Van Halen

Best of Both Worlds

Very good... but it could be better.

Review Score:

(10/10)
Here it is. We have some new Van Halen. Let's face it -- anybody who's buying this for the three new songs probably already has every one of the hits on this set. The old songs are remastered, and they sound okay. However, there's some clipping on some songs, which is annoying. This set is pretty heavily hard limited, so audiophiles shouldn't expect it to sound amazing. Still, it IS a hard rock/heavy metal collection, so a little bit of compression or hard limiting isn't too bad. It makes things sound "heavy," and Van Halen is a band that should always sound heavy... and loud.

The songs are good. Mixing them up is obviously an attempt to make the band's body of work seem like a whole, rather than "Dave's era" and "Sammy's era." Leaving out Gary Cherone is perhaps understandable from a marketing perspective, but from a personal perspective, Edward Van Halen shouldn't have left out his "musical soulmate." Gary's era should have been represented with "Without You" and "Fire In The Hole." But, hey, what can we do?

All the hits are here. There are album tracks that any diehard fan would want here, like "Summer Nights," "Mean Street," "I'm The One," "Ice Cream Man," "Little Guitars," "Somebody Get Me A Doctor," etc., but diehards already have those songs. For the casual fan, this includes the commerically successful Van Halen tracks, but they're not really the band's "best." Stuff like "Dancing In The Street" and "Feels So Good" aren't really good examples of typical Van Halen. Still, they were bigger hits than "Somebody Get Me A Doctor" and "Little Guitars," so they have a right to be on this set.

There's a lot missing, but for what it is -- a collection of Van Halen's greatest hits -- it does its job pretty well.

The new songs....

Well, they're pretty good. For me, "It's About Time" and "Learning To See" are the best. "Up For Breakfast" is a song you really have to be in the mood for, as the lyrics are a little silly... but not really in a cool way. If you're in the mood it's good, but sometimes I just don't want to hear it. When I first heard "It's About Time" I thought the Van Halen legacy was about to be destroyed by EVH. I thought he'd gone Nu-Metal. I remarked to friends, "Van Halen is dead" and "What is THIS?!" as I listened to it. Later on, though, I grew to really dig the song. The intro is a little different, but the song grows on you. I even learned the song on guitar. If you go into things with an open mind, these songs are good. But, hey, I also like Van Halen 3...

If you're a casual fan, this is a good set. However, if you feel a little let down, don't give up. Get "Van Halen," "Van Halen II," "Fair Warning," "1984," and maybe "5150" (if you dig Sammy's stuff). If you dig what you hear on this set, buy all of the albums. There are a lot of album track gems, especially on the David Lee Roth-era albums. But this set has the hits.

The live Sammy tracks are pretty pointless. We already have the original, classic studio versions. Why would we want live versions from "Right Here, Right Now"? At least give us NEW live versions, guys! They could have replaced those cuts with "Humans Being," one of the 1996 David Lee Roth tracks, and an album track or two. But, hey, what's here is good.

I gave this album 5 stars because it's a good introduction to the music of Van Halen. I got introduced by buying each album myself, but for casual fans this will do. I really give it 4.5 stars, but I thought I'd round it up to 5 here. What can I say? I'm a big Van Halen fan and I'd rather give this 5 stars than 4. If you're a casual fan, buy it for the classics. If you're a diehard, buy it for the new songs. Either way you can't lose.

(By the way, the embossed digipack is pretty cool... although a better booklet and liner notes would have been good.)

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