Van Halen - Hard Rock or Heavy Metal

Heart of Metal Age : 19 Joined : 28 Jan 2008 Posts : 1213

What genre are they? Clearly, Eddie transformed metal guitar like no one before him or after him (except for maybe Rhoads and Malmsteen). Many metal bands today cite Van Halen as an influence, but you can say the same for many other early bands. I would say that from Van Halen to Fair Warning, they could be, for certain, called heavy metal. Diver Down and 1984 still had metal moments, but not like the previous four albums. What do you think?
_________________
Vote for the Heart of Metal's "Greatest Guitarist"
http://www.heartofmetal.net/let-the-music-do-the-talking-f8/heart-of-metal-s-greatest-guitarist-list-t8066.htm

Subject: Re: Van Halen - Hard Rock or Heavy Metal Wed Mar 19, 2008 1:38 am

I'd say they are hard rock, not metal.

Metal student Age : 19 Joined : 18 Mar 2008 Posts : 206

Subject: Re: Van Halen - Hard Rock or Heavy Metal Wed Mar 19, 2008 1:41 am

Definitely not metal. Unless Overrated is a metal genre. lol!

_________________
"Happy people have no stories." —Therapy?

http://www.shocktotem.com
http://www.eyesoretimes.com

Subject: Re: Van Halen - Hard Rock or Heavy Metal Wed Mar 19, 2008 2:00 am

Hard Rock w/Roth; Pop Rock w/Hagar. Very Happy

Subject: Re: Van Halen - Hard Rock or Heavy Metal Wed Mar 19, 2008 2:01 am

They are more metal than most bands who carry that title.

Metal master Age : 43 Joined : 10 Feb 2008 Posts : 589

Subject: Re: Van Halen - Hard Rock or Heavy Metal Wed Mar 19, 2008 2:35 am

Let's try to keep the self-righteousness to a minimum.
_________________
"Happy people have no stories." —Therapy?

http://www.shocktotem.com
http://www.eyesoretimes.com

Metal student Age : 33 Joined : 08 Jan 2008 Posts : 113

Hard rock, but the guitar sound (especially the solos) is metal.

I'm going with the sentinel on this - hard rock w/roth, commercial rock w/hagar.

Eddie does rock

Metal master Age : 43 Joined : 10 Feb 2008 Posts : 589

Subject: Re: Van Halen - Hard Rock or Heavy Metal Wed Mar 19, 2008 5:03 am

Who the hell was being arrogant? I think Van Halen is overrated and I jokingly pointed that out. If you can't handle the way we joke on this forum, then you should simply leave or ignore those posts. You act as if I've never heard the band before. THAT is arrogant! And it's 100% incorrect! I don't discuss anything unless I know what I'm talking about. Whether Van Halen is overrated or not is an opinion, of course, but don't come in here waving the opinion flag around if you can't handle a different opinion on a band you may like (i.e. self-righteous).
_________________
"Happy people have no stories." —Therapy?

http://www.shocktotem.com
http://www.eyesoretimes.com

Heart of Metal Age : 21 Joined : 23 May 2007 Posts : 1947

I read an old Creem magazine article once, and it said "If you don't like Van Halen, your wrong!".

Anyway moving on, simplistic boring terms like hard rock and heavy metal don't do justice to Van Halen. They are were music force/genre unto themselves. As Stiv Bators said "All this and more".
_________________
"...Those tunes ain't an entertainment, their a way to be..."

- Tim Rogers

Heart of Metal Age : 27 Joined : 22 Jul 2007 Posts : 1836

Hard Rock def not Metal. Im not the biggest fan and i do prefer Roth over Sammy. Eye i look at them the same way as you simple song structures with the only real talent in Eddie's fingers..
_________________

HEAR ANOTHER SIDE OF ME! http://profile.ultimate-guitar.com/DeadIdentity81/music/all/play476261

www.dementiaradio.com home of the best progressive/power metal on the net.

Heart of Metal Age : 33 Joined : 15 Feb 2007 Posts : 2167

Early days HEAVY ROCK, and later more MELODIC HARD ROCK with SAMMY HAGAR. Still they are part of the metal movement. If somebody likes to call them just metal its okay too (just my opinion of course).

Administrator Joined : 04 Jan 2007 Posts : 8193

I abhor this ridiculous debate.

Van Halen adorned the cover of just about every heavy metal magazine there was in the late 70's and early 80's. They were part of the American heavy metal craze. To deny they were a metal band at their inception is just to rewrite history.

Those of us who were there and grew up with bands like Van Halen, Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, UFO, Judas Priest, Quiet Riot, Thin Lizzy, Ted Nugent, Kiss, etc. called it heavy metal. You'd have a better argument saying that the modern bands labeling themselves heavy metal are not, since these are the bands that defined the genre in the 1970's and early 80's.

Read any book on heavy metal history and read about how a young guy named Eddie Van Halen out of California changed the way people thought about heavy metal guitar playing. Do a quick Google search and type in "1970's heavy metal" and see if Van Halen's name isn't listed as one of the most influential bands of the decade, along with Led Zeppeling, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, etc..

