I used to write that little VH thing on notebooks back in seventh grade like a school girl. That whole Fast Times at Ridgemont High period. It truly didn’t age well. It didn’t even last into late high school. It just felt like juvenile music one day and I haven’t owned anything by them in 30 years. Kind of strange.
Like the last two girls I spent a lot of time with were 80s music freaks despite being early 40s now. Just 80s all day, but never a Van Halen song. All the songs I would have beat someone up for listening to in middle school, but now like. I can’t recall the last time someone put on a Van Halen song. Has to be 20 years. You don’t even hear it in a bar with a bunch of middle aged dudes. Idk why that is, but it is? Half the nostalgic stuff is crap, yet no Van Halen. I’d guess that early cancer cost them a boatload of money. They fell off the map even as a nostalgia show.
They just aren’t culturally relevant, which is amazing because they were undoubtedly the biggest band in the world in the early 80s. You don’t hear them as the background of movies or sports or anything. I was watching golf a few weeks ago and they used two Paul’s Boutique songs and I just kind of laughed. Van Halen just disappeared.
I don’t play guitar, so I don’t know how good he is. Clearly he was considered a god by that kid who picked one up and loved by that community