T minus 1

[Bob_R]

Tomorrow marks the 12th anniversary of the last album released by Van Halen.

And, it wasn't exactly a ground-breaker.

[sadaist]

I got my money back for the VHIII cd.

After I listened to it 3 times though, i took it back to Tower Records in the mall. I stated it was skipping & somehow scratched upon opening. They gave me a fresh unopened copy. I then took this copy to a different Tower & returned it unopened.

Yeah, it was time consuming and took gas money. But it was the principal of it. That album sucked so bad I knew I would never listen to it. I didn't want it taking up valuable space. I didn't want to ever see it either as a constant reminder of what could have been. And I didn't want to add to any sales numbers.

Man, that album blew chunks.

[UK ROCKER]

Looking back on it now, it is not a bad album but also not a great one.

Gary wasn't a good choice but he did a good job under hard conditions.

[sadaist]

Looking back on it now, it is not a bad album but also not a great one.

Gary wasn't a good choice but he did a good job under hard conditions.

It just sounded weird to me. Like the timing was off. Or they played in different keys. Something odd. I remember listening to them with Gary on Rockline just before the album dropped. Eddie stated this was the first time he wrote & recorded this way. Gary would write vocals, then Eddie would write the music around them. Totally backwards from the norm, which might be why it sounded strange.

[fryingdutchman]

And, it wasn't exactly a ground-breaker.

Sort of like this thread....

[sadaist]

Sort of like this thread....

Awww, you're only post #5. Have to give a thread some room to grow & breathe. Just wait until we get to posts in the 40's & 50's and stray off topic into discussing the anti-oxidant properties of various dijon mustards.

[Bob_R]

Sort of like this thread....

Also, like Dave's last solo effort....

[Anonymous]

Also, like Dave's last solo effort....

What do you mean by that?

How many albums are groundbreaking? And how many must Dave alone release until he's allowed to release one that it isn't?

And by the way, it was more groundbreaking than many "classic" albums. At least, it was different.

But that aside, care to explain why the fuck did you feel the need to shit on Dave's album just because FryingDutchman pointed out that this thread is kinda lame?

Maybe you're comparing THIS waste to a kickass album full of kickass covers?

Cheers! :bottle:

[SNIPER]

Gary sounds like Cindy Brady with her bad lisp. I like the music but I can't listen to it because the dry hot vocal mix just kills it.

[UK ROCKER]

Eddie stated this was the first time he wrote & recorded this way. Gary would write vocals, then Eddie would write the music around them. Totally backwards from the norm, which might be why it sounded strange.

Apart from 5150 i always thought this was the case with Sammy, He gives Ed a rubbish vocal harmony and a rough guitar guide then Ed builds on that.

Cos it seems that after 5150 Ed kinda run out of his stockple of riffs that he had ben pulling out of the bag since the mid 70's.

In a way he may have started running out of ideas on the 1984 record, as it took a whole year to do yet the last 2 tracks come from the mid 70's.

Those gigs that gary did were pretty good, he respected Dave and brought Dave tunes to the show, And i have never heard Gary trash dave,

Enough babble from me, Yes sadist i think you are right

[Terry]

There were several interesting musical ideas on VH3.

However, there was a lot of waffling and wanking (much of it provided by EVH) that a real producer (not Mike Post, who was barely even involved despite his name being on it) may well have opted to leave off the album.

Sounded goddamn awful, too; about as bad as 5150 in terms of sonics.

Little of that can be attributed to Cherone, who I would agree probably did do the best he could under the circumstances. That effort might not necessarily have been doomed from the start, but the whole 1996 biz and fallout did pretty much ensure that VH3 needed to be an album of killer tunes that sounded great in order to rise above the PR obstacles the Van Halens placed in front of it in the year prior to its release.

VH3 just wasn't an album of killer tunes that sounded good.

The 2003 Diamond Dave release WAS Roth's weakest solo offering to date, but even just the track Thug Pop rose above the totality of VH3.

[UK ROCKER]

Well said Terry, that really sums it up well.

good post

[fryingdutchman]

There were several interesting musical ideas on VH3.

However, there was a lot of waffling and wanking (much of it provided by EVH) that a real producer (not Mike Post, who was barely even involved despite his name being on it) may well have opted to leave off the album.

Sounded goddamn awful, too; about as bad as 5150 in terms of sonics.

Little of that can be attributed to Cherone, who I would agree probably did do the best he could under the circumstances. That effort might not necessarily have been doomed from the start, but the whole 1996 biz and fallout did pretty much ensure that VH3 needed to be an album of killer tunes that sounded great in order to rise above the PR obstacles the Van Halens placed in front of it in the year prior to its release.

VH3 just wasn't an album of killer tunes that sounded good.

The 2003 Diamond Dave release WAS Roth's weakest solo offering to date, but even just the track Thug Pop rose above the totality of VH3.

Agreed with just about all of this, Terry.

My take on VHIII is that is really just a self-indugent escapade on the part of Ed who wanted to have an album that was "all Ed, all the time."

Mike Post as producer was a joke, and once that was printed on the liner notes the writing was also on the wall for that record.

I don't think there was any real "collaboration", not even with Alex. Ed had shit inside him that he needed to purge, and it all spilled out on VHIII.

