” like going “WOO!” at inappropriate times and generally making an ass of himself, but in a GOOD way! Then, ofcourse, there’s the obligatory guitar solo, and throughout all of this the rhythm section isn’t really doing anything interesting, but it’s OK, because they’re not SUPPOSED to. “Runnin’ With The Devil” is quite possibly the stereotypical Van Halen song, see? And then it’s followed by a two-minute two-hand-tapping/dive-bomb guitar solo, “Eruption,” WHICH MIGHT JUST BE THE COOLEST FUCKING THING OF ALL TIME, which then segues into a hyper-sexed-up Kinks cover (“You Really Got Me”), in which Dave does MORE “Diamond Dave things.” See? The stereotypical VH song, the jawdropping guitar solo, and the expertly-performed Kinks cover. Isn’t that, like, the whole Van Halen catalog right there? If you don’t like it, you won’t like Van Halen.
And then go fuck yourself, because you don’t like Van Halen.
OK, the first eight tracks on this album are perfect. You hear me? Perfect. After the three I just mentioned (one of which, dude, is, like, fucking “ERUPTION,” man!), we’ve got three more vintage 100% perfect early Van Halen three-minute pop-metal orgasms, and two really fast punk-y things that are just as goddamn good. Of the three pop-metal pieces, “Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love” might have the best riff, and “Jamie’s Cryin’” might be the most famous, but MY favorite tune on this here record is “Feel Your Love Tonight,” even if it’s really not that much better than the rest of the material on the album (because it’s just so ridiculously consistent). See, you know why I love this band? It’s not even Eddie’s guitar work (which is fucking awesome, ofcourse), but if that’s all that was there, then, well, whoop-de-damn-do. No, see, it’s Roth. I fucking love that guy. He was just about the coolest man in the world from 1978-1984, in my opinion. And his overt goofiness, combined with the SOAAARRRRRING vocal harmonies the band liked to lay down when he was still IN the fucking band (apparently Sammy Hagar is incapable of sharing a harmony vocal with someone else, because he’s a FUCKING ASS-MONGER), well, these things are what put the band over the top, at least to me. And when “Feel Your Love Tonight” stops like 2/3 of the way in and Dave and the harmonies do that a-cappella “I can’t wait to feeeeeeeeeel your love tonight!” thing, well it’s just so cool. I LOVE that shit. Jesus.
Oh, right, there’s those punk-y songs. Well, “I’m The One” and “Atomic Punk” both CONTINUE to rule loads of merciless, vintage Van Halen ass, and both BECAUSE OF DAVE! See, “I’m The One” stops like halfway through (remember, this is a pseudo-punk song) for Dave to do these completely SILLY and GOOFY “bop ba da, shooby doo-wah!” Vegas vocals, and, christ, I love it. And in “Atomic Punk,” how Dave (just CRAZY-like) yells out “Nobody rules these streets at night but me! THE ATOMIC PUNK!!!!!!!!!!” IT’S SO GODDAMN AWESOME!!! DAVID LEE ROTH IS SO GODDAMN, FUCKING COOL! AAAAHHHHHH!!!
There’s also three more tunes on here, and while they aren’t perfect like the first three tracks, and they do drag a bit, they don’t drag enough to drop the rating down a point. “Little Dreamer” is a little too goddamn slow, but it has all the other necessary ingredients, so it’s fine. “Ice Cream Man” is hilarious. “All my flavors are guaranteed to satisfy!” Yeah, um…I’m sure they are, Dave. Then “On Fire” is a neat way to end, with those repeated “I’m ON FIIIIIIRE!!” vocal things, but it doesn’t really hold up to “I’m The One” and “Atomic Punk,” the other all-fast-and-shit tunes. But the guitar work is superb. Ofcourse, the guitar work is superb throughout this entire album. Because EDDIE FUCKING VAN HALEN is playing on it. He ain’t bad. Have you heard “Eruption?” He can play pretty darn fast! But that dive-bombing is even cooler than the two-hand-tapping! But that’s pretty cool, too!
“Eruption” is SO FREAKING COOL!
Van Halen II (1979)
Rating: 9
Best Song: “Dance The Night Away”
Well, the debut was a success, so the band went and made the same album! Er…more or less. I guess you can’t really blame them. It’s a pretty good formula! They did make a FEW changes, though. First, the obligatory cover is the FIRST song on the album, instead of the second, so, um…yeah. That’s a change, I guess, and “You’re No Good” ain’t as great shakes as “You Really Got Me” from the debut, but it’s fine in its own right. Secondly, they moved the obligatory jaw-dropping Eddie guitar solo spot to a bunch of tracks later in the record. But I’ll get to that a bunch of sentences later in this review.
For the most part, this album, like I mentioned, just seems to me like a carbon copy of the debut with a few new wrinkles thrown in. The songs as a whole, while still top-notch, have slipped JUST a bit, from the consistent highs of “Jamie’s Cryin’” and “Feel Your Love Tonight” to the consistent almost-as-high-but-not-quite’s of “Somebody Get Me A Doctor” and “Bottoms Up!” and “Outta Love Again” and whatnot. Now, don’t get me wrong, these are still VERY good songs, but they’re just a step down. “Bottoms Up!” and “Outta Love Again” are the all-fast-and-shit representatives, but they’re not quite as good as “I’m The One” or “Atomic Punk.” Still with the good stuff, though. At this point in time, it took more effort for this band to release ONE BAD song than an album full of good ones. They were good. VERY good. Notice I said “were,” though.
Anyway, this record doesn’t peter out in the same way that the debut does, so that’s nice. “DOA” is more or less the same song as “Somebody Get Me A Doctor,” but the rest of side 2 is VERY poppy, more so than the debut. “Light Up The Sky” stops like 2/3 of the way through (Notice a lot of Van Halen songs do this? Take an existing interesting song and put an even MORE interesting bridge-thingy in there that completely MAKES the song? Good band, my friends.) for this all-poppy-and-shit-and-making-me-jerk-myself-off soft “Oooooh, mama, see the firelights!” section, followed by (good lord!) an INTERESTING drum solo section! “Women In Love” kicks off the Van Halen tradition of starting a regular, run-of-the-mill solid pop-metal song with one of the most beautiful guitar intros in THE HISTORY OF MANKIND, and “Beautiful Girls” is better than “On Fire.”
But, see, the 9 up there doesn’t come from all this stuff. If you take into consideration the eight tracks I just mentioned, you have yourself a DAMN good album, right on that nebulous 8/9 border region, but there’s two more, and those babies put it over the top. OHHHHH yeah they do. First, Eddie’s guitar solo, as I mentioned before, got moved to track 7. The other difference between “Spanish Fly” and “Eruption” is that “Spanish Fly” is ACOUSTIC. He’s lightning-speed double-tapping on an ACOUSTIC FUCKING GUITAR, man. It’s positively Steve Howe-like, but, like, twice as fast. If anything that’s just one minute long can ever hope to bump up a record’s rating by itself, it’s this. Ofcourse, there’s also track two (two? TWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…), “Dance The Night Away,” which is part of a three-way royal rumble fight to the death with nothing but rubber bands, pastries, toothpicks, cheese-flavored snack crackers and rusty tridents Poseidon doesn’t even fucking use anymore (the buttfucker) for my favorite Van Halen song ever. Seriously, how goddamn good is this song? It starts off with just the cymbal and cowbell (WE NEED MORE COWBELL! THE ONLY CURE IS…MORE COWBELL!!!! OK…I think I’ve beaten that joke far enough into the ground…through the ground…off the cliff…past the goat…past the other cliff…to the Kwik-E-Mart…John, you better be reading this!), before that super-duper poppified Eddie riff comes in, and the song just never stops giving me an aural blowjob. Once again, the harmonies! “You’re old enough the DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANCE the night away!” And, once again, the bridge-thingy! It sort of restates the intro, but, like, in SUCH an interesting and orgasmic way, you’ll wish it were five MINUTES long instead of five seconds. Possibly my favorite five-second clip of a song (not counting guitar solos) in this fine band’s catalog. Amazing.
