I love VH with DLR or Sammy equally. DLR was the ultimate frontman, but Sammy is a far superior singer.
Subjective. However, I think if we listed Roth's and Sammy's top 20 best songs of their respective careers I suspect we'd see DLR wins the contest. Interesting thought exercise.
I think DLR had a stronger VH career, but Hagar a far stronger independent career. DLR has 6 VH albums, which almost universally folks would agree includes 3-4 of the best VH albums and maybe 2 of the best rock albums in history (VH1 and 1984). Hagar was on 4 albums ranging from very good to good/decent, but I don't think any match VH1 and 1984.
For starters, with VH, did Sammy have any hits that could match Jump, Panama, Hot for Teacher, Unchained, Ain't Talking About Love, Jamie's Crying, Runnin' with the Devil, Everybody Wants Some, Meanstreet, and Beautiful Girls? Hagar had some greats, too but IMHO Roth was overall better and also was there at the beginning and of the two more historically important for the band.
en.wikipedia.org
If sales amount to success/better, both singers accomplished all multi-platinum albums during their VH tenure. From Wikipedia: "
From 1974 until 1985, Van Halen consisted of Eddie Van Halen; Eddie's brother, drummer
Alex Van Halen; vocalist
David Lee Roth; and bassist/vocalist
Michael Anthony.
[6] Upon its release in 1978, the band's
self-titled debut album reached No. 19 on the
Billboard pop music charts and would sell over 10 million copies in the U.S. By 1982, the band released four more albums (
Van Halen II,
Women and Children First,
Fair Warning, and
Diver Down), all of which have since been certified multi-platinum. By the early 1980s, Van Halen was one of the most successful rock acts of the day.
[7] The album
1984 was a commercial success with U.S. sales of 10 million copies and four hit singles; its lead single, "
Jump", was the band's only U.S. number one single.
In 1985, Roth left the band to embark on a solo career and was replaced by former
Montrose lead vocalist
Sammy Hagar. With Hagar, the group released four U.S. number-one, multi-platinum albums over the course of 11 years (
5150 in 1986,
OU812 in 1988,
For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge in 1991, and
Balance in 1995). As of March 2019, Van Halen is 20th on the
RIAA list of best-selling artists in the United States; the band has sold 56 million albums in the States
[8][9] and more than 80 million worldwide, making them one of the
best-selling groups of all time.
[10][11][12] As of 2007, Van Halen is one of only five rock bands with two studio albums to sell more than 10 million copies in the United States
[13] and is tied for the most multi-platinum albums by an American band. Additionally, Van Halen has charted 13 number-one hits on
Billboard's
Mainstream Rock chart. VH1 ranked the band seventh on a list of the top 100 Hard Rock artists of all time.
[14]"
IOW, with DLR I could honestly say, "That's one of the best rock songs EVER MADE." I don't, subjectively, think that of any of Hagar's songs with VH. Not taking anything from Hagar, again he had impossible shoes to fill. Hagar was simply outstanding and accomplished more in his solo and VH career than most musicians could dream of. But DLR I think is just better. I happen to like both, equally for different reasons.
www.vhnd.com
ultimateclassicrock.com
