Posted on 10/08/2020 8:02:58 AM PDT by Kaslin
I would throw Eric Johnson in there, as well.
EVH absolutely changed music. Maybe only hard rock music but he definitely reinvented it. Every actual electric guitarist of the day either tried to imitate him out of admiration, or chastise him because it was over their head or playing ability. But there was no denying he was on everyone’s mind.
The rock music landscape completely changed. Almost overnight, the biggest guitar-focused arena-packing rock bands of the time either disappeared, or changed completely away from a guitar oriented sound. Zeppelin and Skynyd, lost members and never reformed. Boston, disappeared. Queen and Journey, went pop. Nugent, vanished. Kiss, bonkers. Etc, etc, etc.
VH was a new era in rock. Maybe you just have to know the genre well to appreciate it.
Absolute truth! I may be pushing 60, but I got to hear the best music ever made, as it was being made. Your comment just put a huge smile on my face, thanks!
That also probably had a lot to do with the emergence of punk and then New Wave, also MTV changed the game. I would note that VH was probably beginning to fade a bit as well, until they started making videos for MTV, which was just made for guys like Diamond Dave, that's why 1984 was their biggest album.
Another guitarist that deserves mention, is one of EVH’s best friends, Steve Lukather of Toto. By the way, he’s the one on guitar on “Beat It” outside of EVH’s solo. His solo on “Talk To Ya Later” is one of the best ever.
He played on a lot of songs outside of Toto in his career. Most hillariously, he played Chong’s “solo” in “Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie”.
This is a little over the top.
MTV played a part too. When their videos came out, people were dumbstruck by not only the musicianship, but the performance. Few if any in history ever matched this level of intensity, except bands like Kiss and Queen that were much more focused on the presentation than the technical music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llfjDUB66Z4
Maybe a little, but when you’ve got a poster claiming he has a record of Ritchie Blackmore playing the same finger taps and screaming harmonic techniques that Van Halen did, it deserves to be put down hard.
I lived the genre. I was still playing when they came out.
Many just didn’t, and still don’t, like where the hard rock movement went post EVH. I will admit I didn’t like them much when they first came out myself. The song name “Running with the devil” was something I wasn’t comfortable with, and I still don’t really like the title name to this day. So it took some time for me to acquire and digest what all was going on musically with Van Halen.
Frankly it was probably more peer pressure that got me listening more than anything, because many I knew were captivated from the start. Some, like possibly you, just never came around to liking them. They were very controversial at the time. Every month in Hit Parader it seemed like there was some sort of put down by Blackmore, or others who felt their control of the industry fading away. Which of course came to pass. Nugent was my favorite at the time, but I finally just had to admit he wasn’t in the same class. No one really was, at the time.
So it wasn’t love at first sight for me. Nor is VH my favorite band. But they don’t have to be to recognize their greatness and how they reshaped the industry.
1) I never said I didn’t like VH. I said that I did not think EVH was the pathbreaking guitarist that the articles claim.
2) I never said EVH wasn’t popular. Loved their songs, in BOTH iterations.
3) I just didn’t see them as a “leader in the field.” We were playing a smoky, BIG, biker bar in Glendale and we were playing Boston and they kept screaming, “Runnin’ with the Devil.” I still think the “Panama” and “Hot for Teacher” videos were some of the best.
Personally, I still bought their recent music off their last album. But “Crossroads” comes up on my playlist I ALWAYS listen to it. EVH comes up, it’s “maybe.”
As I read the posts, I am reminded of the endless arguments of my son and his buddies who loved to argue the arcane of the rock scene
What I see is generational exposure
LOL, that’s all we did in High School, argue over who was the best guitarist, drummer, etc.
Everybody knew who everybody’s favorite band was, it was a part of your identity.
I had a very love hate relationship with hair metal. I was a Sabbath guy, I knew what metal was supposed to sound like, and that wasn’t it. But I was also in high school when it was hitting and having the metal crowd suddenly stop being a sausagefest was pretty nice. We called it chick metal. The ultimate lesson of how shallow teenage boys are. When it was just us we’d be bitching and moaning about how crap these bands were and it was ruining heavy metal, then the girls would show and they’d be all “you talking about Bon Jovi, I love Bon Jovi” and then we’re all “oh yeah, Richie Sambora’s amazing”. Cause we knew you weren’t gonna get nowhere slagging off a girl’s band. In the intervening years I’ve mellowed, I like some of it, most of it’s crap. Of course it was also our first changing of the guard, that’s a strange time for a lad. Don’t want to think about how many I’ve seen since.
"Because every bad boy has a soft side." - LOL!
All musicheads are one of the guys in High Fidelity. And few of us are willing to admit it. But we all make our 5s. Biggest thing that movie taught me was not to be so snooty. Love watching it on the big screen and just watching the background “got that album, got that one, got that on LP”.
I’m sure you’ve seen this.
Heavy Metal Parking Lot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBryTebK2Og
I think they did a “Where Are They Now” of some of them, a few years back, some of them never grew out of it, LOL.
Yeah. My people. That’s my age group. The follow up is on youtube. It’s pretty cool. Brings back a lot of memories.
That was where Eddie stood out - in the 70's "great guitarists" were guys who played as fast as they could but sloppy (names like Frank Marino, Pat Travers, and yes...Jimmy Page), with a lot of missed notes. After EVH, players like Randy Rhoads and Yngwie Malmsteen emerged to set the new standard, and the neo-classical shred era that followed would no longer tolerate inaccuracy.
Of course today - now that rock/metal has become a tiny niche nearly drowned by a flood of hip-hop-mangled pseudo R&B - some of the younger players are phenomenal but sound almost too perfect, like somebody programmed a synthesizer. :)
Outside of Eddie being the heart of VH, roth was the best and worst thing to ever happen to that band....what a freakin’ ego. If anybody ever needed their butt kicked up around their shoulders its that jackass.
Watched a documentary about VH not too long ago, Valerie Bertinelli said Roth had Eddie ashamed to receive accolades for his talent. What a douche
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