10 songs that Van Halen should never have released
It’s impossible to really quantify what Eddie Van Halen brought to guitar when he first crashlanded on the scene. The entire music world has been used to bluesy players, and while Eddie did indulge in a few blues tendencies, his tapping technique sent shockwaves through the rock world the minute that the first Van Halen album dropped. But amid all of the god-like solos, there were some technical foul-ups in the mix as well, and a handful of album tracks were probably better left forgotten.
Then again, it’s hard to even think of any of Van Halen’s albums as being bad, per se. Some of them shone a bit lower than others, and even if some of them were changes that no one wanted to see happen, they at least kept people talking when returning to them whenever they came on the stereo.
And let’s get one thing straight: no era of the group is excluded from a list like this. As much as Van Halen had a great streak with every one of their frontmen, there are appearances from the David Lee Roth era, the ‘Van Hagar’ years with Sammy Hagar, and the much-maligned Gary Cherone stint in the mix, showing that even the best groups never play a perfect tune from back to front.
So, while there may be some mean-spirited moments throughout Van Halen’s discography, that doesn’t mean that any of these songs are among the worst that the genre has to offer. They just remain deeply flawed, and if some of them were given proper care and attention, we would have been looking at a classic.
10 songs that Van Halen should never have released
10. ‘Me Wise Magic’ – Best of Van Halen
When Van Halen walked out onstage with David Lee Roth during the MTV Awards in the late 1990s, it felt like the impossible was happening. Here were two sworn enemies who vowed never to work with each other again, and yet they managed to settle their differences and make two new songs for a best-of collection after Hagar left the fold. If they had been given some more space, though, ‘Me Wise Magic’ could have had a much better story of redemption than what it ultimately got.
As soon as the awards show began, Roth began hamming it up as only he could, taking the limelight in the exact wrong direction that Eddie wanted it to go. As much as the recording went smoothly, the reunion was pulled almost as soon as it started, which included Roth and Eddie nearly coming to blows behind the scenes when Roth started telling him what not to say in interviews.
So, in a way, ‘Me Wise Magic’ is the reunion equivalent of a toxic couple getting back together for a fling. This may have been the bright result of that magic, but the drama behind the scenes is enough to taint it as the song that stopped Van Halen right as they were moving in the right direction again.
9. ‘Finish What You Started’ – OU812
Given what Van Halen was up against, 5150 pretty much needed to be one of the best records they ever made. If not, they would be cast as the lesser version of the group now that ‘Diamond Dave’ wasn’t in the fold anymore, so having Hagar roar out of the gate with one great song after the other was practically a miracle. Once they started getting too comfortable, though, the bloat started to show itself a little bit too much.
Which is strange to talk about regarding OU812. Other Van Halen records are objectively longer experiences, but when ‘Finish What Ya Started’ comes on, it practically sucks all of the fun out of the room and sounds like the band aged itself up by 20 years within the span of a single track.
There’s nothing wrong with Eddie going back into his bag of old Clapton licks to see what he can pull out, but in doing so, he created the kind of tune that doesn’t sound nearly like the stadium levels that they deserved. If anything, this wouldn’t sound that out of place if it was being played at a dive bar by a bunch of middle-aged blues purists. Van Halen was still cool, but this was flirting way too much with dad rock to be anything but boring.
8. ‘Humans Being’ – Twister soundtrack
It was clear that something needed to change after Van Halen left the touring cycle for Balance. The creative tension between Eddie and Hagar had reached its end, and no one was willing to give up control if it meant that the band suffered for it. What they really needed was a break from each other, and by the time Hagar was called back into work to put together the track for ‘Humans Being’, all hell broke loose.
Outside of the conversation about doing a greatest hits album, all the tension of the past few years boiled over in the studio, leading to Hagar leaving before they could commit to a proper project again. While he either quit or was fired, depending on whose story you rely on, Hagar had no desire to perform with them again until they got back together for a reunion following their stint with Gary Cherone.
