Sweet 16 (late 1970's to mid 1980's) - #3 Van Halen vs #7 Queen
- Thread starter YellowSnow
- Start date
Doog_de_Jour
New Fish
No judgement, but I’m kinda surprised @GrundleStiltzkin and @YellowSnow voted for Van Halen.
GrundleStiltzkin
New Fish
Don’t have many f’s to give for either band. I can think of many more Van Halen songs off top than I can Queen. My favorite queen song is Nine Inch Nails cover of Get Down Make Love.
For those keeping track, yesterday was the 37th anniversary of the release of Fair Warning.
Lord must strike that poor boy down.
Lord must strike that poor boy down.
GrundleStiltzkin
New Fish
Sorry Brave. I've listened to Achtung Baby probably a thousand tims. While every dickhead was fistpumpin "Exxxxiitttt light!" I was silently and morosely mouthing, "Baby baby baby, light my way" in the lonely backseat of a 87 Taurus.
I like Queen fine and they had some great songs, but they just don't do it for me in the way the Diamond Dave era VH does. I've played the shit out of all of the first 6 VH records to the point of wearing out the grooves figuratively speaking, of course (my TT is set up perfectly with a tracking force of 1.75 grams).
GrundleStiltzkin
New Fish
You even scratch bro?
You even scratch bro?v
Hells no bruh. I got one belt drive deck and no microphone.
Idk maybe it's my age but VH just seems like a lot of other boring "generic rock" that was put out in the 80's. It's the type of stuff that's perfectly suited to car commercials. Nothing controversial and can make a bunch of old guys with middle incomes associate a mid-tier, moderately priced vehicle with their youth.
Huh. Eddie Van Halen being one of the most influential and original rock guitarist of all time is kinda the opposite of "generic rock". Nobody sounded like him whatsoever prior to 1978. Yeah, they were a "party" band, but the musicianship and the songwriting was terrific.
I see moments when Eddie gets to shine through but it's a whole lot of meh to get to those. He's "super" in comparison to a lot of other generic rock but if you are into metal and other technically challenging guitar oriented music then he's "cool enough" while all the rest of the vocals/lyrics, harmonies, and everything else is super boring. "Eruption" is cool but my metal head friends were figuring out how to play it at 16...
Just to be clear I was a shitty punk rocker and could at best play three chord songs so don't twist.
Idk put EVH with a different band and you could have had something much more interesting.
Edit: I've actually been listening to VH just to try and understand what everyone is on about but I really just don't get it.
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I don't like my hard rock or metal to be too "technical" or overly "progressive"- e.g., I could never get into a group like Tool. If I want to go that route I find myself listening more and more to classical LPs.
Gotta remember I'm listening to Van Halen at the earliest 10 years after they were popular. Any points they would have received for being "first" at the time are pretty washed for me. I can listen to Eddie and think, "Oh yeah, his guitar work is pretty good." but it's not wowing me on any progress scale because I'm listening to it in a spectrum of music and not in that moment in 1981 where it comes on the radio for the first time and is new and fresh. The rest of the band registers completely flat for me as uninteresting pablum. Put that together = meh, another generic 80's rock group that had a good guitarist who could shred and a lot of filler band mates with some "defying the man" front-man that a corporation marketed.
I'm all for technical simplicity in music. I still listen to punk rock after all. My point was that Eddie is only a guitar god [/b]if your measuring him in the small pond that is 80's pop/rock.