Is 80's Hard Rock Cool Again or What??

[Firebrand]

First off, damn, where did this site go for like, what, a year?? Missed y'all, glad it's back.

Man oh man, what a time to be a Halenite AGAIN! The tour rocked, a whole new generation is turned on to the REAL Van Halen, and it sounds like we might actually get new music from the boys. Turn the clock back 24 months...would any of us have believed any of this would have really taken place?

I am a high school teacher, and it is amazing to me how much of the rock I grew up with dominates what the kids today listen to. Not to dis the new breed, but really, will anyone be listening to Nickelback 30 years from now? Of course if you had asked me the same question about Ted Nugent, Black Sabbath, Aerosmith, Kiss, Judas Priest, Eagles, Boston, Heart, Pink Floyd, Halen, and Lord knows who else that is still just about as popular as they were in 1980 I would have said the same thing, so who knows?

One of the bands that I still can't get over in reference to their current popularity is Journey. I admit the new CD is good, and Arnel Pineda can sing his butt off, but they are EVERYWHERE it seems.

I guess the 80's really are back. Does that mean 10 years from now grunge will be back too?

Damn, I hope not.

Anyway, looking forward to hearing more from the REAL Van Halen and seeing what they can come up with...and glad to be back amongst all y'all (that's the plural of y'all, for the non-Southerners here).

[Terry]

Well, I think the best of what the 1980s had to offer in terms of rock never became uncool, as it were.

However, for me, nostalgia doesn't somehow erase or make cooler in retrospect bands that were lame to me back in the day, either. Bon Jovi, Poison and all the other posers that seemed to leap out of the woodwork right around 1985 do not have timeless qualities just because a couple of decades have elapsed (outside of being eternally lame, that is).

[binnie]

Well, I think the best of what the 1980s had to offer in terms of rock never became uncool, as it were.

However, for me, nostalgia doesn't somehow erase or make cooler in retrospect bands that were lame to me back in the day, either. Bon Jovi, Poison and all the other posers that seemed to leap out of the woodwork right around 1985 do not have timeless qualities just because a couple of decades have elapsed (outside of being eternally lame, that is).

This is true.

There were some fuckin' awful 80s bands. Grunge happened for a reason.

[Panamark]

Pure shit gets flushed and forgotten...

I think every generation has kids that look beyond
the corporate crap they are being force fed.
These kids carry the torch. You cant kill good rock
and roll. Its etched in time. The seekers will always
find it.

[Satan]

Every decade has its gold and its shit. Van HALEN vs Van Hagar, for example.

[scottydabodi]

Any questions on whether hard rock is back need only to see the success of the Van Halen tour, AC/DC's latest cd sales(about 3 million), and check out how many kids younger than 15 are playing "Sweet Child o' Mine" at your local guitar shop on a saturday morning... Looks good, but when it breaks huge like 1984, then I'll be impressed.

[Terry]

Every decade has its gold and its shit. Van HALEN vs Van Hagar, for example.

Satan is always right.

[Firebrand]

You know, as a rock guitarist...

...I wonder if the timelessness of that period of rock (along with the 70's and much of the 60's as well) is rooted in the innovation heard on the guitar as much as the talent of the bands themselves. We were simply hearing things we had never heard before, with themes and such explored in ways we had never even imagined. Then along came VH, and really, there just weren't many roads to go down that hadn't already been travelled.

It's almost like after 1984 (the album and the year), everything kind of became a retread until grunge hit. Maybe. I dunno

Does that make sense?

[ForeverDLR/VH]

It's great to see there are some Kids today, that don't let "Popular culture" dominate what they listen to and what kind of music they download or buy. You got so many Talentless music today, such as Hanna Montana, Jonnes brothers and most Rappers, which don’t even care about the music and just in it for the Money! I went to high school in the mid 90’s and while most everyone else listened to Rap and Grunge, I listen to Van Halen, Def Leppard, Led Zeppelin.

[Firebrand]

Forever, what you've got to grasp....

...is that while there are some great musicians out there today, the fact of the matter is unlike the 70's and early 80's, today the 'packaging' matters more than the package, if you get my drift. If you look good and your image can be sold, that matters more than whether or not you can actually sing or play an instrument.

I love technology, and I think that a lot of what has happened with digital recording and virtual amps for guitars and such is great.

BUT, I think it has all but killed the true, raw spirit of rock...and that's why those pioneers amongst us that still survive are so appealing.

[Terry]

...I wonder if the timelessness of that period of rock (along with the 70's and much of the 60's as well) is rooted in the innovation heard on the guitar as much as the talent of the bands themselves. We were simply hearing things we had never heard before, with themes and such explored in ways we had never even imagined. Then along came VH, and really, there just weren't many roads to go down that hadn't already been travelled.

It's almost like after 1984 (the album and the year), everything kind of became a retread until grunge hit. Maybe. I dunno

Does that make sense?

Well, in terms of the US rock scene, I think around 1985 what happened was a bunch of record companies went out and signed up a bunch of sheep in wolves clothing.