So, when looking at it like that, this song officially broke up Van Halen for a little bit before they tried to emerge like a phoenix from the ashes again. Knowing what was coming next, it was a sad omen knowing this was one of the last times Van Halen actually sounded like themselves ever again.
7. ‘Inside’ – 5150
When Van Halen announced that they would be relaunching with Sammy Hagar behind the mic, there were still a lot of sceptical fans shaking their heads. ‘The Red Rocker’ had a personality all his own, but how would he compare with what Roth had done in his prime? Those fans didn’t need to worry about a damn thing once 5150 dropped, but the album doesn’t really fade away as much as it does ground to a halt on ‘Inside’.
Coming after the title track, this feels like a random fragment of a tune that they were messing with in the studio. With hardly any guitar fireworks moments and the catchiest thing in the song being everyone positioned around a mic singing the same weak chorus hook, it just sounds like they ran out of ideas. And what makes it all the more tragic is that they hadn’t even begun to run dry.
Since Hagar had enough lying around to fulfil his contractual obligations for one more solo record, why couldn’t they have re-arranged one of the tunes from his album I Never Said Goodbye and thrown it onto here instead? There was enough for two records’ worth of material put to tape, but I refuse to believe that someone didn’t get their wires crossed and put one song on the wrong album.
6. ‘Tattoo’ – A Different Kind of Truth
Considering what most fans had to endure in the late 1990s, it’s a miracle that we got A Different Kind of Truth. If Roth’s antics signalled that a reunion definitely wasn’t happening, their decision to let bygones be bygones and reunite with Eddie’s son Wolfgang on bass was a way for them to close things out right. A Different Kind of Truth was already made up of songs that they had left behind over the years, but when leading things off, ‘Tattoo’ was the kind of outdated kitsch that made it sound like the album would be a cash-grab.
There’s nothing wrong with writing a tune about body art, but the choppy delivery from Roth alongside the half-hearted verses sounds like the group is working on autopilot. Considering what’s on the rest of the record, though, it’s hard to tell whether that’s on the band’s part or Roth’s, especially with his delivery getting a lot more strained as he gets older and needs a few more squawks left in the mix.
But the biggest crime of ‘Tattoo’ is that it gives the exact wrong impression of what the album is going to be like. A Different Kind of Truth was a reminder of what the good times in the late 1970s had to offer, so bringing in a new song that sounds like it was manufactured in a lab was the opposite of their strengths.
5. ‘One I Want’ – Van Halen III
It’s not really fair if I spent the entirety of this list going through every single track on Van Halen III. While the Gary Cherone era certainly had promise, given where everyone was coming from, putting out something as messy as this on a Van Halen project left a little black mark on their discography for years. ‘One I Want’ is far from the worst thing on the record, but it does represent everything wrong with the record on principle.
Despite everyone pinning the blame for this record on Cherone, though, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Cherone could certainly belt when he needed to, but making him do a Sammy Hagar impression just made him sound like a parody of what a Van Halen singer should sound like. And when the vocals sound like a joke, adding in the most meaningless lyrics in the Van Halen canon in the mix makes it downright laughable.
No matter how many times the gang vocals come around on this song, hearing about Superman looking for Lois Lane immediately followed by Fat Man(?) wanting seconds and bad men looking for attention is enough to give daytime radio hosts a run for their money in the comedy department. There are the makings of a decent riff in there, but when the finished song sounds like a first draft of a Roth-era B-side, it’s time to either trash it or move on to something else.
4. ‘Sunday Afternoon in the Park’ – Fair Warning
The word ‘instrumental’ has hardly ever been a bad thing when talking about Van Halen. Eddie could be just as captivating with a guitar in his hand as he was when writing with Hagar or Roth, and pieces like ‘Eruption’ and ‘Spanish Fly’ took the concept of him playing a guitar solo to a completely different level. When he graduated to the keyboard, though, there was a bit of an adjustment period on ‘Sunday Afternoon in the Park’.