I did a Google search and here was the first thing that came up:

Subject: Re: Van Halen - Hard Rock or Heavy Metal Wed Mar 19, 2008 12:21 pm

Subject: Re: Van Halen - Hard Rock or Heavy Metal Wed Mar 19, 2008 1:46 pm

By 1978's standards (when their debut album was released), Van Halen was pretty damn "metal." As Ult pointed out, at that time just about ANY BAND that had long hair and included guitar solos in their music (i.e. Ted Nugent, AC/DC, UFO, KISS, etc.) was considered "heavy metal." Hell, back then a lot of people considered ZZ Top and Journey "metal"!

If you're going to judge VH by the standards of today, then obviously they're not very metal. But in those bygone days, they were about as metal as you could get. Their early discography (from the self titled debut album thru 1981's FAIR WARNING) had a pretty profound effect on a lot of kids back then (who are now old farts like me). Laughing

But the less said about Van Hagar, the better... I'm with Toho on that era. Fugeddaboudit.
_________________

"I've been following a super-hero with a brain the size of a walnut all across this crazy, mixed-up country... and what has it gotten me? A drinking problem, six gunshot wounds, and an artificial hip."

Subject: Re: Van Halen - Hard Rock or Heavy Metal Wed Mar 19, 2008 2:05 pm

After reading all the responses and forming an opinion based on these comments, I have thought long and hard about this and have finally come to a conclusion:

Eyesore is a d*ck.

Administrator Joined : 04 Jan 2007 Posts : 8193

I had a kid email me once and say something like, "if Van Halen, Judas Priest and Aerosmith are heavy metal, who are the rock bands?" I thought about including it on my Hall of Shame page, but the kid was actually quite nice as I emailed him back and forth, so I decided no to include it.

My response back to him was to ask him if these bands were not heavy metal in the 1970's, who was? I also send him a mile long list of "rock bands" from the 1970's. Bands like Styx, The Eagles, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Supertramp, The Doors, Yes, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Donny Iris, ELO, Chicago, the Rolling Stones, Foreigner, Pink Floyd, Genesis, King Crimson, Keith Green, Billy Joel, Elton John, Jackson Brown, BTO, Bob Segar, Rod Stewart, Cream, The Yardbirds, Janis Joplin, Sly & the Family Stone, Three Dog Night, John Lennon, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Blondie, Grateful Dead, Grandfunk Railroad, Elvis Presley, The Kingsmen, The Cars, Peter Frampton, Todd Rundgren, Linda Ronstadt, Santana, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Cheap Trick, Joe Cocker, America, The Moody Blues, Buddy Miles, Bread, Little River Band, The Kinks, Hall & Oates, Humble Pie, Firefal, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Neil Young, Chuck Berry, The Tubes, Allman Brothers, Edgar Winter, Peter Gabriel, etc.

Obviously, if heavy metal started in the late 60's and 1970's, someone had to be heavy metal. Who were these metal bands if not Van Halen and the like? To say they were not is simply history revisionism.
_________________

Heart of Metal Age : 33 Joined : 15 Feb 2007 Posts : 2167

Also BLUE ÖYSTER CULT, TED NUGENT, RUSH etc...were called heavy metal in those days. For me they are still a part of our metal movement because they are heavy rock/hard rock bands but for many people, today they are just classic rock, or ROCK bands.

Subject: Re: Van Halen - Hard Rock or Heavy Metal Wed Mar 19, 2008 2:40 pm

I think Van Halen started off as metal, but when they changed up with Hagar it was more pop rock to me than anything. Well, even before that with 1984 and the addition of the synths I feel they moved away from metal a little too. But their S/T and Fair Warning are still among my favorites. Although, as for what that kid said Scott, I can see his point on Aerosmith and Van Halen, but why he would say that about Judas Priest is proposterous.

Subject: Re: Van Halen - Hard Rock or Heavy Metal Wed Mar 19, 2008 4:34 pm

A lot of the magazines that called bands like VH, Aerosmith, Journey, etc., "metal" back then are the same ones that referred to Korn, Limp Bizkit, etc., as "metal" in the 90s. Someone could say in 2020 or so, "Korn IS a metal band! They were always referred to as "metal" by magazines I read 20 years ago. Anyone who says they aren't metal is just being a revisionist."

Again, I'm not attacking Van Halen or whatever, they just weren't really a metal band. They were influential towards metal and all, but apart from some solos, were more rooted in hard rock than anything.

I am definitely not trying to insist Korn is metal, either, by the way, as they aren't.

Administrator Joined : 04 Jan 2007 Posts : 8193

Metal student Age : 25 Joined : 26 Feb 2008 Posts : 218

Personally, I hate the whole hard rock vs. heavy metal debate anyway because for a genre of music that has constantly evolved (and evolved as much) as metal has in 30 or so years, it makes the tags seem somewhat arbitrary.

However to say that songs like Atomic Punk, D.O.A, Loss Of Control and Unchained (and the respective albums they came from) aren't heavy metal or didn't influence those that came after seems a bit ridiculous to me.

Moderator Age : 40 Joined : 12 Jan 2007 Posts : 1819