Tomorrow marks the release of Van Halen’s first album with David Lee Roth in 28 years, and the band is already on the road in support of the disc. Bits and pieces of the A Different Kind of Truth have been circulating online for the last month, to mixed reaction. Regardless of what the take home value of the new album may be, the Popblerd staff thought it an opportune time to look back at the band’s discography, warts and […]
Blerd Radio Is Back: Season 2, Episode 1
It’s been a long time, we shouldn’t have left you…yeah, we’ve been there before, haven’t we? Well, we were gone for two whole months-encompassing most of the holiday season. But we’re back and we don’t intend on leaving you again anytime soon. In this episode, Mike and Jesse atone for their absence (again) but hit the ground running. There’s some Super Bowl news, some Oscar nominations news. We defend Nickelback (sort of), anticipate the new Van Halen album, watch Elton […]
The Viewfinder: Van Halen’s “Tattoo”
Van Halen’s forthcoming album, A Different Kind of Truth, is notable for being the band’s first with original frontman David Lee Roth since 1984. The band released the video for leadoff single “Tattoo” today, and it’s our first real taste of the reformed band, boasting a no-frills aesthetic in crisp black and white. And on first impression, it’s just fine: Van Halen’s glory days may be behind them, but the newly-rejuvenated boys seem to be having a blast jamming together […]
The Popblerd Staff Picks Their Most Anticipated Albums of 2012! (Part Two)
One thing a new year brings more than anything else is promise. Whether you feel as though this is the year you’ll get that book deal you’ve been dreaming of, or that the cross-country road trip you’ve been planning for the past two years will finally happen THIS summer, the future, much like Natasha Bedingfield sang about in that Pantene commercial, is unwritten. With release dates only set a couple of months in the future, this is also the time […]
Blerd Briefs: Katy & Russell, Van Halen and Kelly Clarkson
Katy Perry and Russell Brand are divorcing…find out what other newsworthy nuggets appear in this week’s Blerd Briefs.
Spin Cycle: Puddle of Mudd’s “Re:(disc)overed” // Powerman 5000’s “Copies, Clones & Replicants”
Almost universally maligned as a once-relevant band’s career-twilight last-ditch stab at relevancy, the all-covers album more often than not allows a bereft-of-inspiration artist to court a last gasp of sweet, sweet mainstream success by promising songs the listener already knows and loves, and not those pesky tepid originals that said artist has been peddling for the past twenty years or so to increasingly-diminishing returns. And all under the guise of “paying tribute to our idols, man”. Seems like, to court […]
bLISTerd: Happy Anniversary, MTV!:The Best Videos of the Eighties (20-11)
20. “Every Breath You Take” The Police (1983) Simplicity, ladies and gentlemen. Sting, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers went straight for the heart with “Every Breath You Take”, their biggest hit single (and the #1 song of 1983, according to Billboard magazine). The greatness of this video is all in the incidentals-the shadows moving from one side of Sting’s face to the other, his standup bass, the way the video seemed to fit seamlessly with the quiet intensity of the […]
Does Van Halen Really Need to Make a New Album?
I’m not gonna sit here and pretend like I’m Mr. Super-Duper Van Halen fan. I’m also not gonna sit here and throw shade at Sammy Hagar. Quite frankly, as someone who was 8 when David Lee Roth left the band, I’m more familiar with Van Hagar than I am with the Roth-fronted version of the band. Truth be told, I actually ENJOY a lot of Van Hagar’s material. Either way, the rumor circulating that Roth and the Van Halen family […]