“You’re a musician, Marcus…tell them I’m right about Roth being a badass and Hagar being a dog shit taco.”

 

Every generation of rock and roll fans has its music beefs.  Little Richard or Elvis Presley?  The Stones or The Beatles?  Machine Gun Kelly or death by seppuku?  But perhaps the most contentious of these is the old “Van Halen vs. Van Hagar” bloodbath.

 

Sadly, the answer to the question of era supremacy has become more clear in recent years: the era where Eddie wasn’t dead was the best era of Van Halen.  But getting all up in our collective feelings about deceased guitar heroes is super boring, so let’s fight about Roth and Hagar instead!!!!!!!

 

“Come on…you can say it…it was Roth.  Every TRUE fan knows it was DLR!”

 

Honestly, MY answer is that I’m less interested in picking a side than I am in the conversation.  After all, making objective, declarative statements about something as purely subjective as someone’s personal taste in music is about forty kinds of fuckin’ dumb…though not nearly as dumb as the reasons people give to support their conclusions.

 

And this, my dear friends, is where Roth fans start embarrassing themselves.

 

To every Roth fan, that Van Halen was ALL “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” and “Panama” and the Hagar era was ALL “Right Now” and “When It’s Love”.  Yep…Dave was hard as nails and Sammy was a soft boy.  They are quick to leave out such “hard” tracks as…err…oh, I don’t know…“Dance The Night Away,” “Jamie’s Cryin’,” and a bunch of other babyshit-soft nonsense from RotHalen.  They also ignore badass Sammy tracks like “Best of Both Worlds” and “Good Enough”.

 

“What???  You’re a Sammy-guy?!?!?!?!?!  I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

 

Opinions are like assholes…I don’t care about your asshole.  So let’s talk FACTS: 1) Roth was one of the best front men of all time…WAY better than Sammy.  2) Hagar is a more talented singer than Roth. We ALL can hang our fandom on either of these points without shame or even explanation, and that should be the end of it, you nerds.

 

Oh, except for those three words every Roth guy deigns to speak:  

 

DISCO…COVER…SONG.  

 

You Roth guys KNOW “Dancin’ In The Streets” is a fucking disco song.  You do.  Just accept it!  

 

Disco.  Cover.  Song.

 

Case closed.