https://www.popmatters.com/david-lee-roth-warner-recordings
David Lee Roth Explores Every Aspect of Himself on Excellent Compilation
Van Halen’s David Lee Roth is more than a pretty singer who used to front a group. He is a vocalist of resilience and impressive ingenuity.
By Eoghan Lyng / 19 February 2025
The Warner Recordings 1985-1994
David Lee Roth
Rhino
21 February 2025
Although the Van Halen brothers gifted the band their energy, heft, and name, singer David Lee Roth implemented the group with joviality, swagger, and soul. Anthemic ballads “Running With the Devil”, “And the Cradle Will Rock”, and “Jump” were an energizing cocktail of anarchic energy and playful, passionate stylings, making the vocalist equal parts John Lydon and Tom Jones. Roth was one of the liveliest frontmen on the rock circuit, his onstage theatrics a combination of acrobatics, vocal theatrics, and impish, flirtatious grins. Maybe that’s why Sammy Hagar and Gary Cherone failed to make as lasting of an impression on the Van Halen fanbase: they performed their vocals too earnestly.
David Lee Roth’s impishness is felt all over The Warner Recordings (1985-1994), a 50-track collection that showcases the vocalist’s range, rebellious spirit, and journey; like all worthwhile voyages, it all seems to return to the starting point. Impressively, the vaudeville opener “Easy Street” and closing song “You’re Breathing It”, an experiment in sonics, seem to speak to each other, a conversation based on mindset and growth. In between these numbers comes the pounding force of “Knucklebones”, a turbo-charged drum-heavy rocker that exhibits Roth ranging from silent, sincere whispers to raucous screams during the instrumental segments.
“Just Like Paradise” is a poppier affair, with the singer crooning to the sound of a keyboard splashing across the speakers as if emulating a Genesis track during the Invisible Touch era. “The Bottom Line”, a collation of crisp, choppy guitars, chugs along with the speed of a freight train, while the esoteric “Skyscraper” is another surprise: an outlier that permits the heavy metal frontman an opportunity to purr like Dean Martin.
The only track that sounds like a Van Halen outtake is “Elephant Gun”, which boasts a solo barrelling on all edges, a passage based on gumption and spirit. Otherwise, the singer expresses himself in any way that is less the virtues of a rock vocalist and more the workings of a (David Lee) Roth vocalist.
The blues grooves of “Goin Crazy” are embellished by a choppy percussive instrument undulating beneath the melody. “Your Filthy Little Mouth”, an epithet-driven song, benefits from a brusque Jimmy Page-style hook. The rapid-fire opening to “Lady Luck” is anchored by what sounds like a church organ. In Steve Vai, Roth had a guitar player who managed to compliment his vocals in a way even Eddie Van Halen couldn’t; rather than drown out the singer, Vai padded out the backdrop, building the cement from which Roth could extend his vocal cords.
Invariably, David Lee Roth pulls himself back before making that dive into cock-rock pastiche a la Steven Tyler during the Permanent Vacation era, as the admittedly ridiculously-titled “Hammerhead Shark” testifies. Following a verbal exertion in depth and dimension at the appropriate moment, Roth brings it down to sing “be-bop-a-lula” in a nursery rhyme vein.
“Tell the Truth” throws some jazzy inflections into the mix, proving that Roth had much more to his arsenal than the 12-bar blues the Van Halen brothers offered him across six albums. By the time “Babys on Fire” comes on, Roth has more than proven himself as a performer, meriting this rendition of a hair metal track, which is a fun time for the singer and audience.
The Warner Recordings (1985-1994) boasts 50 songs, which might trouble casual fans, but the open-minded will enjoy this hefty tome as a warts and all exposé. In many ways, this is the most open David Lee Roth will be outside of writing an autobiography, as the set encompasses the entirety of the singer’s spectrum. Slide-heavy standout “Sensible Shoes” could easily have appeared on a Muddy Waters record, just as “No Big Ting” could sit on a white reggae playlist beside 10cc, the Clash and the Police.
Curiously, Roth reunited with Van Halen for the underwhelming A Different Kind of Truth in 2012, a work fixated on replicating 1970s stadium rock through a series of aggravated guitar hooks and derivative choruses. Where that album sounded dated and stale as soon as it was issued to the public, The Warner Recordings (1985-1994) is the workings of an artist pushing himself to new, surprising terrains where he aimed to deliver a professional sound, without sacrificing the bubbly persona who fronted one of the most successful metal acts America has produced.
David Lee Roth is more than a pretty singer who used to front a group. He was a vocalist of resilience and impressive ingenuity.
RATING 8