So, yeah, it’s like the same album as the debut, but not as good, mostly. Except that “Spanish Fly” is EVEN BETTER than “Eruption,” and “Dance The Night Away” better make you break out in some sort of nasty, pussy (the adjective form of “pus,” you pervert), full-body rash of orgasmicosityness when you first hear it. And, again, if it doesn’t, you probably won’t like Van Halen.
And then go fuck yourself, because you don’t like Van Halen.
Women And Children First (1980)
Rating: 8
Best Song: “In A Simple Rhyme”
This is the only Roth-era album that doesn’t really do it for me, though, obviously, it’s still plenty good, getting an 8 and all. There’s just several issues this album has that don’t apply to any of the other Roth albums. First of all, the obligatory linking-thingy sucks. I take this very seriously, and I thoroughly respect this band for being able to consistently produce one or two-minute non-songs (“Eruption,” “Sunday Afternoon In The Park,” like half of Diver Down) that aren’t just good, but GREAT, and never cease to enthrall me. Except “Tora! Tora!” Because it sucks. The first twenty seconds or so is a weird tape loop that I don’t really find interesting at all, and the last thirty seconds or so is this ULTRA-slow detuned guitar sludge that sounds like it belongs on one of Black Sabbath’s first three albums, which, you know, isn’t what I would normally expect from Van Halen, ofcourse.
Another problem I have is the length of a few of these songs. One thing I hate about the Hagar band is their tendency to take a song that really has no use being longer than three minutes or so (and often isn’t even that good to begin with…) and drag it out to like six or seven useless, ear-torturing minutes or some shit, and it’s an issue that comes up on the first side of this record here. I like “Everybody Wants Some” (man, that is the coolest, creepiest intro EVER) and “Fools” alright and all, but what’s the reason for “Everybody Wants Some” to be five minutes long and “Fools” to be SIX??? The former might be the only instance of Dave overdoing his “Diamond Dave things,” as it seems like he spends about two consecutive minutes at one point talking dirty to some imaginary slut he’s about to pork in the porkhole. The first minute or so of “Fools,” then, is one of the coolest guitar solo things Eddie ever spanked onto tape, but the other five minutes aren’t very eventful, and aren’t very interesting. That “Fools! I live with fools!” line gets repeated like fifty times or something. Jeeeeeeesus.
There are two more songs here that don’t really do it for me, so let me bitch for a second, because I never really get to bitch much while reviewing these Roth albums. They’re all so good! Oh well, I guess I’ll have to get all my excess bitching out on the Hagar band. That’ll be fun! Anyway, I’ve never been a big fan of “Romeo Delight,” even though it IS a fine, enjoyable song. Once again, an Eddie guitar solo makes a song more interesting by itself. And, ofcourse, a “Light Up The Sky”-esque bridge-thingy! The rest don’t do it for me, though. And “Loss Of Control,” quite possibly the fastest song the band ever did, sorta sucks, but for the Roth band that’s a relative term, ofcourse. It IS cool how it comes after the slow Sabbath sludge of “Tora! Tora!” (neat tempo contrast, I mean), and the faux-mission control radio talk is cool, but the song is almost TOO fast for its own good, and ceases to hang together very quickly. Ofcourse, the chorus consists of Dave repeatedly (and frantically) yelling “Loss of control! Loss of control! Loss of control!”, so there’s probably a joke in there, which I don’t really choose to get, because the song ain’t that good.
The rest of the album is QUITE solid, though, thank you very much. “Take Your Whiskey Home” follows the “Ice Cream Man” “acoustic goofiness leads into regular rock-ness” model, and is more-or-less just as good as that song, if not quite as funny (But there’s a great Eddie solo, as there is in like EVERY FUCKING SONG…why do I even mention it? It’s like a Van Halen prerequisite.). “Could This Be Magic” is GREAT, an ALL acoustic uber-goofball pop song with Dave in full Dave force. “And I see loooonely ships upon the water, better save the women and children first!” They sound like 1920’s hicks with slide guitars. It’s great. And, ofcourse, the opener and closer are both classics. “And The Cradle Will Rock” marks the first appearance of a keyboard (SHOCK!) in a Van Halen song, but you can barely tell it’s there, and it’s a neat lil’ embellishment. The closing “In A Simple Rhyme” is simply one of the best songs the band ever did, following the “purty intro” blueprint to perfection, leading up to more soaaaaarrrrrrrrrring chorus harmonies. Man, is the chorus to this tune the shit. It gets all soft-purty for like two seconds, then the pounding guitars come back, and this happens AGAIN, before that “I wanna be…yours in a simple RHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYME!” brilliance hits you over the head with a metal cudgel of brilliance. It’s good stuff.
Then there’s like fifteen more seconds of Sabbath sludginess at the end for no reason, which I’ll never be able to explain, so let’s just leave that be. This is the weakest Roth-era Van Halen album, but, I mean, it’s still GOOD. Eat it up! Like breakfast cereals! And orangutans!
Fair Warning (1981)
Rating: 9
Best Song: “Dirty Movies”
Shit…what happened to Van Halen? You know…the party-hearty headbangin’ horndog rock and roll band? Van Halen? You know…them? Fuck me in the ass, this album is so DARK. Not like death metal “violently bleeding vulva” dark or Radiohead “gloomy artsy” dark or whatever. It’s like, it takes all the dirty sex talk that you USUALLY find in a typical Van Halen album, and MOCKS it, in this really dark, dirty way that makes you feel all nasty and filthy for listening to all of Van Halen’s other records and enjoying them so goddamn much. Like a song about all the usual metal-band vices called “Sinner’s Swing!” whose third line has Dave very PASSIONATELY yelling “She looks so FUCKING good, so sexy and so FRAIL!” Our man Dave usually dwells out on the beach gawking at all the femininas and rubbing lotion on their tan, supple backs (mmmm…), but, on this album, you know, “this is home, this is MEAN STREAT.” Fuckin’ A. Like, whereas Dave is usually the coolest, goofiest, darn-tootin’ neatest man in the world who you’d DESPERATELY want to go have a beer with at the local bar or something, he sounds here like some dirty, nasty, filthy, sex-crazed, late-night stalking, back-alley dwelling pervert. And you feel like you wanna shower afterwards. Ofcourse, I always feel like I wanna shower. Because I’m covered in pure, unadulterated filth. And that guy in my dorm who keeps trying to fuck me up the ass isn’t helping. I tell him “no means no,” but he still keeps at it. Maybe I’ll go and call Room 13 or some shit. He’s a good guy and all. Except for the attempted ass-rape, that is.
