This Fuckin' Kid

[Nitro Express]

I never would call Dave a singer. He was a great frontman and brought the element to Van Halen to make it entertainment and not just some musical hot shots. But you have to sing to a respectable level. Live Dave had Mike and Eddie singing background helping Dave out and Dave would do his famous screams. VH hit you with so much stuff at once you went holy shit!

So with Dave no longer able to scream and having lost what little he had all he had left was dancing and props. So I got to watch the old windbag dance and play with flags and poles for two hours.

[Nitro Express]

But Sammy’s voice always annoyed me. Nothing aesthetically pleasing there. He can hit the high notes but when you have no balls that is easy.

[Nitro Express]

Dave pulled it off on the first reunion tour, vocal-wise.

The last two tours Roth was terrible. No pleasure or snark or whatever in saying that, but it's true.

Probably too much pot smoking.

[Terry]

I never would call Dave a singer. He was a great frontman and brought the element to Van Halen to make it entertainment and not just some musical hot shots. But you have to sing to a respectable level. Live Dave had Mike and Eddie singing background helping Dave out and Dave would do his famous screams. VH hit you with so much stuff at once you went holy shit!

So with Dave no longer able to scream and having lost what little he had all he had left was dancing and props. So I got to watch the old windbag dance and play with flags and poles for two hours.

Dave was never just about the singing far as live performances went, even back when CVH was at their peak. As you say, it was the whole frontman persona, with Roth's take on it including those famous Roth screams along with the leaping around onstage, the jumping from the drum riser, the in-between song raps getting the crowd riled up...all that stuff.

Eventually, Roth just plain got old enough to the point where he couldn't do all the physical stuff onstage. Couldn't do the screams. While I'd agree he was a better frontman than singer live at least back in the day he could sing the tunes live more or less in key with how they were recorded. Come the ADKOT tour, Roth couldn't even sing the tunes in key live. Couldn't jump. Couldn't scream. He could disco shimmy on his center stage dance mat and proffer a strained yelp.

I just got to the point where I made all the allowances I could for age and downgraded my expectations as low as I could re: acceptability and reached the point where it wasn't worth paying to see Van Halen anymore because Dave couldn't cut it.

[Terry]

But Sammy’s voice always annoyed me. Nothing aesthetically pleasing there. He can hit the high notes but when you have no balls that is easy.

Hagar started trying to pull a Roth once he joined Van Halen in terms of attempting to replicate Roth's attitude. Even on the band's first record with Hagar on the first track, where Hagar is doing that spoken word stuff in the middle of Good Enough trying to cop an Everybody Wants Some vibe (the 'line back up the stockings' Dave rap) ...mannerisms and vocalisms that I'd never heard on any of Hagar's solo stuff prior to him joining Van Halen. All of which came off even more silly because Hagar was right there front and center joining in with the Van Halens via his own comments about Roth in the press: simultaneously slamming Dave while trying to cop his style and attitude.

Even farther down the line during his tenure with Van Halen, Hagar was trying to cop a stud attitude on record. Like, say, on Finish What You Started or Runaround where Hagar is still trying to do those bits in a lower spoken voice register like Roth used to do. Problem being Hagar didn't have the lower range nor was Hagar ever known for being a sex symbol, so it sounded terrible and came off as ridiculous.

[Seshmeister]

First up the 'Hello Baby' is and always was lame.

As a teenager at the time I remember thinking this old married man (39 years old) could be my Dad and he's trying to do these lame raps about picking up girls.

"U.S. Prime, Grade A
Stamped guaranteed"

Calling girls meat hasn't so much aged badly because it was fucking tacky at the time.

[Seshmeister]

Also it just occurred to me that there are 9 songs on 5150 so I bet that at least one song didn't make the album. That means that even at the very start of the Van Hagar thing - the top selling one although half the sales of the previous Dave album of course, there was a song that was even worse than 'Inside'.

[Seshmeister]

I'm saying all this while watching the Oscars where this lyric has been nominated for best song.

The Fire Inside Lyrics

[Verse 1]
Oh, oh, you got places to go
You're not going there slow
Oh, no, no, no, no, no
They will tell you you're crazy
They will call you a fool
They will think they can stop you
But there's no stopping you

[Nitro Express]

First up the 'Hello Baby' is and always was lame.

As a teenager at the time I remember thinking this old married man (39 years old) could be my Dad and he's trying to do these lame raps about picking up girls.

"U.S. Prime, Grade A
Stamped guaranteed"

Calling girls meat hasn't so much aged badly because it was fucking tacky at the time.

The only meat to be found was between Sammy’s ears.

[Silexxx]

Wolfie performing at the Oscars last night. Well, right there behind Slash who's playing the lead.

