Van Halen III: The last album any Van Halen fan should hear
There aren’t too many pieces of guitar history that Van Halen hasn’t touched during their career. Despite being one of the biggest names in 1980s hard rock, Eddie Van Halen’s guitar playing transcended any genre label, with everyone from Frank Zappa to Allan Holdsworth holding him in high regard for bringing something new to the instrument. That didn’t mean that every single piece of music that came out of Eddie’s guitars was the most pleasant thing for people to listen to.
Granted, even Eddie himself had a few songs that he would prefer not to revisit. He had never pictured himself as being part of a covers act, and the more that David Lee Roth insisted on making cover tunes during the Diver Down era, the more pissed off Eddie became at the idea of taking orders from someone about how the band should sound like. He was the guitar maestro, after all, and he was the one that should make all the decisions.
And while Sammy Hagar had a more equal partnership, the idea of letting Eddie do whatever he wanted came back to bite him. Since The Red Rockers’ departure in the late 1990s, the band was in limbo until they got Gary Cherone in their ranks as a singer. It was a bit of an odd choice, but Hagar wasn’t exactly everyone’s first pick, either, so hopes were high the Extreme frontman could lead them into the next generation.
Since they were at one of their lowest points of relevance, though, Eddie figured the best way for him to make a record was to have the most uninhibited studio environment ever. That might sound inspired for anyone else, but for anyone paying attention, that was the kiss of death before anything off of Van Halen III even came out. So when it finally graced people’s ears, there were far too few highlights to go around.
Aside from Cherone trying his best to sound like Hagar half the time, this feels like Eddie stitching together what he thinks a Van Halen record should be. There is the occasional lick that sticks out as memorable, but considering how long the songs are, it feels like the band has outlined sketches of ideas that they never bothered to flesh out when it came time to record them.
For all of the qualms people had with both previous incarnations of the band, Van Halen III feels like the inverse of both lineups’ strengths. Roth could at least create a fireworks show even if the record wasn’t that long, and even though the track lengths ballooned when Hagar joined, it was still easy to manage when there were tunes like ‘Right Now’ and ‘Can’t Stop Lovin’ You’ in the mix. Now, with no hooks and virtually no staying power, Van Halen III sounded like a madman running the studio.
Even when some of the experiments are admittedly something that we hadn’t heard about before, that doesn’t make them any good. ‘One I Want’ already has the distinction of having some of the most batshit insane lyrics in any Van Halen song, and when Eddie decided to get behind the microphone for ‘How Many Say I’, it suddenly felt like he went full Roger Waters by making a mournful ballad.
While it’s nice to see what Eddie thinks a Van Halen album was supposed to be, it’s also a bit foreboding looking back on it now, especially since he would hit a major career slump and start really letting himself go. Although there are still many good ideas and a few interesting moments throughout Van Halen III, it’s better to do the rest of the band a favour and come to this one last of all.
