It's no secret that there's a deep animosity between
Van Halen
-- particularly their leader, guitarist
Edward
(formerly
Eddie
)
-- and their former frontman,
David Lee Roth
. His 1985 departure was acrimonious, and while his solo career paled in comparison to
's continued success with
Sammy Hagar
as their frontman, the group never escaped the shadow of
Diamond Dave
. No matter how many number one albums and singles they racked up, no matter how many shows they sold out, fans and critics alike preferred their gonzo days with
Roth
, and kept hounding the band for a reunion.
held his ground for years, but once the band stumbled with 1995's
Balance
, he reconsidered, courting
Dave
for an ill-fated mini-reunion for the 1996 hits compilation
The Best of Van Halen, Vol. 1
-- a move that resulted not just in two enjoyable albeit underwhelming new songs, but also the alienation of
Sammy
, who left the band over this issue.
recruited
Extreme
vocalist
Gary Cherone
for 1998's
Van Halen III
, but instead of offering a new beginning, the album torpedoed the group's career, losing them fans and eventually their record contract. Years passed with no activity from the band, and the silence whetted the appetite for a reunion -- which for many meant a reunion with
, not
, but bad blood can run deep, so when
pulled the rest of the band together for a comeback tour in 2004, he chose
Hagar
as the frontman. To promote the tour, the band assembled a new hits compilation, the double-disc, 36-track
Best of Both Worlds
. On the surface, this seemed like an ideal solution to the problems that plagued the half-baked
Best Of
, which at one disc couldn't possibly have fit the hits from both the
and
Sam
eras, but
turns out to be another botched collection, and one of the reasons it doesn't work as well as it should is that animosity toward
.
Since the band's sound and popularity were built on the records they made with
, there was no way for
to ignore his contribution, but they do their damnedest to diminish it here. There are no pictures of
to be found in the artwork (unless you count the miniature reproductions of the sleeves of
Women and Children First
) and
David Wild
's liner notes mention him only twice -- once when he joins the band, once when he leaves -- while conspicuously lavishing praise on
. As petty as this swipe is, it's understandable and could even be forgivable if the two discs were well assembled, but they're sabotaged by an absurd sequencing that alternates a
song with a
song for the bulk of the entire collection. This is a jarring sequencing, to say the least, causing a whiplash change of tone, mood, and attitude with every song, which are otherwise well-chosen, containing the big hits from each era (the only exception is the boneheaded move to end the collection with three cuts from the 1993 live album
Live: Right Here, Right Now
, all
songs sung by
). This attempt to elevate
above
in the canon is a bit like trying to say
Ronnie James Dio
was more important to
Black Sabbath
than
Ozzy Osbourne
-- a piece of flat-out hyperbole that does a disservice to what the singer actually achieved.
was larger than life, a gonzo performance artist touched with genius who helped
seem bigger, sillier, grander than any other
metal
band; with him in front, they were giants, they were golden gods.
was his opposite, an everyman who sang about girls and tequila, somebody who brought
back down to earth. Since part of the fun of
rock
stars is to have them be larger than life, a manifestation of the audience's dreams, fans naturally gravitate toward the
years, but there are merits to both approaches and both resulted in good to great music. But that's hard to appreciate on
, when the
tunes are mixed up with no regard for chronological, musical, or emotional cohesiveness. The raw materials for a great
compilation are here -- it's just up to users to take these 36 songs and sequence them at home, on their CD players or iPods, to make this the compilation it should have been. [
WEA International
released the
Very Best of Van Halen
in 2004, which contains the exact same track listing.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine