Rarely has any artist squandered the momentum of their solo career so quickly as David Lee Roth. Having recruited the virtuoso guitar-bass tandem of Steve Vai and Billy Sheehan for his 1986 debut, Eat \u2018Em And Smile<\/i>, Roth proved the naysayers wrong and went toe-to-toe with his ex-bandmates in Van Halen. Following the critical success of Eat \u2018Em <\/i>however, Diamond Dave made the head-scratching decision to abandon the attitude and glam rock swagger for a different approach. Drenched in keyboards, vocal effects, and studio gimmickry, Skyscraper <\/i>is a marked departure in style and sound that will have listeners asking, \u201cDave, if it ain\u2019t broke \u2013 why fix it?\u201d <\/p>\n
The album is a frustrating one, given the talent involved.\u00a0 It\u2019s difficult to pin down the greatest misstep.\u00a0 The first one to hit you is the predominance of keyboards.\u00a0 After Roth\u2019s own criticism of Van Halen\u2019s gradual drift toward cheesy pop songs near the end of his tenure with the band, it\u2019s disappointing to hear Brett Tuggle get such a front and center place in the mix here.\u00a0 Many of the songs, such as leadoff single \u201cJust Like Paradise\u201d and \u201cHot Dog And A Shake,\u201d are so layered with Tuggle\u2019s keyboard textures that it just about poisons them. Listeners under 40 years of age, for whom the pop chimes of the 1980s hold no nostalgic value, will find themselves playing the album at a low volume out of embarrassment.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Also disappointing is that the album doesn\u2019t sound like a band effort.\u00a0 With the duo of Roth and Vai handling both production duties and the majority of the songwriting, Skyscraper <\/i>at times feels like a competition of egos between the two of them. One of the great things about Eat \u2018Em And Smile<\/i> was that there was equal room for everyone to flex their muscles. Gregg Bissonette had some blistering drum fills, and Sheehan had duel after duel with Vai, their musical interplay being one of the album\u2019s greatest highlights.\u00a0 Here, Bissonette could be replaced with a drum machine on most tracks, and Sheehan is largely reduced to \u2018just the bass player.\u2019 Vai, meanwhile, indulges in a great deal of studio wizardry: cross-stereo panning, digital loops and effects, timing delays\u2026 the whole affair sounds processed and glossy. Likewise Dave. He\u2019s all over the place on this one, as if needing to fit in some vocal rabble or a background chorus for every rapid-fire guitar lick that Vai pulls off. Where\u2019s the rock n\u2019 roll??\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Some tracks are just awful.\u00a0 \u201cStand Up\u201d and \u201cPerfect Timing\u201d are mainstream fare, with choruses that must have had the mullets bobbing up and down back in the day. \u201cDamn Good\u201d is a wistful, six-minute affair that has Vai strumming a 12-string riff with \u201880s chime, and even features what sounds like a bit of electric sitar. Ick. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Grievances and cheesy production values aside, there are still some cool moments.\u00a0 \u201cKnucklebones\u201d is a decent opener, capturing some of the swagger of Eat \u2018Em<\/i>, and Dave\u2019s vocals go well with Vai\u2019s melodies. \u201cJust Like Paradise,\u201d despite the Tuggle factor, captures the same goofy fun as \u201cGoin\u2019 Crazy\u201d did. \u201cThe Bottom Line\u201d has a pretty wicked instrumental break, and \u201cHina\u201d is something of a forgotten nugget in Dave\u2019s solo repertoire. Vai\u2019s effects-laden rhythm playing actually complements Roth\u2019s thoughtful, even affectionate vocal quite well. <\/p>\n
The title track, \u201cSkyscraper\u201d is a fine example of the flawed execution that dogs this record.\u00a0 A softer track featuring an array of vocal and keyboard effects, DLR\u2019s next guitarist, Jason Becker, eventually released an audition tape featuring his guitar-only interpretation of the song\u2026 and it absolutely smokes the studio version. One has to wonder what this album could have been, had Ted Templeman been in the producer\u2019s chair again to save Roth and Vai from their own self-indulgence. <\/p>\n
Overall, it\u2019s a chore digging through these songs in search of the occasional catchy riff or jaw-dropping solo.\u00a0 Is it really worth suffering through Dave\u2019s hokey vocals on \u201cTwo Fools A Minute\u201d just to hear Sheehan get some rare (!) spotlight time? <\/p>\n
One has to grant David Lee Roth credit for trying: whether glam rock, synth pop, lounge, or covers, the man always changed things up \u2013 a stark contrast to the play-it-safe formula that Van Hagar followed. But with that said, Skyscraper <\/i>can only be seen as a disappointment. Rarely has so much talent amounted to so little. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":30806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8538],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-42480","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-david-lee-roth","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42480"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42480"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}