Unfortunately, it came out sounding like a disjointed, steaming pile of shit.

As for this thread, Bob R can think I'm a "jackass" all he wants. But the long and the short of it is that the entire premise of this thread is completely unoriginal, radically overstates the obvious, and has nothing to build on.

Re-hashing the fact that VHIII sucked is not only beating a dead horse, but it's using the glue from the dead horse and then throwing away the empty Elmer's bottle.

Is that what we've come to in the land of VH limbo?

[Hardrock69]

Kinda like re-telling the brown M & Ms story for the eighty-billionth time.

[VAiN]

There are only a few tracks that I think are cool on VHIII - I totally view that album as an EVH solo album, I really don't qualify it as a 'VH album'.
The VHIII tour was pretty cool though - I got to see Eddie play a lot of CVH songs that until then I had never heard in person. Eddie was playing pretty damn well at the time too..

[VAiN]

dupe post

[sadaist]

Kinda like re-telling the brown M & Ms story for the eighty-billionth time.

Huh? What happened?

[Terry]

Agreed with just about all of this, Terry.

My take on VHIII is that is really just a self-indugent escapade on the part of Ed who wanted to have an album that was "all Ed, all the time."

Mike Post as producer was a joke, and once that was printed on the liner notes the writing was also on the wall for that record.

I don't think there was any real "collaboration", not even with Alex. Ed had shit inside him that he needed to purge, and it all spilled out on VHIII.

Unfortunately, it came out sounding like a disjointed, steaming pile of shit.

As for this thread, Bob R can think I'm a "jackass" all he wants. But the long and the short of it is that the entire premise of this thread is completely unoriginal, radically overstates the obvious, and has nothing to build on.

Re-hashing the fact that VHIII sucked is not only beating a dead horse, but it's using the glue from the dead horse and then throwing away the empty Elmer's bottle.

Is that what we've come to in the land of VH limbo?

Well, yeah, until the band actually do something, something other than...I dunno...have their logo slapped on guitar-related merchandise or release another greatest hits compilation...there pretty much is fuck-all to talk about in Main...outside of Ed's kids birthday

[BITEYOASS]

WTF Bob R?!?!? YOU HAD TO REMIND ME OF THAT FUCKIN ALBUM!!! GO AND LISTEN TO YOUR BACKDOOR BOYS FAGGOT!!!



Talking about this album is like....well you know!

[DLR7884]

Looking back on it now, it is not a bad album but also not a great one.

Gary wasn't a good choice but he did a good job under hard conditions.

Wrong. It's a horrible album.

Gary sucked and looked like a major league homo on stage.

DLR7884
How many say I?

[Rikk]

Wrong. It's a horrible album.

Gary sucked and looked like a major league homo on stage.

DLR7884
How many say I?

HOW MANY SAY I? is one of the worst songs ever released by a major act that once ever had a measure of respectability.

Then again...so are the following songs:

GOOD ENOUGH
THE INSIDE
WHEN IT'S LOVE
SOURCE OF INFECTION
SUCKER IN A 3-PIECE
SPANKED
MAN ON A MISSION
TOP OF THE WORLD
THE SEVENTH SEAL
CAN'T STOP LOVIN' YOU
UP FOR BREAKFAST
IT'S ABOUT TIME
LEARNING TO SEE

[POJO_Risin]

Rikk--Good to see you around.

I'm surprised you stopped at only those tunes.

Whenever I want to piss my wife off, I sing the chorus of 'How Many Say I'

It somehow burned itself into my brain...but it sure as hell works...

[Rikk]

Rikk--Good to see you around.

I'm surprised you stopped at only those tunes.

Whenever I want to piss my wife off, I sing the chorus of 'How Many Say I'

It somehow burned itself into my brain...but it sure as hell works...

SHIT...it's been years. Good to see you.

We gotta catch up on the teaching and everything else one of these days. I've been really enjoying the career and the life and everything...

That list is, from the top of my shellshocked head, the worst I can think of that Van Halen put out, minus the Cherone stuff.

I've subjected my soon-to-be-wife (in literally three weeks) to a lot of bad music, but I've yet to play her anything off VH3 yet. In fact, as far as she knows, BAD Van Halen music is DANCING IN THE STREETS from DIVER DOWN because we haven't played any of the other stuff yet...though the bad CDs are there with dust on 'em.

[Unchainme]

HOW MANY SAY I? is one of the worst songs ever released by a major act that once ever had a measure of respectability.

Then again...so are the following songs:

GOOD ENOUGH

Good Enough is hilliarious in Hagar trying to impersonate Dave's banter in classics like "Hot for teacher" and "Unchained", Dave just relished in being the class clown in those and was able to pull if off

Hagar just seems like he took off a line from a shit ass Jay Leno monologue and went from there

Pretty damn obvious that it was supposed to be a track for Roth to sing and hence why the space was left in, either that or EVH really had the ego in thinking that he could replicate the magic.

[VAiN]

Pretty damn obvious that it was supposed to be a track for Roth to sing and hence why the space was left in, either that or EVH really had the ego in thinking that he could replicate the magic.

Yeah, no doubt.. You can tell which songs were worked up for Dave, and which ones were the beginning of the end. I have a boot from 84 where Eddie plays the main riff to 'Good Enough' during ATBL...