Whatever, enough about the tone and the attempted ass-rape. The MUSIC here still rules all sorts of classic Roth-era Van Halen bumsex, though I can’t say, like Prindle and the Capn, that it’s my favorite Van Halen record. Still rules ASS, though. Like the debut, it’s incredibly even, though (obviously, as I’ve already mentioned) everything just feels DARKER than other Van Halen albums, and the music has a tougher edge to it. I miss the trademark Dave goofiness, and the “Diamond Dave things.” He has some neat monologue stuff in “Unchained,” but it sounds sarcastic. He says everything so damn slow, with this condescending tone. “Hey man…that suit is youuuuu. You’ll get soooome leg toooonight for suuuuuuuure!” Dave, you’re FREAKING ME OUT, MAN!!!!!!!! The song still rules, though, but not as much as everyone thinks it does (It’s the most famous one from the record, actually…but one of the weakest tracks! But, again…RELATIVE TERM!). MY favorite is “Dirty Movies,” charmingly about an all-American high school prom queen who has been driven to star in porn to make a living. “GO SEE BABY NOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!!!!!!!!” Goddamnit, Dave, now you’re making me feel guilty for all that disgusting hardcore pornography I wa-wait…I mean…um…I wouldn’t know what you’re talking about, Dave…because, um…I don’t watch…any…pornography…
OK! We’ve still got about half the album to talk about. “Hear About It Later” continues the SICKENLY pretty intro tradition of songs like “Women In Love” and whatnot, and it’s a good time. “Push Comes To Shove” is DISCO, and the darkest disco song I’ve ever heard in my life. I love it to death, and those overdubbed guitar parts in the middle are pure brilliance. “So This Is Love” sounds like it belongs on Van Halen II or something, and isn’t especially dark at all. I guess they had to throw the moron fans that didn’t buy this album (oh yeah, it didn’t sell as well…because people are DUMB) SOMETHING to grab onto, huh? They certainly aren’t gonna bite on “Sunday Afternoon In The Park,” the creepiest two-minute keyboard instrumental in the history of the world. HOW DOES EDDIE KEEP DOING THIS??? Creating little orgasms out of things that AREN’T EVEN FUCKING SONGS??????? The man is a genius! And how it then segues into “One Foot Out The Door,” almost forming like a four-minute mini-suite? Brilliant! The song actually doesn’t do so much for me, but it was still neat to segue them like that.
I love this album just about as much as the others (except Women And Children First, I guess), but it’s just COMPLETELY different from the rest. Oh, sure, musically there’s not that much difference (besides that fucking SCARY DISCO song and a few other things), but, whereas the mood of every other Roth-era album is a good-time fun party-hearty beer-drinkin’ good time, the mood of this one is “you fucking sicko pervert, you’re such a fucking sicko pervert, fucking pervert,” directed RIGHT AT YOU, THE LISTENER. It’s messed-up shit, but it still rules.
Diver Down (1982)
Rating: 10
Best Song: “Little Guitars”
Yeah, damn right. And I mean it, too. I fucking mean it. I’m giving the goddamn covers album a 10. I love the stuff out of it. It’s the most goofy, happy, silly, funny, just NEAT album Van Halen ever did. It’s easy to look at it and say it’s a step down, because, like “half of the goddamn album is covers, dude,” but I refuse to do it. It’s not as good as the other two 10’s on this page because, well, half of the album is covers, but I still ADORE this record, and thus Van Halen becomes band #3 to garner a triumvirate of 10’s. And, as Pete Carroll would say, “I’m as shocked as you guys.”
Seriously, this album is just fucking terrific. Five covers. Four originals. Three brilliant short little mini-orgasm vintage Eddie linking thingys. ALL GOLD. GOLD, JERRY, GOLD!! And the covers really are something special. It’d be damn near offensive for a band of Van Halen’s stature (in fucking 1982, for the love of my penis…which you all must love…) to put out an album with FIVE freaking cover tunes if they didn’t do such a superb job with all of them. “Where Have All The Good Times Gone” is another Kinks tune, and it doesn’t rule QUITE as much as “You Really Got Me” from the debut, but the line right before each chorus (you know, “mommy didn’t need no little boooooooooys!” and whatnot) is a fucking hook and a HALF. About halfway through the record, the boys plop down the ol’ Roy Orbison tune “Oh! Pretty Woman” (performed very faithfully and EXCELLENTLY, ofcourse) and the ol’ I-have-no-idea-who-wrote-this-fucking-song tune “Dancing In The Street,” which is done almost techno style, but the electronic-sounding whatchamacallits ENHANCE the song, aren’t overdone, and, well, they’re just brilliant, which is a word I seem to be using a lot on this page, isn’t it? Anyway, now, the OTHER two covers take the trademark Van Halen goofiness to new heights of absurdity, but I absolutely love it. “Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)” features Dave doing his best full-on Vegas Wayne Newton/Robert Goulet/Andy Williams/whoever impression and a fucking CLARINET SOLO, and, upstaging even that, the band ends the album with a one-minute A-CAPPELLA version of “Happy Trails.” Complete with the “bum ba dee-da, bum ba dee-da” part and everything. Awesome. I love this band. How many metal bands outside of Van Halen would do this, huh? NONE! THAT’S FUCKING WHAT!!!!
Then, ofcourse, there’s the linking-thingy non-songs! Now, I don’t know WHAT Eddie used to play “Cathedral,” whether it’s a guitar or keyboard or glockenspiel or if he just beat chimes off Michael Anthony’s fat head or what. If it’s a keyboard, then “Cathedral” is damn cool, and I give Eddie props for thinking up such a simple yet brilliant little thing. However, if it’s a guitar making that noise, then EDDIE IS A GOD. Not that he wasn’t already, but, good lord, how cool is that if fucking “Cathedral” is done with a guitar? Man. Oh, then we’ve got “Intruder,” which functions as the intro to “Oh! Pretty Woman” and should probably be on Fair Warning, because it creeps me out. It’s like the band decided to turn the protagonist of “Oh! Pretty Woman” from a guy sitting on a park bench to a dirty sicko pervert stalker, and then provided the PERFECT two-minute musical theme for some dirty sicko pervert stalker, and made it sound like it’s a perfectly natural part of the song. THAT, my friends, is impressive. Then, the third thingy is “Little Guitars (Intro),” a nice 40-second snippet of tasty Iberian-peninsula related acoustic pickin’ that isn’t as cool as “Spanish Fly,” but nevertheless damn, DAMN impressive.
And, as the intro to “Little Guitars,” it’s also a nice segway into discussion of the actual, you know, ORIGINAL SONGS on this bitch. Now, first off, “Little Guitars” might be my favorite Van Halen song of all time, and at the very least it’s contestant #2 in that fight to the death I mentioned three reviews ago. For my money, that’s the best chorus Van Halen ever wrote, bar none, case closed. It’s so wonderfully HAPPY! And it sounds like fucking ETCH-A-SKETCH!!!! “Etch-a-Sketch! Etch-a-Sketch!” Alas, it’s not. But it’s not like I’m alone in thinking that, though. I checked a bunch of unofficial fanboy VH lyrics sites, and many have “Etch a Sketch” listed in the chorus for “Little Guitars.” However, the OFFICIAL Van Halen site has “Catch as catch, catch as catch CAAAAAAAAAAAN!” So I’m gonna believe them. Still catchier than a ten-foot pole shoved up Tom Ridge’s ass until he admits the whole “terror alert” system is a pile of bullshit designed to keep America frightened enough to elect Bush to a second term so he can bomb the entire fucking Middle East and appoint Haliburton’s CEO as ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
Anyway, the three other originals can’t match “Little Guitars,” obviously, but this part of the album (the original songs) is still SADLY underrated. “Hang ‘Em High” is really fast and energetic, and the “child of the night passing BYYYYYYYYYY!” line never fails to put a hop in my skip. “Secrets” is a goofy little bouncy pop song that keeps up the goofy Vegas mood so prevalent on this album perfectly. I guess “The Full Bug” isn’t THAT great, but it’s fine, and when that’s the worst song on an album, you know you’ve got yourself a PRETTY fucking good album right there.
