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Have you guys seen this. So sad but so true....
Diamond Dave - Magna Carta 2003
4 / 10
There are two fields of intellectual thought regarding the work and persona of Jewish entertainer David Lee Roth. There are the nay-sayers who have always found him to be a boorish, scenery-chewing buffoon, and the pro-Dave camp, who followed with glee his every yelp, leap and hilarious rock video up through Skyscraper, before having to sit back and watch their one-time idol grow wrinklier, more grotesque and apparently completely unaware of the public's perception of him. Why does he still bleach the little that's left of his hair? Why does he still make rubbery Don Knotts-style faces while surrounding himself with buxom, half-dressed models who probably find him sickening? Does he still think he's young, wild and sexy? Or is it all an act - an aging Vegas showman's parody of the larger-than-life rock star he once was? If it's the latter, I'm all for it as a hilarious and un-self-conscious "Frig you!" to our age- and beauty-centric popular culture. Unfortunately, I'm more inclined to think it's the former, which means Dave is well on his way to being the most highly visible "outsider artist" of our time -- bathing in the warmth of his audience's applause, blissfully unaware that thyey stopped laughing WITH him a long time ago.
I know I may sound patronizing, but I don't mean to. Dave still has more millions more fans than I'll ever have, even if they're only fans of a younger version of the man. And I myself am a David Lee Roth fan. I read - and loved - his Crazy From The Heat book and was excited when I heard that he was releasing an album of cover tunes. So it's not with a light, "told you so" heart that I declare Diamond Dave the worst collection of music he has ever released. Whether desecrating classics or defecating obscurities (I have to admit I don't know Savoy Brown, but I do know I wouldn't have begun my new album with THREE songs in a row by them), Dave lets his overblown and/or boring personas ruin the intrinsic value of nearly every song on here. How do you ruin a song as great as "Tomorrow Never Knows"? Simple - you have your band learn it wrong and then sing it like a rich jock making fun of hippies. How do you suck the fun out of The Hombres' hilarious nugget "Let It All Hang Out"? Dave knows! You shove the killer guitar riff way in the background to make room for a lifeless, pointlessly "serious" intonation of the lyrics. But surely it's not possible to ruin Hendrix's "If 6 Was 9"?! Well no, it's plenty possible if you convert it into a trance/eastern electronic thing with the lyrics AGAIN intonated in an inscrutably unmusical (and unemotional) tone. I know he's just trying to give that Dave flave to pre-existing songs, but to what end? What is his goal with this release? To prove to the world that he's no longer capable of adequately interpreting other songwriters' material? Surely he didn't think that Diamond Dave would have the career-defining impact of his LAST covers project, from whence sprang his eternal hits "California Girls" and "Just A Gigolo." Those songs sprung forth from the well of a young, arrogant man with tons of self-confidence and charisma. The David Lee Roth of 2003 is not that man. Far from aging gracefully, he has clung pathetically to an image he out-aged 15 years ago. He's incapable of (or uninterested in?) finding a new voice as an all-grown-up entertainer, so we find him year after year going through the same clownish motions but with a fiendish skeletal face where his (ironically) Nordic beauty used to be.
Truth be told, I could give a crap if he bounces around with models or hires a bunch of midgets to escort him everywhere, just as long as he's putting out decent material. This year, he isn't.
Diamond Dave - Magna Carta 2003
4 / 10
There are two fields of intellectual thought regarding the work and persona of Jewish entertainer David Lee Roth. There are the nay-sayers who have always found him to be a boorish, scenery-chewing buffoon, and the pro-Dave camp, who followed with glee his every yelp, leap and hilarious rock video up through Skyscraper, before having to sit back and watch their one-time idol grow wrinklier, more grotesque and apparently completely unaware of the public's perception of him. Why does he still bleach the little that's left of his hair? Why does he still make rubbery Don Knotts-style faces while surrounding himself with buxom, half-dressed models who probably find him sickening? Does he still think he's young, wild and sexy? Or is it all an act - an aging Vegas showman's parody of the larger-than-life rock star he once was? If it's the latter, I'm all for it as a hilarious and un-self-conscious "Frig you!" to our age- and beauty-centric popular culture. Unfortunately, I'm more inclined to think it's the former, which means Dave is well on his way to being the most highly visible "outsider artist" of our time -- bathing in the warmth of his audience's applause, blissfully unaware that thyey stopped laughing WITH him a long time ago.
I know I may sound patronizing, but I don't mean to. Dave still has more millions more fans than I'll ever have, even if they're only fans of a younger version of the man. And I myself am a David Lee Roth fan. I read - and loved - his Crazy From The Heat book and was excited when I heard that he was releasing an album of cover tunes. So it's not with a light, "told you so" heart that I declare Diamond Dave the worst collection of music he has ever released. Whether desecrating classics or defecating obscurities (I have to admit I don't know Savoy Brown, but I do know I wouldn't have begun my new album with THREE songs in a row by them), Dave lets his overblown and/or boring personas ruin the intrinsic value of nearly every song on here. How do you ruin a song as great as "Tomorrow Never Knows"? Simple - you have your band learn it wrong and then sing it like a rich jock making fun of hippies. How do you suck the fun out of The Hombres' hilarious nugget "Let It All Hang Out"? Dave knows! You shove the killer guitar riff way in the background to make room for a lifeless, pointlessly "serious" intonation of the lyrics. But surely it's not possible to ruin Hendrix's "If 6 Was 9"?! Well no, it's plenty possible if you convert it into a trance/eastern electronic thing with the lyrics AGAIN intonated in an inscrutably unmusical (and unemotional) tone. I know he's just trying to give that Dave flave to pre-existing songs, but to what end? What is his goal with this release? To prove to the world that he's no longer capable of adequately interpreting other songwriters' material? Surely he didn't think that Diamond Dave would have the career-defining impact of his LAST covers project, from whence sprang his eternal hits "California Girls" and "Just A Gigolo." Those songs sprung forth from the well of a young, arrogant man with tons of self-confidence and charisma. The David Lee Roth of 2003 is not that man. Far from aging gracefully, he has clung pathetically to an image he out-aged 15 years ago. He's incapable of (or uninterested in?) finding a new voice as an all-grown-up entertainer, so we find him year after year going through the same clownish motions but with a fiendish skeletal face where his (ironically) Nordic beauty used to be.
Truth be told, I could give a crap if he bounces around with models or hires a bunch of midgets to escort him everywhere, just as long as he's putting out decent material. This year, he isn't.
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