But Fair Warning is already an odd duck compared to the other Roth-era albums. Eddie made a lot of the artistic decisions on the record, but while that made for anthems like ‘Unchained’ and ‘So This Is Love,’ hearing him fiddle around for a second with different keyboard effects before coming to the criminally short ‘One Foot Out the Door’ is the first time that Van Halen fans got used to filler.
This kind of ambient track actually worked a lot better midway through Women and Children First, but listening to this version just ends up sounding like Eddie got caught twiddling the knobs on his new instrument and just recorded what he heard in the room. Unfortunately, if fans thought they would be given less filler, they would not be happy just one album later.
3. Half of Diver Down
As the 1980s started, Van Halen earned a break more than anyone else in California. They had been hauling ass nonstop since 1978, and after they had a decent streak of four great albums, it was time for them to rest a little bit and try out some new material where they saw fit. Right when Roth decided they should record a cover of Roy Orbison’s ‘(Oh) Pretty Woman’, the label demanded an album nobody wanted to make.
Although Diver Down is by no means a terrible record, it’s by far the least necessary in their discography. There’s only enough material on here to justify maybe a decent EP, and hearing them stretch everything out to look like a full project just feels sad, especially when they have to rely on covering The Kinks again on ‘Where Have All the Good Times Gone’ and Martha and the Vandellas’ ‘Dancing in the Street’, the latter of which Eddie hated working on.
‘Little Guitars’ and ‘Secrets’ have earned a spot among the great deep cuts of the group’s discography, but when looking at Diver Down as a whole, it’s hard to see a finished album. This is more like the makings of a good project that somehow got lost within many different interludes and a piss-take version of ‘Happy Trails’.
2. ‘Amsterdam’ – Balance
One of the biggest clashes that came between Eddie and Hagar during their time together was the lyrics. Even though Hagar helped dictate the structure of where the group would be heading, having full control over the lyrics never sat well with Eddie, who felt that he needed to express himself a bit more during the late 1990s. Compromise needs to happen, though, and that’s probably the only reason why Eddie had to roll over when recording the song ‘Amsterdam’.
Since Balance was considered a more thoughtful record than their early stuff, hearing Hagar pull a complete 180 by singing about getting high as balls in Amsterdam definitely isn’t a good look these days. If it wasn’t going to fly riding the stereotype of those from the Netherlands, imagine how well it would go when two of the key members of the group are actually from the Netherlands.
Eddie and Alex had come to the US as immigrants as kids, so hearing a song about their heritage be taken over by an ignorant American talking about toking up is the most questionable moment they have ever done lyrically. This may not have been the sign that the group needed to break up, but if they only had this to work with, it’s understandable why they would need a break from each other.
1. ‘How Many Say I’ – Van Halen III
There’s no reason not to think that Eddie was the one who called the shots in the group. The frontmen may have helped finetune the songs so they sounded perfect, but it’s not that surprising that the guy who the damn band is named after is going to get the final say in what makes it on a record. And when the final notes of Van Halen III begin, Eddie realised that he didn’t really need anybody else after all on ‘How Many Say I’.
Played exclusively on piano, this is practically the anti-Van Halen equation set to music. While Eddie’s voice worked perfectly in the lower register as a backup vocalist, hearing him talk about the grand problems with society in a grumble that sounds like Tom Waits or Roger Waters is off-putting enough to shut the record off on principle. It doesn’t really get better when Eddie decides to hold out the high note at the very end as the audience looks on in stunned silence at what they just heard.
Although Eddie thought that he could have called all the shots and been set for life on Van Halen III, ‘How Many Say I’ just proves how wrong that assessment is. Van Halen was always great because of what each band member pulled out of each other, and when left to his own device, Eddie sounds like he’s desperate to have someone else structure what the hell he’s doing.