By that, I mean that a lot of the stuff that was pushed hard commercially by the record companies and MTV that was considered hard rock or heavy metal by the layperson was really a bunch of bands with pop sensibilities using guitars instead of synths and dressing the part (heavy on the spandex and big hair). Even older groups like KISS got into the act.

A lot of these groups took their cues from Van Halen, but just in terms of stylistics rather than substance. It explains a group like Bon Jovi, who wore the stereotypical rock clothes, had the stereotypical rock guitar crunch, but with songs, melody lines and lyrics full of trite and cliched sappy love song lyrics.

Rock music...popular rock music at any rate...became very formulaic around 1985. The genre became so inbred and image conscious, with commercial considerations outweighing musical content...it really collapsed upon itself. Grunge just put that brand of spandex rock pretty much out of its misery.

Pantera were one of the few hard rock/heavy metal bands to emerge in the 1990s that had any credibility for me. Assclowns like Posion and Bon Jovi never had any credibility for me to begin with.

To me (and this may just be waxing bullshit), and band like CVH pretty much did what they wanted to in terms of creating the music and let the record company take it from there, as opposed to many bands that followed, which let the record company assign them songwriters and took charge of the band in the creative aspects.

[ELVIS]

Any questions on whether hard rock is back need only to see the success of the Van Halen tour, AC/DC's latest cd sales(about 3 million)

People didn't buy van Halen tickets based on how good the performances were, they bought them to see Dave And Eddie together, and possibly the trainwreck...

On a scale of one to ten, I give it a three...

Dave was great - beyond my expectations...

Edward (compared to the old Eddie) sucked...

Alex was ok, besides omitting the more difficult passages and beats...

Wolf was a joke who had no business being up there, at least at that point...

And I hope you're reading this Wolf, because from your perspective there's no way you can understand the emotion of a true fan who grew up on this awesome music...

So, my advice to you is to ignore your father's input, learn those songs like never before and realize the opportunity you have sitting in your lap...

And I hope you get along with Dave, otherwise all bets are off...

[Firebrand]

I'll agree with the gist of your post...

...but I'd give the show I saw around a 8.

Dave was great. Very impressive. He was actually singing (all the words, too!), didn't try to overdo the vocals or the physical part of the show. Great showman.

Eddie blew me away. A MASSIVE improvement over what I've seen from him in the last 15 years. He finally, finally, finally went back to his old-school tone, which of course is now new again.

Alex was his solid self. Maybe the most underrated drummer in rock history.

Wolfie? Lord knows, put yourself in his shoes. You talk about being in the bullseye. But you know, the kid did ok. He could have folded just as easily as excelled, and I think he came closer to the better end of that spectrum than the other. Thank God he did, because if he hadn't done as well as he did, the tour wouldn't have been postponed, it would have been history.

Let's just put it this way - the reunion would never have happened without him, so I am willing to give him a mulligan on any glaring weaknesses musically. But there is no denying how much Eddie enjoyed playing up there with him, and as a dad I can relate. One day Wolf will look back on it as the highlight of his life, and maybe the highlight of his dad's life, too. Maybe, just maybe, the single thing that had a chance of getting the greatest rock guitarist ever back on the path of being the greatest rock guitarist ever. Given all that, Wolfie gets a thumbs up from me.

No, he wasn't Michael Anthony, but if he had been, the reunion of Ed/Dave would be something all of us would still be wishing for. In other words, without the Wolfboy it never happens.

[ELVIS]

Wolf was NOT playing or singing everything you hearing, period...

[Terry]

People didn't buy van Halen tickets based on how good the performances were, they bought them to see Dave And Eddie together, and possibly the trainwreck...

On a scale of one to ten, I give it a three...

Dave was great - beyond my expectations...

Edward (compared to the old Eddie) sucked...

Alex was ok, besides omitting the more difficult passages and beats...

Wolf was a joke who had no business being up there, at least at that point...

And I hope you're reading this Wolf, because from your perspective there's no way you can understand the emotion of a true fan who grew up on this awesome music...

So, my advice to you is to ignore your father's input, learn those songs like never before and realize the opportunity you have sitting in your lap...

And I hope you get along with Dave, otherwise all bets are off...

Would agree with most of that, although I was hoping the band would perform a show that knocked it out of the park and not a meltdown. What I got was something inbetween. Fair enough, the draw of Ed and Dave was the key point of interest, but I wasn't paying $100 a ticket in hopes of seeing Ed or the band deliver a shit performance.

The whole "Wolfie biz" is something that was pretty much relegated to the back of my mind when seeing the show - I paid Wolfie slightly less attention than I paid to Mike when I saw the band all those years ago, concentrating probably 40% of the time on Eddie, 40% of the time on Dave, 15% on Alex, 2 % on Wolfie and 3% on all the milfs in the audience. It was hard to even make out Wolfie in the mix because the drums, guitars and lead vocals were dominating the sound, so I couldn't even say if the kid was miming it or not.