Van Halen vs Blackmore

Ghost Rider wrote: Ritchie rules! EVH is indeed a great player, but I've never been able to get into Van Halen's music. Too American for my tastes, and then I have a weakness for singers who can sing. David Lee Roth may be great on stage, but he can't sing to save his life, and those stallion types are not really my cup of tea.

There are many singers that are technically better than Roth but are absolutely boring to listen to. I'll always prefer an interesting voice + decent technique to boring voice + excellent technique.

Rosescar wrote: If Smoke On The Water was a joke, I would've chosen Blackmore.

Blackmore HATED that song, it's not fair to use it against him. You could also point the finger at Jump ...

A'swepe wrote: Eddie may be faster, but with Mr Blackmore it wasn't just about speed, although he had some of that.

Eddie isn't a speed player.

An innovator definitely,but NOT a speed player.

Van Halen

Blackmore is good, sometimes great but Eddie took my head off from the get-go!

A real tough one for me- while Eddie's solos are more technically accomplished, Blackmore's have more emotion. Blackmore reached a pinnacle at the absolutely incredible performance of 'Mistreated' by Deep Purple at California Jam (arguably David Coverdale's finest vocal ever too) for me- one of my favourite guitar pieces ever, with 'Highway Star', 'Stargazer', 'A Light In The Black' and 'Child In Time' also being absolute stunners, so he gets my vote. I considered Blackmore in some respects to be the carrier of Jimi Hendrix's torch,rather than people who aped him or sold themselves as being the reincarnationof Hendrix, as he had all the fire and passion of Hendrix and had his own style in the mix too.

Nonetheless, I'd argue the most technically accomplished solo EVER imo is 'Eruption' by Van Halen, and I agree totally Snow Dog about when I first heard the first VH album- it blew me away too, so much that none of their other work, excellent as it is, even approaches it.