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“Great losses often bring only a numb shock. To truly plunge a victim into misery, you must overwhelm him with many small sufferings.” -
Outside of getting the chronology of the BOV1 tracks and the recording of the Cherone album wrong (a simple case of sloppy fact checking) and some complimentary comments directed towards a couple of Van Hagar tracks (more a matter of taste than anything else), I can't say as I don't share some of the same feelings with the main point of the article: Ed, from all appearances, has been washed up on the creative front for years.
By this I mean that while Ed has come up with new music since Roth quit in 1985, very little of it has meant much of anything to me and the last full length album released under the name Van Halen didn't even the merit of many fully realized song ideas. Just a bunch of wanking. If I am honest, Dave hasn't really done much on the creative front in the last ten years that has floored me, either. Solid live performances, but in the end solid live performances reprising past glories.
Put in another way, I might not share the opinion that Van Halen shouldn't make an album at this juncture, but my expectations for such a venture are so low that it wouldn't have to be in the same league as the 6-pack to be considered decent since for me the bar is set WAY fucking low for these guys these days.
However, even a less-than-stellar Roth/Ed album isn't going to tarnish what the band did from 1974 to 1984. If a decade of Hagar didn't diminish what CVH meant to me, nothing will. The curious part is why "MTV" in the form of the person writing the letter would even give a shit. MTV doesn't have anything to do with music anymore, and hasn't for at least a decade. On the other hand, neither has Van Halen really.Scramby eggs and bacon.Comment
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A new album could be great or just average although average for VH is still good for most. The reason I think it will be good is because Dave is involved from the start and he will not want to sign on a VH album that does not sound good or have the "VH sound" to it. It is probably why they are taking their time and going bacvk and forth about what sounds good. That's what make the DLR and EVH combo great.Comment
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VH is going through what Led Zep is....(what's left of it anyway).
They have to compete with their younger selves.
And that is a tough proposition.Comment
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i must admit, he has some valid points....
understand this: I love van halen. Like, seriously adore them. Whereas i have a deep understanding of bands like radiohead and the hold steady and soundgarden, my feelings for van halen are entirely visceral. Whatever chemical reaction happens when you really like a song happens thirty times stronger every time i queue up "panama" or "hot for teacher." according to my pleasure centers, those first few van halen albums are absolutely perfect. I recognize that they are sort of empty (frontman david lee roth really only sang about his sexual conquests and his potential sexual conquests), but they make me feel good anyway. Let me put it this way: If i were to rank my 20 favorite songs of all time, there would probably be three van halen songs in there ("panama" and "runnin' with the devil" would be shoo-ins, with "everybody wants some!!" probably sneaking in there towards the end).
So it would be logical that i would be excited about the concept of the band hitting the studio for a new album with david lee roth at the helm. But really, it just fills me with dread. And it fills me with dread because even though i love van halen, their batting average with new music is way, way down over the past, oh, 20 years or so.
Let's make another thing clear: As soon as roth left the band to pursue solo work, van halen ceased being van halen. They became van hagar, and they became infinitely less interesting. Sure, they had moments of occasional transcendence (ou812 has some reasonable moments, and "poundcake" pretty much rules), but they mostly trafficked in stuff like "why can't this be love" and "right now" — huge hits, to be sure, but lacking in the fierceness of their early work.
But with roth back on vocals, shouldn't that be cause for rejoicing? Not necessarily. Back in 1996, van halen released best of volume i, which contained a bunch of the band's hits and a pair of new tracks with roth on vocals (this was after they had that one disastrous album with extreme's gary cherone singing lead). They made a big deal out of roth's (short-lived) return (the "reunion" lasted only a little longer than their appearance at the mtv video music awards in 1996), but one thing that sort of got overlooked was the fact those two new songs — "can't get this stuff no more" and "me wise magic" — aren't any good at all. "me wise magic" definitely tries to hit the heights of the earlier work, but ultimately the stuff comes up short. It's possible that roth wasn't really ready to work at the time, or it's possible that the band was still in the mindset of writing for cherone, or it's possible that they just forgot what made them great in the first place.
So you could approach this one of two ways. Either you think that eddie van halen has been writing continuously for a decade-and-a-half and will have his pick of hundreds of compositions for a great album, or you think that eddie lost his touch years ago and has no hope. Either way, i only want to live with van halen ii and fair warning and diver down. Roth and eddie are both icons, so making new music will only diminish their legacy. Because once you're written "jump," all you can do is fall.
What do you think of an idea of a new van halen album? Let us know in the comments!
fuck mtv!Reading Crazy From the Heat in four hours flat, in a cramped RV, on the return trip of a 3,000+ mile family outing to New Jersey is an enlightening experience you'll never forget.Comment
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I think the thing that's most interesting is that someone from MTV is trying to appear credible as a source of "music critique." MTV ceased to have music as it's primary mission MANY years ago.
That said, I agree with VA Beach that there is some worthwhile reading in there.
There are parts of me that think it may no longer be the best idea to release new material. Perhaps if it came out closer to the heels of the tour, it would have been more accepted.
But now....the risk/reward scenario definitely leads toward the "unbelievable train wreck that totally mars the legacy of a band that once ruled the planet" outcome. Of course, VH has done plenty since 1984 to ruin their legacy. But that time with Roth between the early 70's and 1984 remains pristine and untouched for most of us, almost sacred....really.
Crashing, burning and embarrassing themselves now would taint whatever "good" is left in the legacy...Originally posted by perilouspete
fryingdutchman you pretty much own everyone.....sick comebacks, well put. top class wit.Comment
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I honestly believe Eddie & Dave still have it in them to make a record of 10 awesome songs. Remember, these are the guys that hummed Happy Trails while 3 sheets to the wind drunk and made it fucking cool. They didn't even need instruments. Something about the 2 together that just sounds right...no matter how sloppy, or drunk, or hastily recorded, or whatever.
I still believe.“Great losses often bring only a numb shock. To truly plunge a victim into misery, you must overwhelm him with many small sufferings.”Comment
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I made the mistake of watching about 10 minutes of Jersey Shore with my son last week....
I was so miserable, besides the dumbass show..... I told my son, "you realize how GREAT MTV used to be ?? We'd watch MTV for hours and hours, sometimes all night, just watching great videos !!"
His response, "yeah, but you're old".....Eat Us And Smile - The Originals
"I have a very belligerent enthusiasm or an enthusiastic belligerence. I’m an intellectual slut." - David Lee Roth
"We are part of the, not just the culture, but the geography. Van Halen music goes along with like fries with the burger." - David Lee RothComment
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Ou812 has no redeeming songs on it whatsoever. In fact, it has one of the most vile songs I've ever heard in my life on it -- Feels So Good. All of VH 3 was better than that steaming pile (though marginally) I can give him a pass for not knowing the chronology, as he seems to be interested in VH timeline, not Van Hagar or Van Gaylen.
Other than that, I thought MWM and CGTSNM were not THAT bad ... it's easy to hear the strain with Dave but he was given songs with no input on how they were put together. And they were Van Hagar left overs. I think if Dave was involved in the writing it would be better.Comment
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I'd like to still believe anything is possible with Roth back in the band too, but the results thus far haven't been astounding.
I mean, at the very least with Dave in the fold one would have hoped it would have produced some restored classic live video releases authorized/sanctioned by the band. Nada even on that front.Scramby eggs and bacon.Comment
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Well, admittedly it's not the best situation when you have a band that hasn't made an album in 27 years, haven't recorded together at all in 14 years, and neither of the two principal songwriters involved have written a full album since 1998 (DLR Band and VDIII)
Since then, Eddie's done three Van Hagar songs which were complete shit, even by Van Hagar "standards" and two porno soundtrack instrumentals.
Dave did a full album in 2003, but there was only one original song on it. (Thug Pop). And the Bluegrass thing.
So you don't just have two guys here who haven't written together for a long time. You have two guys who really haven't done much writing, period.
Can the old chemistry come back? The chemistry that fueled 4 goddamn perfect albums, and then two more that weren't bad either, despite their flaws (one with too many covers, the other with too many keyboards)
Jesus, we ask you for this miracle in Your name, Amen.Eat Us And Smile
Cenk For America 2024!!
Justice Democrats
"If the American people had ever known the truth about what we (the BCE) have done to this nation, we would be chased down in the streets and lynched." - Poppy Bush, 1992Comment
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I forget where exactly I heard this little piece of trivia, but EVH supposedly has 10 albums.
And they're "in the can" to quote the source. I cannot recall exactly, what that source is, but if you go an average of 9 VH tunes per disc that's actually 90 tunes.
In the can. Like tuna. As in, salted, packed in water and done, right?
(ah so much bullshit on this WebTV you just don't know who's lie it was: EVH drunk, EVH cracked-out, or EVH sober... so many possiblities I no longer am a believer)Comment
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I have only one thing to say to MTV when fetching public comment on VH: Us Festival. Okay, you got you idiots?
What do you think of an idea of a new Van Halen album? Let us know in the comments!Comment
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