Van Halen

Best of Both Worlds

Legends Fade, but Diamonds are Forever

Review Score:

(8/10)
BOBW is essential listening for anyone being exposed to Van Halen for the first time, about to embark on a road trip - or both. As a soundtrack to your last 20 summers, it is best heard full blast and top down.

As with any Best Of collection, there are always going to be omissions, but then that's why it's an anthology. If one of your favorite songs is missing, then you probably own the original album anyway.

That said, one fact becomes very obvious in this collection. The bombast, swagger and ground-breaking urgency of Van Halen disappeared when David Lee Roth exited the band. In its place came the corporate, safe and formulaic - albeit solid - music of Van Hagar. The sole exceptions to this complacency are "Finish What Ya Started" and "Right Now."

If the three new tracks are any indication, Van Halen is not aging very well and their best years are clearly in the past. The new material is pedestrian at best and simply bad at worst.

The Van Halen brothers also seem to reluctantly make a tacit admission that the Roth-fronted material holds up better live, as the three live tracks are Roth's signature songs. The fact that it isn't vintage live material and instead culled from the Van Hagar live album seems like a flimsy concession to themselves.

Finally, the fact that not one picture is included of Roth speaks unflattering volumes of the Van Halens' animosity and pettiness toward the co-creator of half this album.

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