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Van Halen: Roth vs. Hagar

posted 5 years ago by MovieChatUser497 (18943)
15 replies | jump to latest

Which era do you prefer?

For me it all depends on what we are comparing. I will go out and say they wrote much better music with Roth and for the most part it was harder edged. Having said that I'm going to come right out and say Roth can't sing to save his life. I saw him twice, once with Van Halen in 2012 and he was terrible, then another time in 2020 opening for KISS and he was terrible. I have heard Hagar's live performances and they seem to be a lot better (I'm seeing him this summer hopefully so it'll be interesting to compare) so at the moment I am of the opinion that Hagar is a better singer and performer than Roth. Roth pisses me off so much because he's out of tune, won't sing instead he recites the lyrics and then every other line he goes "ooops I forgot the fucking words" (no you didn't just sing the damn song).

Also some people say that they sold out and became a pop band when Hagar replaced Roth. I am flat out not buying it. Yes on the album there may have been 2 or 3 ballads that had some synthesizers, the other 6 or 7 songs were still the same hard rock sound they had with Roth.(and there was some definite soft rock with Roth such as I'll Wait, Big Bad Bill, Could This Be Magic?, Spanish Fly, etc.)

[–] ShogunofYonkers (78597) 5 years ago

I much prefer Roth over Hagar but Sammy was certainly great...they were a different but very good band with Hagar

[–] Moviebuff1 (2835) 5 years ago

Roth.

[–] TheAdlerian (2092) 5 years ago

Hagar has a terrible screechy raspy kind of one note voice. Roth had and interesting voice with many sounds.

Also, Roth was fun and wacky to watch. He had an "I would punch that bitch in the face quality" then other times he was being a fun showman.

After he went solo, he was like a old time singer, who was silly, and gave up rock, which was very weird.

Anyway, whoever was the asshole in that band that made them split up with Roth was nuts. They were a fun group putting out song after song, then it imploded.

My guess is that Roth is a super narcissist control freak, but I could be wrong.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Roth

[–] TexasJack (12516) 5 years ago

Roth is a great showman but a terrible singer. Hagar is a good-to-very good singer for his style of music. I think Van Halen made some excellent music with both lineups. Both are also very interesting dudes with far better personalities than Eddie, who is an incredible, ground-breaking guitarist but seems like a huge jerk.

On your last point, I completely agree. "Black and Blue" and "Poundcake", to name just two tracks, rock just as hard as anything from the Roth era.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Michael Anthony was a much better singer than Roth as was Hagar.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Hager was was better singer and the quality of songwriting improved. Roth was more of an iconic front man.

After reading about Van Halen though and seeing what arseholes the Van Halen brothers are/were and DLR's behaviour I find it hard to be really into them anymore.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

They were better during the Roth era.

I did like OU812 and 5150 all right, but it can't compare to Roth Van Halen.

[–] dmac8 (5050) 5 years ago

It was always about Eddie for me anyway, but after seeing both in their prime, I would just say that they're different and not particularly strong vocalists. If pressed, I might give Hagar a slight edge in pure voice but Roth had more personality. And I don't think they were ever a pop band. They always dabbled around with different concepts. And Eddie had used synths before Hagar.