Is Van Halen a hair band?

[Astrid Kirchherr65]

Back at Fox's henhouse for a moment, the count is a firm 69% No VH is not a Hair band, and only 4 adamant votes that they are a Hair band...so Fox is taking a thrashing in his own poll.

The people have spoken, VH is an important successful hard rock band, and as many have said I don't lump them in with the bands that came later and were shoved into that...ridiculous category.

I think you guys have about worn this one out, I don't think I'll be back to visit after this post.

Agree With this..

Stick a fork in it..all done

 

[Groovy Man]

Yeah, the point has been made as far as Van Halen goes...

but, not as far as this point....

People complain about Pearl Jam all the time but they revived the hell out of Neil Youngs career!

That's not true at all.

Neil Young has been very popular every decade he's played in. Mid-late 80's (86,87,88) was probably a low point, but still a big concert draw even with mediocre albums. But every artist who's has long careers have a low point somewhere.

Neil Young kick started his own career with no help from anyone...

Neil Young's 1989 ''Freedom'' album contained ''Rockin' In The Free World'' one of his biggest classics - when Pearl Jam's first album was 2 years away.

Ragged Glory (1991) and Harvest Moon (1992) were two of Neil's best and most popular albums, when Pearl Jam's first album, ''Ten'' first came out in latter part 1991.

Neil Young was riding pretty high in the late 80's-early 90's, when Pearl Jam hit, and remained popular all through the rest of the decade of the 90's.

Neil's ''Broken Arrow'' (1996) was a pretty decent album. Seen him on that tour, the following summer I believe. Neil was showing the kids how to rock and be happy doing it.

Big Neil fan - just had to set the story straight.

 

[Soot and Stars]

Yeah, the point has been made as far as Van Halen goes...

but, not as far as this point....



That's not true at all.

Neil Young has been very popular every decade he's played in. Mid-late 80's (86,87,88) was probably a low point, but still a big concert draw even with mediocre albums. But every artist who's has long careers have a low point somewhere.

Neil Young kick started his own career with no help from anyone...

Neil Young's 1989 ''Freedom'' album contained ''Rockin' In The Free World'' one of his biggest classics - when Pearl Jam's first album was 2 years away.

Ragged Glory (1991) and Harvest Moon (1992) were two of Neil's best and most popular albums, when Pearl Jam's first album, ''Ten'' first came out in latter part 1991.

Neil Young was riding pretty high in the late 80's-early 90's, when Pearl Jam hit, and remained popular all through the rest of the decade of the 90's.

Neil's ''Broken Arrow'' (1996) was a pretty decent album. Seen him on that tour, the following summer I believe. Neil was showing the kids how to rock and be happy doing it.

Big Neil fan - just had to set the story straight.

Fair enough as I've seen your thread and I know you are a huge Neil fan! On the other hand I know you hate Pearl Jam and the connection between the two might even possibly make you gag! You are right about him having success as I just read that his single Rockin' In The Free World which is one that Pearl Jam would cover and later collaborate with Neil Young himself was a success as it hit number two. To say that Pearl Jam gave Neil no rub at all I think is a little drastic though. First the personal notes from my memory. First I remember seeing around '94 and '95 a slew of MTV moments of Pearl Jam and Neil Young together as well as a collaboration of the two on Pearl Jam's Mirrorball EP! Shortly after that I found a rare Lollapolooza c.d. by Pearl Jam where they were covering Rockin' In The Free World in '92. Because of the rub of working with a band of my generation I was introduced to Neil as many others my age were at the time. I bought Harvest around that time and I have Pearl Jam to thank for it!

The artist obviously have a mutual respect for each other. The style of Freedom where Rocking In The Free World came off of was said to be an influence on the coming grunge movement. In turn having praise from grunge giants like Cobain and Vedder gave Neil an introduction to younger audiences. Vedder would actually be the one who inducted Neil into the Rock and Roll Hall of Hame in '95 and Young's album with Crazy Horse had it's whole mood influenced by the death of Cobain. This segment can be looked at in detail at this wiki link. It's not the first time I've heard most of these details either!:

Neil Young - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vedder and Young really aren't that different. After Ten Vedder started going down the road of political hippy for the masses as well and their politics are similar. Both have voices that have been criticized but both have fervent followers regardless. The thing is that their mutual respect for each bridged generations for a time and I think that's a good thing as a current fan of both. You may disagree but to say that they didn't help each other career wise would be innacurate to say the least!

 

[aeroplane]

Kids listening to Pearl Jam had no reason whatsoever to listen to Neil Young (unless their parents perhaps were).

So assuming that Neil Young picked up some "new" fans (from their fanbase) as a result of collaborating with Pearl Jam, which he most likely did, then I would say that Soot is at least partially right.

 

[Groovy Man]

My point was ''Pearl Jam didn't revived the hell out of Neil Youngs career'', as Soots claimed Pearl Jam did.

Neil Young didn't need Pearl Jam - Young survived 2 and a half decades and was one of the biggest legends of rock and was doing fine in the late 80's and early 90's. My post really wasn't to talk about Pearl Jam, just to state Neil Young's career wasn't revived by Pearl Jam, that's all.

