Who REALLY wrote the vocal melodies - Dave or Ed?

[ELVIS]

Kinda got a Black Betty quality to it...

Not bad for Hagar...

[ELVIS]

Did he say "if you like dicks" ??

WTF ??

[ELVIS]

I think he says kicks, but it sounds like ooh, If you like dicks, just take her to the floor...

[Seshmeister]

Good point about Simpleton Hagar. Since pairing with Satriani, he's gone on record as saying Ed couldn't write songs, only riffs and ideas, and while that may bs partially true, it is clear he had far less of a clue how to deal with melody making than Dave. Sammy's comfort zone is crap like Feels So Good. If Ed had handed him stuff like Sinner's Swing, he'd be completely lost.

True or Ripley for that matter.

I expected Chickenfoot to be average with good guitar solos but I wouldn't be listening to them because I don't like the sound of Hagar's voice very much.

I was genuinely surprised at just how really bad the songs that band wrote were so it seems that Van Halen still lifted him a little from shit to mediocre.

[Satan]

Good point about Simpleton Hagar. Since pairing with Satriani, he's gone on record as saying Ed couldn't write songs, only riffs and ideas, and while that may bs partially true, it is clear he had far less of a clue how to deal with melody making than Dave. Sammy's comfort zone is crap like Feels So Good. If Ed had handed him stuff like Sinner's Swing, he'd be completely lost.

As much as I hate to give Cheddy the Clown credit for anything, it's hard to say he's wrong here.....

The main problem with VDIII (apart from the wrong singer) was that there was no coherent song structure. Van Hagar may have had a lot of cheesy shit songs, but at least they were well constructed cheesy shit. I imagine Sam thinks it's easier to write with Satriani, because Joe made his own records (mostly instrumental) for over 20 years, so he's capable of constructing a song on his own. There's a reason why Eddie Van Halen never made an instrumental solo album. He probably couldn't write one.

[DLR Bridge]

Structure is only important if your looking for a hit. Some of my favorite songs are all over the place. Perhaps, Ed had more of his progressive roots in mind when he did VHIII. Some of those songs Dave would have done just fine with. Others were more experimental. Had it been an actual solo instrumental CD, I would have probably enjoyed it.

[Satan]

Well.... it's Van Halen, not "The Grateful Ed".....

A band that established themselves making albums that were under 40 minutes long suddenly turning into a jam band would have been a bit weird.....

Hell, even the Dead eventually figured out the secret there..... you go into the studio and record a song like "Friend of the Devil" (one of my favorites, of course) and make it a simple 3 minute song, and then you go out on the road and stretch it out to 7, 8, 10, 12 minutes - based on whatever the mushrooms tell you to do on that particular evilning.

I actually would love to see VH reinterpret some of the old classics on stage and do some extended jams on the material.

(and no, that shit that Hagar did to "Panama" is not what I had in mind!)

[DLR Bridge]

Agreed. That's why the solo album route would have worked out considerably better for Grateful Ed.

What, Sammy interjecting banalities about "right now" wanna-be-heady type bullshit in the middle of one of the most infectious, up beat summertime songs ever didn't suit you? Ne meither!!

[Dan]

Dave Did,End Of Story.:D

[vaijuju]

The answer : Eat em' and smile!!!!

[Terry]

What it comes down to is what others in the thread have already said: one need do little more than think of the stuff the band did when Roth was in it vs. what the band did once Roth left.

VHIII was bascially Ed's solo record. It's the one record that nobody said "no" to Ed (as in, "No, Eddie, that's not a good idea," or, "No, Eddie, that part would work good here, but this part isn't working."), and the result speaks for itself.

[DLR Bridge]

Yeah, as much as things didn't work out for this record and I was still feeling the sting of '96 when this came out, there are some songs I can listen to every now and then. It would be nice to be able to strip the vocals away. I found Gary to be a bigger problem than the actual song structures.

[Satan]

I think VDIII might have been one HELL of an album if it had been recorded with Dave in the band, shaping Ed's ideas into proper songs. End result might have been closer to the DLR Band album than the Danniels/Cherone/Mike Post clusterfuck that was released, but nothing wrong with that.

There were only two things wrong with the DLR band album: 1) the (literal) bargain basement production. 2) those few songs where Dave tried to push his voice to octaves he couldn't pull off in 1976, let alone 1998. Still don't know what he was thinking there.

A full VH reunion album recorded in 1997 probably would have had Ted Templeman and a WB big budget behind it. And as good as ADKOT is, they may have well fucked up the opportuntity to do even better.

[DLR Bridge]

I know I said it before but, Dave would have killed it on that Dirty Water Dog song. Probably Ballot Or The Bullet, too.

[Satan]

Maybe Dave & Ted Templeman should get the VDIII master tapes, wipe Cherone's vocals, Dave can write new lyrics & vocals and arrange them however he wants.... and before you know it, there's a new Van Halen album! Hell, if he sneaks Mike Sobolewski in the studio to do the harmonies, all the better.

Why not? It's pretty much how Mick Jagger made "Tattoo You" and the more recent "bonus discs" for the remasters of "Exile on Main Street" and "Some Girls".

And if it's a hit, he could do the same with the Van Hagar catalog. Dave should be able to get at least one album's worth of usable material out of their 4 records.