[Nitro Express]

The Academy Awards have devolved into a joke but then Hollywood is a joke. Wolfgang can play at it’s funeral.

[Seshmeister]

Nice!

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Read More: https://www.foodrepublic.com/1535113...wolfgang-puck/

[Catfish]

A lot of deep knowledge and analysis of Van Hagar songs in these recent comments. I proudly have very little clue what you Hagaritas are talking about.

[Rikk]

I never would call Dave a singer. He was a great frontman and brought the element to Van Halen to make it entertainment and not just some musical hot shots.

This is fucking nonsense, dude.

Dave was not a great singer. But he was a singer. He did sing.

I'm a singer. Dave is singing on those Van Halen albums. Dave was more than someone who screamed and was limited to doing spoken-word parts on the middle-eight.

People love to point out that Dave could not sing like so many of his hard-rock or metal contemporaries. AND IT'S TRUE: David Lee Roth never had the voice of a Ronnie James Dio or Bruce Dickinson or Rob Halford. Yes, Steve Perry...even Sammy Hagar...they have (technically) much better technical singing voices than David Lee Roth ever did.

But to claim that Dave isn't even a singer??? COME THE FUCK ON!!

. Listen to the beginning of FOOLS (just Dave & Eddie). Dave is doing those "Oh, yeah"s. That is singing...the style he's using there is totally influenced by plenty of rhythm 'n' blues or soul singers. It even has a Janis Joplin vibe to it.

. No matter what you think of the song, he's singing in I'LL WAIT. It's a sort of pop vocal, mostly out-of-character for Dave...but it is singing.

. COULD THIS BE MAGIC? features a vocal performance. It's singing. Yes, he has a sort of singing/speaking thing he does in some of those songs...but that's very much a particular style of singing, going back to all sorts of blues legends.

. LITTLE DREAMER features a vocal performance...and one with lots of style, bravado...and, yes, emotion.

. SECRETS. That's a vocal performance. Dave is not a rapper. He's a singer. His voice is a persona that he developed for years...for a singular purpose. He marries his distinctive rhythmic-style with his baritone melodies (that happen to be really catchy) and mixes in falsetto (and it's not bad falsetto either).

Dave is a blues singer. He writes catchy melodies. His style is distinctive and this is one of the more ridiculous things I've read from someone who claims to prefer the Dave era of the band.

The Hagar sheep are the number one people who are always trying to claim that Dave is "not a singer" OR that "he didn't sing live" in order to somehow win their argument that the Sammy Hagar years were so much better than the original band's era. And it's a bullshit argument...no matter who is making it.

There's no absolute rule over what makes a singer.

The sheep try and argue that the number of octaves one has within his/her range decides how good an overall singer/performer that person is. And that is absolute crap.

Whitney Houston, Sammy Hagar, Mariah Carey...whoever it is...they can all sing with a much bigger range than people like David Lee Roth...or Mick Jagger...or Iggy Pop...or even John Lennon...

This doesn't make those singers BETTER as frontmen (or women) or, frankly, even better singers than Roth, Jagger, Pop, Lennon...

What makes a singer great is not just about how high or low they can go. It's about the feelings they can put forth in their vocal performances. It's about how they can use their instrument (voice) to contribute to the catchiness or attitude in the performance.

It is sometimes a legitimate argument when someone claims that Dave does not concentrate enough on being a "singer" during live Van Halen performances. Yes, he (especially in the early days) can seem more concerned with showmanship than a full, legitimate vocal performance of the lyrics/melodies in those songs.

But to claim he isn't singing at all, even on the albums...THAT is ridiculous and stupid.

He has distinct melodies...and he sings them. He is always on-key on the albums (not tone-deaf, not just talking his way through the lyrics). He's also not constantly slipping out-of-tune live either, frankly.

If one were to say that David Lee Roth isn't at all a singer, than neither is John Lee Hooker, neither is Mick Jagger, neither is Jimi Hendrix. They have very similar characteristics in their style to Dave. They're not about belting out vocals like an opera singer (I, frankly, find operatic singers overbearing...but of course they're singers).

But anyone who claims that Mick Jagger, Jimi Hendrix, John Lee Hooker or David Lee Roth aren't singers is, sorry, full of shit.

[Catfish]

I agree--pretty sick of the "not a great singer" shit. These are the people who buy into the "if he can hit the high notes, he's great." It's horseshit. Dave did more with his voice back in the day than many others ever dreamed. He did shit no one touched. AND he had what snobs refer to as '5 octaves.' This ridiculous narrative of the Hagars of the world are great singers needs to shift. But then, I didn't digest all those Van Hagar albums like others here so maybe he's better than I thought..