See, my favorite aspect of Van Halen (at least the Roth band) has always been their sense of humor and over-the-top goofiness, and this album displays it better than any of their others. Would the Hagar band ever do “Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)?” NO. They wouldn’t. And that’s why Sammy Hagar can suck my cock. I bet he’d enjoy that. Fucking cock-slut. He’ll suck anyone’s for a dollar. I hear that’s how he got the Van Halen job, actually. Eddie likes a good blow now and then.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I mean.
George Himmel (saxmachine777@hotmail.com) writes:
Regarding
"Cathedral", this is the sick part: that is guitar. And not this
over synthed, over produced, effect guitar that became popular in the 80s.
NO. Eddie manually turns the volume knob on his axe up and down with each
note to create that f@#king effect! That blew my mind out my ass when I
found that out, so I thought I'd shoot you this to blow you mind too.
1984 (1984)
Rating: 10
Best Song: “Jump”
Here
it is. The BOIG one. You’ve all heard “Jump” and “
But the first thing you notice about the record is that, at least for a while, there’s, like, NO guitar, man. Because the first minute, the title track, is this weird carnival sci-fi synth noise bloop-fest, that then leads into the cheesy-sounding mid-80’s synths of “Jump,” which, as I mentioned before, you’ve all heard. Now, despite the synths admittedly being of the cheesy 80’s variety, the riff Eddie plays with them is SO FUCKING SUPERB I can’t even talk about it rationally, and, as you might have guessed, it’s contestant #3 in the bloody battle royale to decide, once and for all, what Brad’s favorite Van Halen song of all time is. This SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAAAAAAAY, at the WORCESTER CENTRUM, see “DANCE THE NIGHT AWAY,” “LITTLE GUITARS,” AND “JUMP” FIGHT TO THE DEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAATH. Followed by MONSTER TRUUUUUUUUUUUCKS. This SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!!! If you don’t come, you’d better be DEAAAAAAAAD, or IN JAAAAAAAAIIIIIL. And, if you’re in jail, BREEEEAAAAAAAK OOOOOUUUUUUUUUUT. Anything I could say myself about the song would be useless fluff, because you’ve all heard it, so I’ll just quote Capn Marvel’s ridiculously on-the-mark commentary: “Lemme put it this way, for this kind of music, this song not only pioneered the style, it also made it instantly obsolete. Nothing in pop metal could ever equal ‘Jump.’” Truer words were never spoken. Except when your mother looked at me and went “Brad, your cock…IT’S SO BIG!!!!”
Now, the
rest of the material on this record ain’t too shabby, either. “
Side TWWWWOOOOOOOO! First, we’ve got the third ultra-hit single, “Hot For Teacher.” Now, this is one of those songs where its incredibly memorable music video actually HINDERS your enjoyment of the song itself. How can you NOT love the video for that tune? For my money, it’s the funniest I’ve ever seen. And the thing is, I never thought much of the song until I heard it without the video, and only then did I realize its awesomenessosity. The POUNDING drum intro is the most interesting thing Alex Van Halen ever did (notice I haven’t been mentioning him much? There’s a reason…), and it moves along at the same super-fast pace as “Loss Of Control” from WACF, yet, beyond just managing to “hang together,” becomes one of the ten or fifteen best songs Van Halen ever did. The guitar solo in the middle is one of Eddie’s best EVER, and it’s also the ULTIMATE highlight of “Diamond Dave things.” “I brought my pencil!” “Oh, man, I think the clock is slow, I don’t feel tardy!” “Class dismissed!!!!!!!” I can’t listen to this song without laughing my ass off. Impossible. Can’t do it. And there’s more comedy to come! The keyboard pop of “I’ll Wait” can’t even be CLASSIFIED as “rock and roll,” yet it’s just as good as “Hot For Teacher,” and it’s about a chick in a magazine! “And while she watches I can never be free. Such good photography!” Neat! “Girl Gone Bad,” with its ultra-fast drum/guitar lines and whatnot, sounds like fucking PROG-METAL or some shit, like Dream Theater should be playing it or something, except Van Halen is about 1,000 times better than Dream Theater, because David Lee Roth is 100,000,000 times cooler than their fucking ugly-ass opera-wannabe lead singer (whatever his name is). Like I said before, the last song, “House of Pain” doesn’t do so much for me. It just seems tossed together. It’s a bit of a mess, and it might be my pick for worst Roth-era Van Halen song (other contenders include: “Loss Of Control,” and, um… “Loss Of Control”…), but it’s not BAD bad. It’d stand out on one of the Hagar albums, because, musically, it’s about average for that era, and its lyrics aren’t sickeningly cheesy and/or sexist. So it’s got that goin’ for it, which is nice.
It’s a bit of a shame, though, “House of Pain” is. If it were as good as the rest of the material (like, say, “Drop Dead Legs” or something), I’d probably call this album one of my top 10 or so of all TIME. Still doesn’t detract all that much, though, even if it comes at the end, so the album sort of peters out. STILL a 10, and STILL my favorite Van Halen album, though all of them but WACF are all pretty close. And Van Halen II is number FIVE. You hear me? Van Halen II is only the fucking FIFTH best album this band ever did. Do you realize how many bands could never hope to produce anything even REMOTELY close to Van Halen II? Fuck, they ruled ASS. Until…
5150 (1986)
Rating: 6
Best Song: “Why Can’t This Be Love?”
…Now. Exit David Lee Roth. Enter Sammy Hagar. Exit brilliance. Enter mind-numbing mediocrity. Exit clever, goofy charisma. Enter bullshit misogynistic crap. And, just like many things, the first
impression says it all. See, your first
impression of the Roth band was “Runnin’ With The Devil,” with its neat guitar
noise, spooky one-note bass intro and kick-ASS guitar riff. Your first
impression of the Hagar band, however, is “Good Enough,” specifically Sammy
going “Hello BAAAAAAAAAAAAAABY!” at the outset of the song, one of the
stupidest, dumbest, most tasteless things I’ve ever heard in my life. But he doesn’t stop there! NOPE!
See, I haven’t even gotten to the first few lines of the song! They go like this: “
Whatever, the truth is, both this album and the one following it are actually halfway decent, and while the next two are the DEFINITION of the word “mediocre,” the Hagar band never really got BAD in the “Dave Gilmour-era Pink Floyd” sense of the word. It’s just such a drastic difference from the Roth band, and I just hate hate HATE all the bullshit macho crap Sammy does (when he’s not belting out a heart-wrenching power ballad, that is). Sure, Dave did his stuff too, but he was always funny, goofy, and charming, and you KNOW he had a smirk on his face the whole time. He never took himself seriously. Ever. For proof, just go listen to Diver Down. Ofcourse, Sammy couldn’t be bothered with such things as “irony” and “taste,” so he just gets up there and yells it out in his best lowest-common-denominator high-pitched yelp. I will never understand how ANYONE with half a brain (ofcourse, maybe that’s my answer right there…) could EVER prefer Van Hagar to Van Roth. It just boggles my mind. Sammy came on board and singlehandedly (OK, maybe not, Eddie’s guitar work suddenly becomes about 1/10 as interesting around this point as well) turned one of my favorite bands OF ALL TIME into some random chauvinist, misogynistic synth/pop metal mediocrityfest. Fucker.
