One break, comin' uuuuuup... ILM Artist Poll #75 - VAN HALEN (Voting thread)

Maybe this is challopy and maybe it isn't (I don't hang around on guitar player boards or anything), but OU812 is the best documentation of Ed as a pure hot shit player. Some of the rhythm bits he plays on that album, not to even mention the leads, are finer than anything on the first 6.

the movie reminded me how good "Everybody Wants Some!!" is.

?? "Jump" never changes time, it's in solid 4/4 all the way through. Alex just plays some stuff *around* the beat that makes it sound like it's changing time when it's not.

"Hot For Teacher" drums are eminently playable. You can find countless drummers on YouTube playing them.

Yes, you can find people playing certain Police songs, too, to the best of their ability. But the best you can do is approximate it.

OK, fine, "Jump" is 4/4, but those accents are weird on the bridges and solo. What is going on in "Unchained?"

Also straight 4/4. Bro do you even metronome?

Bridge in "Unchained" is sooooooo not 4/4.

Hmm, solo seems to be in 4/4, but beat is super displaced. But not the bridge, which is just weird. Extra measure of 2?

http://www.drummagazine.com/lessons/post/alex-van-halen-hot-licks/P4/

“Unchained”
If the guitar intro of this great song doesn’t disorient you, this section just might. Van Halen plays a tricky beat that’s phrased in 7/4, but is more easily thought of as being all in 4/4.

http://www.drummagazine.com/images/lessons/040813-avhunchaineddrum-1.jpg

Huh. Just gave it a few listens and I still hear something extra, or less, in the bridges, that budges it away from 4/4. But yeah, I guess it does end up back in 4/4. Playing 7/4 against 4/4? Anyway, just such weird little parts, and still as fundamentally tricky as an odd signature, 4/4 or no.

oh god, here come the drummers.

That's the genius ("genius") of the VH brothers -- they can make very simple things sound very complicated! They work together very well to set the listener off-balance as to where the beat is at times. I remember when I first heard "Jump" I was firmly convinced the guitar solo was in 5/4 until I counted it out.

Actually, just to focus on EVH, my guitar teacher has been going through the albums one by one and transcribing the solos (what a nerd thing to do), and he is finding a lot of his stuff even more formidable than he thought. Like, his brain is telling him to play the stuff one way, but a lot of the guitar can only be played some other way. What was this one song he was showing me? Yeah, "Fools," off "Women and Children." It's not a song I've ever really thought about, but he said there's just some bonkers stuff - illogical yet totally EVH logical - going on that just wipe out his hands after a couple of passes. Solo on "Beat It" he says has some nuts stuff in it, too, which he said is a real challenge.

Yeah, I added the guitar solo side poll specifically so I could vote for Beat It.

I just want to share this, one of my favorite musician interviews, from a late 90s issue of Guitar World.

http://www.hsx.com/forum/forum.php?id=3&pid=268235

'Sinner's Swing' FTW.

"When Push Comes To Shove". A bit of a dark horse but also the closest they come to their 70s-rock-band-taking-a-stab-at-disco moment.

This poll oughtta either cement my hazily-held-onto nostalgic love that the part of my heart that still wears a jean jacket with band patches and a turned-up collar still holds for them, or will cause me to dump my collection & just buy a best-of CD for 99 cents.

I really hope people aren't just too exhausted by polls to vote in this one, and/or the VH love on ilm hasn't waned too much as people have come and gone from being regular posters. Slightly worried as only two ballots have been submitted so far, but hey...if there's low turnout, your votes matter even more!

1984 was better because they had a year to make the record. From what I understand, Diver Down and Fair Warning were pretty much done at the last minute with deadlines looming for their next tour to start.

@johnny fever: i'm revisiting the discography before i submit my ballot

like the whole discography

You'll get a ballot from me before the deadline. Just wrestling with the placement of some top fives. Also re-listening to some 5150 tracks to decide if I really like them or am just nostalgic for them.

i'm revisiting the discography before i submit my ballot

I've done that over the past couple days. A Different Kind of Truth really doesn't hold up as well as I'd thought it would, even though half the songs are originally from the 70s.

is Michael Anthony DRUNK BASS SOLO eligible

Also re-listening to some 5150 tracks to decide if I really like them or am just nostalgic for them.

Yeah, went through this too ... and I guess there are actually at least two ways to rock.

hot shoe burnin' down the avenue

David Lee Roth solo material not included in this poll?

i was wondering about that myself but it also makes sense

If we did, would we include Hagar material? Extreme? Montrose? etc.

I mean, I'd be surprised if anyone voted for any DLR beyond 1988 anyway.

not sure if I'll vote tbh but maybe. I really enjoy DLR era VH whenever I'm listening to it and yet outside of the big hits and the covers most of it whizzes by me in an indistinguishable blur. For example, I had no idea what song "Eruption" was for a v long time, even though I constantly saw it referenced. Similarly I cannot recall a single thing about "Unchained" after reading the refs in this thread.

I do have 1984 p much memorized though.

Skyscraper is a fundamental album for me. I was a David Lee Roth fan for years before I ever heard of VH.

freak

Sorry if Just Like Paradise was a better song than Finish What Ya Started.

If you're a Huey Lewis fan maybe.