Now back to VAN HALEN....

 

[Aktivator]

Fair enough as I've seen your thread and I know you are a huge Neil fan! On the other hand I know you hate Pearl Jam and the connection between the two might even possibly make you gag! You are right about him having success as I just read that his single Rockin' In The Free World which is one that Pearl Jam would cover and later collaborate with Neil Young himself was a success as it hit number two. To say that Pearl Jam gave Neil no rub at all I think is a little drastic though. First the personal notes from my memory. First I remember seeing around '94 and '95 a slew of MTV moments of Pearl Jam and Neil Young together as well as a collaboration of the two on Pearl Jam's Mirrorball EP! Shortly after that I found a rare Lollapolooza c.d. by Pearl Jam where they were covering Rockin' In The Free World in '92. Because of the rub of working with a band of my generation I was introduced to Neil as many others my age were at the time. I bought Harvest around that time and I have Pearl Jam to thank for it!

The artist obviously have a mutual respect for each other. The style of Freedom where Rocking In The Free World came off of was said to be an influence on the coming grunge movement. In turn having praise from grunge giants like Cobain and Vedder gave Neil an introduction to younger audiences. Vedder would actually be the one who inducted Neil into the Rock and Roll Hall of Hame in '95 and Young's album with Crazy Horse had it's whole mood influenced by the death of Cobain. This segment can be looked at in detail at this wiki link. It's not the first time I've heard most of these details either!:

Neil Young - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vedder and Young really aren't that different. After Ten Vedder started going down the road of political hippy for the masses as well and their politics are similar. Both have voices that have been criticized but both have fervent followers regardless. The thing is that their mutual respect for each bridged generations for a time and I think that's a good thing as a current fan of both. You may disagree but to say that they didn't help each other career wise would be innacurate to say the least!

GM is right in that Neil Young would and did have a following all along and I think he still would have a big enough following without PJ. However, S &S is right that in addition to Neil Young having a strong fan base he has an even stronger fan base because of his affiliation to Pearl Jam. The Bridge concerts they do together is full of both Pearl Jam and Neil Fans. Go to either a Neil or Pearl Jam show today and you will see the two most common Tee Shirts you will see is Pearl Jam and Neil(been to quite a few PJ shows in the past two years-I was told its even more true on the west coast). I've got several Pearl Jam friends (most in their early 30's) who became Neil Young fans because of the association. ALthough Neil has many associations with other bands too so it's hard to say where his fans come from today.

 

[Foxhound]

... and Blondie were punk rock posers to begin with, that sold out fast to making main stream pop it was a joke. And I like about dozen Blondie tunes....

That doesn't make sense. Why would you use terms like posers and sold out with reference to a band you rather like?

Sure, Blondie recorded a lot of hit singles, but you can hardly classify that as selling out. The underlying rationale behind punk was to return rock to the two and a half minute single of the early/mid sixties. How can you criticize Blondie for fulfilling the mission too well, i.e. doing it better than anybody else?

 

[Foxhound]

Back at Fox's henhouse for a moment, the count is a firm 69% No VH is not a Hair band, and only 4 adamant votes that they are a Hair band...so Fox is taking a thrashing in his own poll.

The people have spoken, VH is an important successful hard rock band, and as many have said I don't lump them in with the bands that came later and were shoved into that...ridiculous category.

I disagree. Too many posters are voting no simply because they like Van Halen and don't like the very wording of my poll. Thumper already admitted that he voted "No" because he finds the term "hair band" to be insulting. and you yourself just dismissed the whole category as "ridiculous". So the Van Halen fans are simply refusing to address the question I posed. Admittedly I therefore managed to sabotage my own poll before it even began.

But I'm still maintaining that Van Halen was the prototype for the whole subsequent hair band genre. The reasons I think Van Halen set the template for the whole genre are as follows:

1. Van Halen looked the part with the costuming, hair and everything.

2. Van Halen played the same head-banging guitar based rock with little or no blues influence that the subsequent bands falling into the genre in question played.

3. My arguments from authority:

Guitarist Eddie Van Halen's innovative technique, and vocalist David Lee Roth's fun-loving, mock-carnal presence provided a template for hair metal.

Granted, these fellows at Wordiq are neither Albert Einstein nor are they George Szell, but we're talking about Van Halen here which is neither nuclear physics nor is it orchestral music for the academic symphony loving crowd.



I just read, however, that the whole hair band genre was actually the result of unsuccesful attempts to copy Van Halen. That's a good argument that I don't believe anybody here made.

 

[LG]

^^It's your right of course Fox, but you are hoist by your own petard this time.

You cannot accept the fact you are dead wrong on this one,,,you should have known that before writing this...thread. In fact you Did know this would happen, it just gives you a platform to proclaim to the world how little respect you have for VH,,,all of us that know you know that is the truth of the matter.

The only posts I will make in here from now on, will be to curtail the outbreak of distemper, which in this case starts at the source of the thread...

No name calling/insults veiled or otherwise by anyone, or my next visit will not be so cordial.

 

[Foxhound]

I've got an idea for a poll which won't include the apparently value-laden "hair metal" term which might do a better job of answering my question.