OK, now that my Sammy rant is out of the way, I can get to this specific album. Now, the general opinion (among Roth loyalists as well) seems to be that this one is still pretty decent, and that the BIG drop didn’t occur until OU812. Well, I’m here to tell you that’s BULLSHIT. I really can’t find much difference between this record and OU812. They’re both decent, but no better. However, this album DOES have by far the best song Van Hagar ever did, “Why Can’t This Be Love,” on it. It’s cheesy as fuck, but I love it, and I’d probably put it in my top 15 Van Halen songs ever (including all the Roth stuff). That goofy synth sound is more or less the only musically interesting thing the band ever did after Sammy joined. Sure, it’s a “cheesy soaring power ballad,” but, honestly, I think Sammy was better at that stuff than trying to sound like Roth. I mean, stuff like “Good Enough” and “Get Up” (SUPER-fast, that one is) are fucking HORSESHIT. Like, whenever Sammy tries a Roth-type goofy monologue thing, instead of sounding like this wicked-cool guy like Roth does, he just sounds fucking retarted. On this album, at least, remarkably, the power ballads are the best the band has to offer.
There’s a caveat on that, though, which is that they’re the best the band has to offer PROVIDED THAT they don’t exceed your personal cheese meter. “Why Can’t This Be Love” is SUPERB, but maybe you have a lower cheese tolerance than me. Similarly, “Dreams” comes REALLY close to exceeding my cheese limit, but doesn’t quite do it, and it’s my second-favorite tune on the album, synths and cheese and Sammy and all. I dig it. However, the third “cheesy soaring power ballad,” “Love Walks In,” not only EXCEEDS my cheese meter, it blows it up entirely. I hate this song with a vengeance, and you should to. I don’t get it. Is Sammy in love with an alien? I don’t know if it’s supposed to be life-affirming or whatever, but, coming from the same man who provided vocals for “Good Enough” several tracks ago, whatever it’s supposed to do, it doesn’t. It’s fake, and it makes me want to vomit.
Besides “Love Walks In,” the second side is mostly filled with random mid-tempo rockers that WOULD be good if two things were changed: First, Dave sings the vocals. Second, Eddie gets a different fucking guitar tone. That’s another problem I have with the album. This wussy pussy bullshit guitar tone Eddie employs then renders a song that SHOULD kick ass like “Drop Dead Legs” completely neuter. Ofcourse, Sammy helps some, too. Whatever, “Summer Nights,” “Best Of Both World,” and the title track are all fine, and I enjoy them somewhat, I guess, but, FUCKIN’ A, are they just BLAH compared to just about EVERYTHING that was on 1984. OK, maybe I like the title track a good bit. Whoop-de-damn-do. So what. Then the closing “Inside” is dumb, too, like random chatter over musical nothing. Sammy says “I got this job just bein’ myself! I went out and bought some brand new shoes, now I walk like someone else! HEY!” No, Sammy, you still walk like Sammy Hagar, and that’s precisely the problem. To fit in with your musical and lyrical approach, the band pretty much tossed aside EVERYTHING that made them so cool in the first place. Ass-monger. I really don’t like you.
This is the best album the band ever did in terms of Alex’s drumming, though. So…um, yeah. That’s something it can hang its hi-hat on, I guess.
Dominick
So I'm listening to Yahoo!
online radio, nodding my head to the sounds of Black Sabbath as I work, when
suddenly the song switches and a horrifically awful voice randomly
screams "HELLOOOOOO, BAAAABY!", destroying my eardrums. Then
some guitar comes in and the guy continues to scream about something in the
same vomit-inducing voice. I check the window and find out that it's
"Good Enough", from Van Halen's "5150". Having never
heard a Van Hagar song before, I immediately begin to hate Sammy Hagar with a
passion and skip the song before my face begins to leak blood.
Fast forward a month or two,
and I buy the new VH double greatest hits, "Best Of Both
Worlds". After listening to it for a while, I come to the conclusion
that anyone that would willingly buy a Van Hagar record deserves severe social
ostracizement (if that's a word). However, the 5150 songs are by *far*
the worst to me - "Dreams" and "Love Walks In" create the
most boring, worthless, castrated, pathetic balladeering atmosphere I've ever
heard.
In conclusion: fuck
Sammy Hagar.
OU812 (1988)
Rating: 6
Best Song: “Finish What Ya Started”
Harrrrumph. Another album, no better or worse than 5150. It IS longer, though, so all you Hagar fans
will enjoy that. That’s another thing
about Van Hagar that pisses me off. The
length of their albums. Not only did the
Roth albums kick your ass all the way to
NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OK, moving on. This album follows the Van Hagar pattern (repeated twice, so therefore it’s a pattern) of “straightforward commercial rock album, followed by attempt to branch out stylistically,” and some of the attempts on here are pretty neat (causing me to hesitantly rate this record as the best Van Hagar release despite having nothing REMOTELY approaching “Why Can’t This Be Love”), although one is horrendously awful and possibly the worst song I’ve ever had the misfortune of listening to in my twenty-one years on this planet.
But first of all, the good stuff. I like the opener “Mine All Mine,” as it picks up the neat “prog-metal” vibe started by “Girl Gone Bad” from 1984. There’s several DIFFERENT SECTIONS. It’s not just by-the-numbers bullshit! I’m not saying the tune is GREAT, you know, but it’s pretty enjoyable, so I give it a thumbs up. I actually enjoy “Cabo Wabo” to a degree too, despite it going on about four minutes too long (another Van Hagar problem that starts to surface on this album here…I mean, SEVEN FUCKING MINUTES???? What the FUCK????). It’s nice and poppy, and the lyrics are neither “crap power ballad” nor “misogynistic chauvinism.” Then we’ve got “Finish What Ya Started,” one of FOUR Van Hagar songs I really, truly enjoy a GOOD bit (along with “Why Can’t This Be Love” and two from the next album). It’s all like goofy acoustic chicken-pickin’, and it’s decidedly fun, unpretentious, and UN-SAMMY-like. Therefore, it’s good.
Oh, and when I said this was an “attempt to branch out stylistically,” I only meant like half the album (if that), because we still have our fair share of soaring power ballads and chauvinist rockers. “When It’s Love” pretty much pushes my cheese-meter to the limit. It’s worse than “Dreams,” but not NEARLY as bad as “Love Walks In,” so therefore I say “eh.” “Feels So Good” isn’t as cheesy, but it isn’t as good, either, so to that I also say “eh.” It’s fine. It doesn’t cheese me out, so GOOD FOR IT!!! It’s OK, I guess, pleasant. Whatever. When it’s not playing I have no idea what it sounds like, actually, and I’ve listened to this album like seven times (*shudder*). “Source Of Infection” is (thankfully) the last time the band ever tries to do one of those “super-duper fast” “Atomic Punk”-esque tunes, and, like “Get Up,” it BLOWS. Sammy is just not cut out for this shit. “A.F.U. (Naturally Wired)” is probably the dumbest song title in the history of the human race (The acronym stands for “all fired up.” YEAH!!!!!!), and the song is as stupid as the title. “Black And Blue” and “Sucker In A 3 Piece” both let Sammy act as fucking misogynistic as he wants for, respectively, five and a half and six minutes (WHY!!!!!???????????), and, while the former is halfway decent, the latter is horrendous. “Sucker in a THREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE piece suit!” Ugh. What an awful singer.
And that leaves the worst song I’ve ever heard in my life, “A Apolitical Blues,” and, no, the title is not a joke. It’s a HARDCORE BLUES song. You hear me? SAMMY HAGAR IS SINGING A HARDCORE BLUES SONG. Like, generic, 12-bar structure blues. Never mind the band itself (since they can’t play the blues for their life and the musical backing sounds horrendous), just think of the fact that SAMMY HAGAR IS SINGING A GENERIC, 12-BAR, HARDCORE BLUES SONG. You hear me? SAMMY FUCKING HAGAR. I don’t think that needs any more explanation. It’s awful. I’m sure you can picture how awful it is without my describing it. Just be glad I forced myself to listen to it so you wouldn’t have to.
Just like the last one, this record is still decent (except for “A Awful Blues”), but, I mean, two records like this coming after fucking 1984??? Ick. Not. So. Good.
For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (1991)
Rating: 5
Best Song: “Top Of The World”
Blech. The nineties come along and the Van Hagars descend from halfway decent-ness into full-blown disgusting mediocrity. This album is bad. Very bad. If not for the last ten minutes (which are actually very good), the rating would be a point or two lower. They continue to follow the pattern I mentioned in the last review, as here, after attempting to branch out somewhat on OU812, they retreat WAYYYYYY back, turning out forty minutes of boring, awful, misogynistic bullshit by-the-numbers “rock” that no one will ever need to hear EVER, and ten minutes of good stuff at the end to drag the album rating up from “shit” to “really, really mediocre.” I haven’t yet heard Van Halen III (and I REALLY don’t want to), but, out of the rest of Van Halen’s records, this, to me, is their worst.
Oh, and make an acronym from the first letters of the four words in the album title. NOW do you see what I mean when I say “Sammy Hagar is a tasteless, chauvinist buffoon who should go fuck himself in the ass?”
OK, moving on, the first song here, “Poundcake,” bases five minutes of music around two ideas: Eddie’s using a drill on his guitar (which he does for a grand total of FIVE SECONDS) and the word “poundcake” being a euphemism for pussy. Personally, I think it’s a disgusting euphemism, and not in a sexist sense. I just think it’s gross. I mean, “poundcake?” Who wants to equate sex with poundcake? Does Sammy think this is funny? Is he trying to match Dave in “humor” and “irony” and “not being a fucking doofus?” I don’t get it. But, then again, I don’t really get Van Hagar in general.
Also, except for the last ten minutes of the record (again), almost every song on this album SOUNDS LIKE THE SAME FUCKING SONG. I suppose “Pleasure Dome” isn’t just “five minutes based around a useless chorusey three-chord riff while Sammy sings lyrics that make me want to throw up,” but, see, somehow, it’s actually WORSE! And it goes on for SEVEN MINUTES! WHY?????? The trio of songs that make up the middle of this album are just a complete and total wasteland. After the seven minutes of “Pleasure Dome,” we’ve got a song called fucking “IN ‘N’ OUT,” for the love of god, that goes on for SIX MINUTES of its own, followed by the five minutes of “Man On A Mission.” Sample lyric: “I’m a man on a mission! Straight ahead, less talk, more action! With no distraction!” Excuse me…
*Blows chunks repeatedly for approximately twenty-five minutes*
OK, phew. I really hate this album. Besides all the trash I just mentioned, there’s also another five-minute monstrosity (NO SONG ON THIS ALBUM IS UNDER FOUR MINUTES! NOT A SINGLE ONE!!!!!) called “Spanked” in which Sammy urges “all you bad, bad boys” to “call her up on the spank line!” Blech. This is shit. Pure and simple. Oh, fine, I suppose “Runaround” and “The Dream Is Over” are half-decent, but whatever. None of these tunes (at least before Sammy starts singing) are HORRENDOUS, but they all suck, and the entire first forty minutes of this album has no reason whatsoever to exist.
Thank god for the last ten, though, which consist of “Right Now” (fuck you, I’ll explain, give me a minute), the nice little Eddie instrumental “316,” and the superb “Top Of The World.” Now, first, about “Right Now,” I know you’re laughing at me right now, but stop for just a second. See, I know all you remember of the song off the top of your head is that chorus. “RIIIIIIGHT NOW!” and whatnot. I agree. I hate the chorus too. It makes me want to go on a multi-state killing spree starting with fucking Sammy Hagar himself. But the rest of the song? Gold! Seriously, everything else about this song that is NOT the chorus is very, very good. The piano intro, the verses (great melody!), the ORGAN (like old school organ, Eddie didn’t use ANY synths on this album…which helps to make the rest of it boring as hell, actually), it’s all good. So that’s like all but thirty seconds of the song that’s good. I just choose to pretend the chorus doesn’t exist.
After “Right Now,” we’ve got “316,” which can’t match any of Eddie’s mini-orgasms from the Roth years, but it’s nice, especially since it comes between two of the three best songs Van Hagar ever did (though neither can touch “Why Can’t This Be Love” for the PRIME Hagar poop). The other would be, as I mentioned, “Top Of The World.” You know why it’s good? Because IT SOUNDS LIKE THE ROTH BAND! Same kind of neat-as-hell guitar intro, vocal harmonies in the chorus, and SUPERB vocal hook. But, you know what? That hook sounds a little TOO familiar. Let’s see here. Hmmmmmmmmmm. “STAAAAAAAAAAAAAANDING on top of the world!” What does that sound like. Let…me…think……….OH! I’ve got it! “DAAAAAAAAAAAAAANCE the night away!” So there you go! The best vocal hook Van Hagar ever did is so good because it sounds just like one the best songs from the Roth era. And this is why Sammy Hagar SUCKS ASS PIMPLES.
Oh, by the way, I do NOT have that like six-hour quintuple live-album (or whatever it is) thing Right Here, Right Now (no, now I do, thank you Minuteman Library Network!), because live albums are useless and I don’t like Sammy Hagar. If the band were to release an archive live album from the ROTH years, however, I’d buy that thing up in about two fucking seconds.
Live: Right Here, Right Now (1993)
Rating: 6
Best Song: “You Really Got Me/Cabo Wabo”
HEY! I HAVE A JOB! LOOKS LIKE IT’LL BE AT LEAST ONE MORE YEAR BEFORE I’M LIVING IN THE GUTTER! HOORAY FOR MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!
But we’re not here to talk about my sudden and unexpected employment. We’re here to talk about Sammy Hagar. I don’t like him very much. In fact, you might go as far as to say I hate him. And, if you’re dealing with this record here, that’s a problem. This is a FRIGHTENINGLY large amount of Sammy Hagar concentrated in one place. Far too much to digest in one sitting. Cutting out the non-Sammy band members’ solo spots, it’s like two hours! That’s a lot of Sammy Hagar. And the worst part is how he’s wearing these ridiculous plaid yellow spandex pants in the liner notes. So not only do you have to sit through two hours of Sammy “I can scream in a very mediocre fashion and without much personality at all” Hagar, you have to picture him wearing plaid yellow spandex pants for the whole time. It’s enough to make a man go deaf and blind.
They picked the wrong tour to release this thing off of, too. The 5150 and OU812 tours might’ve been better (I’m not even mentioning any Roth-era tours, because to say “this might’ve been better when Roth was in the band” is like saying “Live at Leeds might be better than an early-80’s Who tour without Keith Moon.” It’s OBVIOUS.) because those albums were at least alright, and because the band had less Hagar material built up, and therefore probably dipped into the Roth songs more. But the F.U.C.K. tour? Am I missing something? That album SUCKS! If you take out the last 10 minutes, it might be worse than Van Halen 3!!! Goddammit. So this here live album contains every song on F.U.C.K. except “The Dream is Over” (which is one of the 3 or 4 songs on that album I actually LIKE!!!!) and most of “Pleasure Dome,” which they use to insert the inevitable 10 minute drum solo, thus at least sparing us most of that monstrosity, although the inevitable 10 minute drum solo (by ALEX VAN HALEN!!! HE ISN’T EVEN THAT GOOD OF A DRUMMER!!!!!!!!!) is probably just as annoying. Then, besides the near-entirely of F.U.C.K. T.H.I.S., they play the obvious hits off the first two albums (i.e. most of the keyboard power ballads, plus like 2 or 3 others), only four songs from the Roth years (one of which is the “You Really Got Me” cover, in the middle of which they stick “Cabo Wabo” because by 1993 they were all retards under the influence of Sammy “King Retard” Hagar…although this ends up my favorite track for some reason) and two SOLO SAMMY HAGAR SONGS, the bad “One Way to Rock” and the cartoonishly atrocious “Give to Live,” which features Sammy alone with an acoustic guitar (no further comment needed).
OK, so from a Sammy Hagar hater’s subjective point of view, this album sucks goat testicles, but objectively it’s actually not that bad. The songs from F.U.C.K. are marginally better live than in studio, mainly because Eddie takes some longer, extended solos in the middle, and an Eddie Van Halen guitar solo is always preferable to a Sammy Hagar anything. I mean, the songs that suck still suck (especially “Man on a Mission,” which adds ridiculous female backing vocals and is now officially my least favorite Van Halen song of all time not called “A Apolitical Blues,” including everything on Van Halen 3), but Eddie’s playing is much more entertaining here than on that asspiece of an album, so I can at least sort of get my rock on to crap like “Poundcake” (memo to Capn Marvel: why the hell do you like this song?), and the good songs are about the same as their studio versions, so “Runaround” is still alright, and “Right Now” and “Top of the World” are still very tasty.
Ofcourse, both of those tracks are on disc 2, which leads me to my next point: if you can somehow find this thing sold separately (it won’t happen, but theoretically), grab yourself a copy of disc 2 and, for the love of god, leave disc 1 alone. Here’s what’s on disc 1: SEVEN songs from F.U.C.K. (including neither of the really good ones), “Dreams,” “When it’s Love,” “Love Walks In,” Sammy’s completely fucking up “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” and “Panama,” Alex’s drum solo, and Michael’s five minute bass solo. “Dreams” and (shockingly) the bass solo (he plays “Sunday Afternoon in the Park” and the first few bars of the national anthem in there! It’s kinda neat, actually) constitute the only entertaining material on it, outside of whenever Eddie decides to solo. It’s very bad. Sammy is an idiot. He introduces Michael Anthony “and his twin, Jack Daniels” before the bass solo, he goes on a three-minute rant about not getting groupies and how you should “FUCK TOMORROW!!!!” during the monologue section of “Panama.” He’s an ass. Disc 1 is not good. I’d give it a 4, a 3 without Eddie’s soloing.
Disc 2 is
good, though. I mean, Sammy is still an
ass, announcing how he’ll invite “all 10,000 of you crazy motherfuckers” over
to his house and get “300 pounds of weed, man” for everyone before launching
into the excruciating “Give to Live,” and preceding “Finish What Ya Started”
with the remark “this is a song about unfulfilled sex” (call me crazy, but I
can’t enjoy a song quite as much when Sammy Hagar uses the phrase
“blue balls” 15 seconds before the band starts up), but the material is MUCH
better, outside of Sammy’s two solo songs and “Best of Both Worlds.” Both of the really good songs from F.U.C.K. are here, along with the one about blue balls, “Why Can’t This Be
Love?”, a half-decent (nowhere near the Roth original, but not butchered like the Roth tunes on disc 1) rendition of “Jump,” that really cool
“You Really Got Me/Cabo Wabo” thing (Sammy actually does a really good job with
the first (was he intentionally fucking up the other Roth tunes, but didn’t
want to mess with this one because it was a Kinks cover? Hmmmm…) and I LIKE “Cabo Wabo”), a random
cover of “Won’t Get Fooled Again” that they totally botch because Eddie can’t
match the keyboard parts with his guitar and Alex is no Keith Moon and fucks up
all the fills (but it turns out OK anyway because it’s fucking “WON’T GET
FOOLED AGAIN,” man), and Eddie’s 12-minute guitar solo showcase, probably the non-song
highlight of the entire thing, in which he runs through just about every solo guitar instrumental he’d recorded by then, from “316” to
“Eruption” to “Cathedral” to the intro to “Mean Street.” It’s great stuff! I give this disc a 7. (7+4)/2 = 5.5, and I’ll bump it up to a 6
because Eddie is Eddie and Eddie
is a god.
But I still fucking hate Sammy Hagar.
Balance (1995)
Rating: 5
Best Song: “Take Me Back (Déjà Vu)”
So, after making two halfway decent albums and one morosely awful piece of cow dung smeared across Sammy Hagar’s ugly-ass face that was redeemed by two excellent songs at the end, right here the band finally settles into its grooooooooove. And what groove is that? Well, mediocrity! ALL MEDIOCRE, ALL THE TIME! Honestly, none of these songs are as bad as a bunch of the stuff from A.W.F.U.L. A.L.B.U.M. T.I.T.L.E. (OK, fine, “Big Fat Money” is pathetic), but nor is any of it NEARLY as good as “Right Now” or “Top Of The World.” It’s just boring. I can’t really find any specific reason to hate it (beyond the fact that Sammy Hagar is prominently involved), but I can’t find any reason to LIKE it either. It’s just boring, boring, boring, boring, boring.
It IS more interesting than S.H.I.T. though, or at least more interesting than the first forty minutes of it. Eddie follows his nicely mapped-out pattern of trying to branch out a little bit after making something ridiculously straight-ahead and commercial, and this results in a few neat little bits here and there. Like, for instance, the opening track, “The Seventh Seal,” starts out with like weird Tibetan monk chants for twenty seconds before the song starts (which is a pretty decent song, I’ll admit…the guitar tone is better than it’s been in YEARS, although Eddie has accomplished this by means of “way too much echo” instead of actual “toughness”), and there’s a few weird little instrumentals that don’t really go anywhere, like “Strung Out” and “Doin’ Time” (which is supposed to be an “artsy drum solo,” I think, whatever that is…). Also, for the first time, Eddie has chosen to drag out one of his instrumentals to full-song length! Mark Prindle claims that “Baluchitherium” sounds like A Momentary Lapse of Good Taste-era Pink Floyd, and, while I enjoy it a little more than THAT monstrosity (YYYYYYYUCK! Currently the worst album in my collection, I think.), he’s not that far off, so that’s enough about that.