I will be voting, but I can't pretend to be interested in anything after 1984. Roth was so charismatic, and Hagar........just wasn't.

The first album and WACF will probably comprise most of my ballot. Everybody Wants Some!!

I was a Huey Lewis fan, pplains. I was.

it'll be hard to make any room on my ballot for Van Hagar era but i'll try for a little just for the sake of variety. POUNDCAKE!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjLAaE07SW8

There's gonna be Van Hagar on my ballot, but I'll pass on the worst song that incarnation ever made, thanks.

..."When It's Love"?

That's bad too, but Poundcake is a whole 'nother level.

Feels So Good prob the most underrated/underappreciated Van Hagar-era single (and, after Beat It, possibly my favorite EVH solo)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bOp8TqPq7c

Listened to VH-1 and Fair Warning tonight in prep for this poll. No surprises so far. Side poll for top five DLR squeak-eruptions?

I'm listening to Gazzaris Dance Contest 11-74+75. Sound is bad but band is good. I'd hoped that they had covered Bad Motor Scooter on there so I could vote for it. They didn't. but I'm having fun anyway.

pound cake no. 1 imo

I agree that EVH guitar work on OU812 is pretty overlooked. Does Black and Blue have the worst VH lyrics? Like AC/DC without the wink, all leer.

Black and Blue was such a weird first single choice for OU812 (and yeah, it's skeezy as hell).

Let me rep for one of my favorite Van Halen songs, the title track 5150. Always loved it.

xxxxpost I dunno, Poundcake is p inoffensive to me (musically at least). the shit like "Dreams" and "When It's Love", the generic AOR ballads, not to mention Hagar's screeching on those songs usually is what turned me off.

I did like "Humans Being" (sans Eddie's corny background vocals) from the Twister soundtrack tho

Sammy ballads are the worst.

I guess they work as a very clear demarcation that This Is New Version Of The Band That Is Older And More Wiser And Shit but bfd.

every one of em sounded like a Coke jingle

I'm probably not going to get a ballot in in time, sadly, but I'm hoping to see my Fair Warning favourites fare well on this.

It might even make me enthusiastic about some Van Hagar stuff, but we'll see!

xp no

Get, get, get, get, get out and POLL!

ban turrican

oh shit this is gonna be easier than i thought... I can fill 6 or 7 ballot slots just off VH1 and no court in the land would convict me

NOW GIMME SOMETHING TO WRITE ON!

not a category in the poll, but hmm which track is the very brownest?

will vote tomorrow, since you're offering the extension

VERY early cutoff, just keep that in mind.

which track is the very brownest?

I'm thinking Mean Street or Runnin'.

Dirty Movies

ain't talkin' 'bout love is the brownest

honorable mention: i'm the one, unchained

oh hmm panama is pretty brown too

My impression of the brown sound was always their more shadowy, sinister side. Have I been wrong?

Not gonna make it. Tried v hard to get into this but the lack of involving deep cuts scuttled my enthusiasm. Only the hits have wiggled my ass at all in the few hours of running w/the devil through their back catalogue. I have a huge embedded nostalgia for VH and could probably write a reasonably convincing article on their impact & enduring importance or something, but what once seemed fun about them now feels super-tryhard ("Beautiful Girls" OMG kill me now) and the non-fun stuff just hits me like a wet dishcloth. Probably my state of mind more than anything; maybe a new era will dawn (or the meds will kick in) where their brand of whatevs can rock me again, but that time ain't now. Still, "You've got to roll with the punches to get to what's real" is one of the best lyrics ever, and I can't bear how great it is when DLR trades vocal squeaks with EVH's false harmonics.

My impression of the brown sound was always their more shadowy, sinister side. Have I been wrong?

― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Friday, May 20, 2016

"brown sound" refers to EVH's trademark squishy humbucker/marshall crunch tone.

google will take you down a rathole of guitar nerd discussions of pickups, amps, pedals, settings etc etc but f all that you can hear it immediately.

VH1 remains the gold standard for the brown sound but this guy working "unchained" does it pretty good

http://youtu.be/7-g7xaVa4qI

okay, but what aspect of that very distinctive sound is the word "squishy" referring to?

i mean, yeah, the squishy one, but but but...

lol i knew that was coming. it gets into guitar nerd synesthetic vocabulary really quickly. dancing about architecture maaaan. unchained has some dope stuff going with a flanger too...

oh... ballot in JUST LIKE I POLLED YOU BEFORE BEFORE BEFORE

^^^ seconding that title

voted!

Voting's closed! Thanks everybody.

how many ballots in all?

26!

That's plenty for a 40 song rollout I think.

i better wear a cup

side poll: best beat it solo on youtube

Since I didn't get it in on time, I'll just follow along the results and then post what my top 5 were gonna be.

Results-Have you seen Junior's grades?! ILM Artist Poll #75 - VAN HALEN (Results thread)

Was at a fancy dinner party hosted at an air bnb that had a nice turntable and a dumb selection of vinyl that ranged from George Benson to Taylor Swift to Sublime. Most were clearly there for show (or maybe as a weak effort to offer something for everybody), and some were even still wrapped. But not a copy of "1984," which I put on and which made everyone as happy as could be.