VAN HALEN: Every Album, Every Song (On Track) NEW BOOK
https://www.amazon.com/Van-Halen-eve...945886&sr=1-11
I just bought this new book (part of a huge series) for my Kindle. I have a ton of these titles on a separate shelf in my living room. Probably going to get the paperback edition of this too to add to the rest of my volumes from this series.
I really dig this book. I can't say I agree with EVERY opinion in the book...but it's pretty close to how I feel about the whole catalog.
The author pretty much uniformly throws props to everything on the 6-pack, shits over so much on Hagar's four albums, tears VH III a new asshole...and then loves not only the two BEST OF songs with Dave but also fawns all over A DIFFERENT KIND OF TRUTH. It's not just a matter of saying "I like this" and "I don't like that"...he really goes deep into what was wrong with the Hagar years. He sums up in so many of his song reviews something I haven't pointed out enough in the reams of writing I've done on this site about why Hagar sucks balls. He points out that almost every one of Hagar's finished lyric sheets is nothing but CLICHE after CLICHE. Hagar basically lifts lines you'd read on bad Hallmark cards and repeats the sentiment in lyric over and over again. Almost nothing he writes has an original thought or a creative metaphor. It's just really bad how he hears some pretty good guitar music and ruins it with sentiments like "that's what dreams are made of" or "right now, it's your tomorrow."
The guy tears apart WHEN IT'S LOVE.
He shits all over RIGHT NOW. (I've never really liked RIGHT NOW, but you'd think a book made for the masses, going through the Van Halen catalog, would try to throw a bone to the sheep about this well-known song. But no...he points out that the lyrics are one endless cliche after another and that the song doesn't really have staying power. Damn right!)
I've rarely read someone dissect just how bad VAN HALEN III is (and why). The only thing I couldn't believe is that he actually threw some props at HOW MANY SAY I...one of the most embarrassing things ever recorded by a band that was once awesome. But he talks about the badly-recorded, badly-mixed music on VAN HALEN III...and then starts dissecting the simply awful lyrics Cherone came up with for so many of these songs and basically asks: "What in the hell was this guy even trying to sing about?"
And it's not just song reviews...he goes into historical background and detail of the songs, equipment & tunings used, band history in the overview before starting to dissect each track. It was a fun read.
And the basic thesis of the book is: the band have a huge, sprawling catalog of albums...but if you're going to try and wade through the shit pool that is the non-Dave eras, be careful. Most of it is full of mediocrity swill.
He also tears LIVE: RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW a new asshole...and he agrees with my (admittedly rare) opinion that TOKYO DOME is an under-rated live album. It's very raw, very live. And anyone who bitches that Dave doesn't sing all the words clearly hasn't listened to much live material with Dave...because for Dave it was always more about a live performance attitude than trying to recreate every nuance of an original studio vocal performance.
It's a really fun read with mostly sane opinions about the band's complicated catalog (and a catalog that should be much bigger, frankly). It had me cranking out a lot of VH in my car this past week.
SIDE NOTE: One of the only historical inaccuracies he writes about is that the band would have a hard time releasing the '77 Demos officially because the master tapes are lost. This is only partially true. It is true that Ed wanted to release them in 2015...but after finding out that the master mixes were lost, he asked Dave what he wanted to release, and Dave chose the Tokyo 2013 concert (the band apparently recorded every single gig from 2007 to the end on digital multi-track). This part is true. The author then states that maybe the band could do a so-so remaster on the boot version of the '77 demo tapes. This is NOT true. The author doesn't realize that Warners HAS the original multi-tracks of the first six albums (including 1984), as well as the '77 Demos. In the mid-2000s, they had a Sunset Sound engineer compile a 4-CD box set which included a remix of the '77 Demos using the 1st album as a reference point, trying to match the final mix sound of the debut album. And it apparently sounds perfect. SO...yes, the master mixes of the '77 Demos are lost. But the multi-tracks exist and a perfect remix has ALREADY been done. It would be great if the band simply released the '77 Demos as a new archive release.
BUT...I'm not holding my breath.
Get this book if you're up for a fun read about VH. I got through the whole book in about 3 evening reads.