New Van Halen Is “Not So Much” [VIDEO]

When we were kids we loved David Lee Roth.  It was cool that this hard rock/metal guy would do these scatty jazzy dance moves and almost vaudeville type stuff.  Now that he's older, he's just a guy doing stuff that older guys do.  David Lee Roth pretty much jazz dances his way through the new Van Halen "Tattoo" video.  But what about the song?  More on that after the break.

Blabbermouth has a great story about how the song Tattoo is really an old Van Halen song called "Down In Flames".  After listening to  both, I have to agree, with the exception that "Down in Flames" is better and rocks harder. This was all a claim that Sammy Hagar had made, that the band just dug up old unused Van Halen stuff from back in the day, dusted it off and had David Lee Roth rewrite the vocals.  There's only one problem with using scraps this way, in most cases they are still scraps.

One of my biggest problems is the lack of Micheal Anthony.  Seeing Wolfgang in the video is a total bummer.  Micheal Anthony was screwed out of the band and forced to sign over much of his rights in order to be a part of the last reunion tour.  Not only does Wolfgang's presence in the video serve as a reminder of the Van Halen brothers dickishness, the almost "joyous" highs of Van Halen background vocals are lost in the new material (I am told that these use backing tapes with Anthony's vocals on them during live performances).

If you're a Van Halen fan and you've enjoyed the band in the past, I hope you continue to enjoy their future endeavors.  If you've not seen or spent any previous time with the band, this is a watered down version of a band that at one time was the ultimate live act in the world.

So "why should I care" and "if you don't like it, don't listen to it".  The answers to these questions is easy; when one of your favorite bands does something embarrassing, you feel like your love for them is being cheapened.  This is NOT the great band that I feel in love with in 1979.