Van Halen doing heavy metal

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311splawndude said:
Welcome to Rig-Talk :yes:
Can't really argue too much.
Relative I suppose.
As mentioned already, there were some prior VH songs that were pretty heavy IMO.
Just not heavy metal per say.
That said, I'd say Black Sabbath had them beat as well as LZ Immigrant Song. Edit: Some songs from KISS and Iron Butterfly
But yeah, Unchained was one of the heaviest at that point.
Edit: I'm sure there were other examples.
Click to expand...

Fair Warning was in 1981, are you guys high? ? Unchained, by Van Halen, was heavier than:



Or



Or



Or a year later



Unchained is one of my favorite VH songs, but I want what y'all are smoking
 
Not to mention diamond head and the entire NWOBHM LMFAO



And that vid is in 1980 ?
 
Again huge EVH fan and Unchained is probably my favorite song of all time :yes:
And like I said:
"Can't really argue too much.
Relative I suppose."

but...



 
@311splawndude those are both literally a decade before unchained, too

I love unchained

But I can't even fathom someone thinking it was the heaviest shit out there in freaking 1981 - that isn't relative, that means you haven't heard literally any heavy metal from 1981


Edit: not to mention THIS came out in '81

 
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DanTravis62 said:
@311splawndude those are both literally a decade before unchained, too

I love unchained

But I can't even fathom someone thinking it was the heaviest shit out there in freaking 1981 - that isn't relative, that means you haven't heard literally any heavy metal from 1981


Edit: not to mention THIS came out in '81

Click to expand...

I think we are talking past each other Dan.
I think we are saying the same thing.
It was @Mr.Fun who said Unchained was one of the heaviest songs ever at that point
I said 'one of' and 'its relative'
And then cited Black Sabbath (by BS) and Immigrant Song (LZ)
 
311splawndude said:
I think we are talking past each other Dan.
I think we are saying the same thing.
It was @Mr.Fun who said Unchained was one of the heaviest songs ever at that point
I said 'one of' and 'its relative'
And then cited Black Sabbath (by BS) and Immigrant Song (LZ)
Click to expand...

Yes, what I'm saying is the only way that opinion is possible is if you haven't heard any heavy music from that time period ?
 
DanTravis62 said:
Yes, what I'm saying is the only way that opinion is possible is if you haven't heard any heavy music from that time period ?
Click to expand...
Yeah, now that a reread it I may have taken the word "you" to personally :lol:

Regardless, I don't consider Van Halen, at any era, to be heavy metal. Heavy? Sure. Some songs. Unchained, Atomic Punk, One Foot Out the Door, Tora Tora, etc.
 
To me, the departure of Roth signaled the end of VH. That rawness and edgy sound were now gone and out came Hagar and his happy upbeat vocals. Even as a young kid, I was super disappointed. That edginess and the danger was clearly gone and instead the red rocker arrived. Similar to GNR post AFD.
 
mooncobra said:
To me, the departure of Roth signaled the end of VH. That rawness and edgy sound were now gone and out came Hagar and his happy upbeat vocals. Even as a young kid, I was super disappointed. That edginess and the danger was clearly gone and instead the red rocker arrived. Similar to GNR post AFD.
Click to expand...
Except for his Montrose era :yes:
 
I think “on fire” is their heaviest song. We used to do a pretty br00tal cover of it.
 
Firstly, the 'VH' really stands for 'Very Heavy' and as the ultimate proof, Van Halen headlined Heavy Metal day at the '83 US festival. That concert featured such other brutal acts as Scorpions, Triumph and Quiet Riot!
 
thegame said:
Firstly, the 'VH' really stands for 'Very Heavy' and as the ultimate proof, Van Halen headlined Heavy Metal day at the '83 US festival. That concert featured such other brutal acts as Scorpions, Triumph and Quiet Riot!
Click to expand...
And to close out the thread, Sammy Hagar had a song called Heavy Metal so there's that.
 
mooncobra said:
To me, the departure of Roth signaled the end of VH. That rawness and edgy sound were now gone and out came Hagar and his happy upbeat vocals. Even as a young kid, I was super disappointed. That edginess and the danger was clearly gone and instead the red rocker arrived. Similar to GNR post AFD.
Click to expand...
Totally different band with Sammy.
 
I think they perfectly bridged the gap between late 70's arena hard rock and poser lipstick party/hair metal, but I just really could never get into them.
Better with Sammy IMO, although Ed was certainly at his best in the earlier days.
 
I get to enjoy VH the same way I got to enjoy Metallica; by the time they were on my radar to dig into and buy the albums I’d been hearing both Sam and Dave songs and while I’ve often leaned more Van Hagar, these days I dig it all fairly equally.
 
I’ll admit, at the time I was sick of Dave and welcomed the change to Sammy. And I really liked those first Van Hagar records when they came out. But over time certain music sticks with you better and now I much prefer the DLR era stuff. Ed’s playing was way better and I was never a big fan of the keyboard songs. It was just more fresh and new sounding…probably because it was fresh and new. Those first few records came out pretty fast.

You can’t ever get back that very first impact of hearing VH. It’s like the first time you saw Alien or The Matrix…there is an impact that first time that you can never get back once you’ve seen/heard it.
 
There was definitely much heavier stuff in the very early '80s compared to EVH. Tom Warrior formed Hellhammer in '82, and that is still pretty heavy stuff.





 
DanTravis62 said:
@311splawndude those are both literally a decade before unchained, too

I love unchained

But I can't even fathom someone thinking it was the heaviest shit out there in freaking 1981 - that isn't relative, that means you haven't heard literally any heavy metal from 1981


Edit: not to mention THIS came out in '81

Click to expand...

Not even fair bringing Venom into this! They were so far ahead, especially for being non-technical basic riffs.
IMO this was the greatest album ever until Show No Mercy trounced everything a couple years later.

 
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