There’s really nothing here that I would ever want to hear again, although, as I said, there’s nothing that makes me vomit either (again, except “Big Fat Money,” which I’m not even gonna describe, and instead just let you deduce how bad it is from the title). This album is just boring. “Can’t Stop Loving You” and “Don’t Tell Me (What Love Can Do)” are actually two of the best songs on the album, and they sound like MICHAEL BOLTON should be singing them. That’s pathetic. Ofcourse, maybe if he DID sing them, they’d actually be better! Because here’s the thing:
Sammy can’t sing anymore.
Now, it can be debated whether he could actually sing in the first place, but let’s not open that whole can o’ worms (Mmmm…gummi worms). Technically, he could like hit the notes and stuff, and, you know, stay in tune. And he had a range that went higher than Dave’s (which some people tend to cite as a reason Sammy is a better singer…those people would be well-served to immediately extract their HEAD from their ASS). But, see, by this point he was, what, 40? 45? His voice is gone. He’s just grunting along, and ruining whatever decent-ness a lot of these songs might have had. Not that they would have had any to begin with.
See, the band just sounds OLD. Even on C.R.A.P., despite its AWFULNESS, they at least sounded sort of in touch with “the youth.” Now they just sound like old men, playing Kiss 108-ready adult fluff like “Can’t Stop Loving You” (even though I like that song), wussy piano ballads like “Not Enough” (which I don’t like so much), and nauseatingly overlong, overbombastic crap like the album closer “Feelin’” (which I also don’t like so much). The best song here, for my money, is “Take Me Back (Déjà vu),” but NOT for the whole thing! The intro to that song rocks my socks off. With PRETTINESS! I love it. VERY good stuff. Then it turns into the same song as the rest of the album, and just sort of goes by without offending me, but without capturing my attention either.
Hey, you know what? If Sammy Hagar dyed his hair orange, he’d look like Carrot Top!
This album doesn’t offend me like I.R.R.U.M.A.R.E. (if anyone else gets that joke, you rule) does, but it also has a pretty BOIG problem in that, like, there aren’t any good songs on it! That’s an issue. Truthfully, a good chunk of this album is pretty nice when it’s playing, but, after it’s done, do you know how much of it I remember? NONE! This is just an old, tired, dead band. Blah.
Van Halen 3 (1998)
Rating: 4
Best Song: “Without You”
It’s
certainly not as bad as I originally thought it was (I was so horrified after my
first listen that I put this album away for a MONTH and made a bunch of
derogatory comments about it elsewhere on this site before listening to it
again), but it’s still PLENTY bad, mind you.
I think my initial reaction was just my body’s violently rejecting Gary
Fucking Cherone, who has the worst voice I’ve ever heard of anyone not named
Geddy Lee. What does it sound like, you
ask? Well, picture Sammy Hagar at 80
years old. With laryngitis. And LUNG CANCER. That’s what
Thankfully, Eddie, free from the shackles of having to deal with the most incompetently sexist boob in the history of popular music fucking up his albums, turns in his best performance on the guitar since Dave was in the band. He sounds like Eddie again! Doing all those “Eddie things” we all know and love! Doobie! If this album were just one, long guitar solo with nothing else at all, the rating’d be up in the 7 range or something. Listen to “Without You!” He does more interesting little twiddly-doodly guitar bits in there than all four Hagar albums COMBINED! It’s great. It’s enough to make me thoroughly enjoy the song, despite Gary Cherone’s doing his best to rip my ears off with his insanely pathetic attempts at “singing.” The intro to “From Afar” sounds like it should be on Women and Children First! The pretty opening instrumental “Neworld” is the best non-song Eddie’s come up with since Diver Down! I mean, geez, there’s SHITLOADS of other problems here: The running times are ridiculous (nothing here is under five minutes, and two songs drag on for an excruciating EIGHT), the rhythm section, while never more than competent, has finally descended into out-and-out hackhood, and it sounds like Eddie and his brother didn’t even listen to each others parts until they released the fucking album, “Once” is a terrible attempt at moody electronica nothing, and “How Many Say I,” despite having the best vocals on the entire record (Eddie sings it! His voice blows! But in a boring way instead of an ear-torturing way!), is one of the worst piano ballads I’ve heard in my life…but, so sue me, I’m just happy that Eddie’s Eddie again, even if everything else going on with this album is so excruciatingly bad.
And
SPEAKING of “excruciatingly bad,” who here saw Game 7 of the ALCS? I kid you not, people: That was ONE OF THE
WORST MOMENTS OF MY LIFE. If you think
I’m ridiculous for saying that, read Bill Simmons’ article
on the game for a window into my psyche and the psyche of Red Sox Nation as a
whole. I can’t believe that game even
happened. I can’t fucking believe Grady
Fucking Little SINGLEHANDEDLY cost the Sox a chance to go to the World
Series. I mean, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING,
Grady? Everyone in
Goddammit. I thought that rant might be therapeutic. But it wasn’t. I hate the Yankees. I hate that the Red Sox never fucking win anything. I hate the Yankees. I hate baseball. I hate the Yankees. I hate Creed. I hate the Yankees. I hate my fucking life. And I fucking HATE the GODDAMN FUCKING YANKEES.
And this album sucks ass.
Peter
Ross (prog_man2@yahoo.com) writes:
I
feel your pain. Those damn Yankees always
get into the World Series just because they're the
friggin' YANKEES, and all the other good teams gather
dust in their homes. The Sox deserved to go all the
way this year, and if they'd made it, they'd have
probably won the Series in six games. But NOOOOOOOOO!
George F'in Steinbrenner with his deep pockets and
shallow mind and Joe "Why do I keep crying after
winning three consecutive titles? Because I'm JOE
TORRE! MANAGER OF THE
AWESOME!" Torre go to the Fall Classic AGAIN and now
those poor Marlins will wind up going to the grinder
as the Wankers steamroll to yet another championship.
Don't they have like 500 already?
Man, I hate the Yankees as much as you do. Their fans
are stuck-up assholes, the team has ALL of the best
players in baseball and are only on there because of
Steinbrenner's deep pockets, and, like I said, IT
SEEMS LIKE THEY'RE ALWAYS IN THE WORLD SERIES EVERY
DAMN YEAR. Them and their prick fans can bite me.
Go Marlins. Pull an
Luke
Chandler (crazycabanaboy@hotmail.com) writes:
I'm
very sorry about your Sox, Brad. I too, was pulling for them. This
will be the most boring, nondescript World Series ever when it could have
been one of the most interesting.
That
Luke
Oleg
Sobolev (dima@aspol.ru) writes:
You
see, I'm going to play an asshole here, but baseball really fucking
sucks. I watched that playoff game today (Yankees with that other team, I
suppose), and it SUCKED. I am not a big fan of lapta (the russian game which
iseasily the prototype of baseball), because it's boring as hell. Cricket
bores me to sleep. Softball has cute tits, and THAT'S IT. But baseball is
worse than these three previous sports COMBINED. It completely sucks any
kind of ass.
Stick with soccer (FOOTBALL, it's called, really, people), ice hockey, any
of the great racing series (Formula One, NASCAR, CART, IRL, WRC (not that
WRC), DTM) and basketball.
Pedro Andino
(pedroandino@msn.com) writes:
fuck the yankees up it's gay ass!!!!!!!!!
why??? pedro is like mr. ''that was just a practice swing!'' ha ha! speaking of
that I still say yankees suck because the fans are a buncha new yawk fagwads!
oh fuck off ya pansy! pedro "ooooops I did it again"
Happy traaaaaails to
yoooouuuuu! Until we meet agaaaaaaain!