This came out in 2004 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Dave or Sammy? For Van Halen fans, that is the question: Whether tis nobler to suffer the schwing and eros of outrageous original frontman David Lee Roth, or to take arms against the C-grade blubberings of blue-collar successor Sammy Hagar, and by opposing, end them. Or something like that.
Point is, everybody loves one and hates the other. Even the boys in Van Halen, it seems. But on their new two-disc retrospective The Best of Both Worlds, Sam is clearly the man.
To be fair, they don’t completey exclude Diamond Dave. But they do make him feel about as welcome as an ex-wife at an anniversary party. There are no pictures of Roth in the packaging. He’s barely mentioned in the liner notes. The set pointedly includes live cuts with Sammy singing Dave-era hits like Panama and Jump. Even the sequencing — Roth and Hagar tracks are alternated in seemingly random order — feels somehow like a bid to downplay Dave’s material. (Short-lived third singer Gary Cherone fares even worse; neither he nor the album he made are even acknowledged here.)
Having said that, I admit The Best of Both Worlds will probably live up to its title for the casual fan. The set handily condenses the band’s quarter-century career down to three dozen tracks, including ancient wonders like Runnin’ With The Devil and Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love, mid-career monsters like And the Cradle Will Rock… and Hot for Teacher, and poppier post-Dave hits like Why Can’t This Be Love and Right Now.
Granted, it’s missing some stone-cold classics — case in point: Ice Cream Man and Atomic Punk — but hey, no best-of can please all of the fans all of the time. At least the three new cuts (featuring Sammy, of course) aren’t totally embarrasing, even if one is a semi-power ballad. And ultimately, if you don’t wanna have to sit through all the Hagar songs to listen to Dave (or vice versa), well, that’s what your skip button and iPod are for.
Which is to say: Whichever flavour of Van Halen you prefer, The Best of Both Worlds provides the full-meal deal. Unless your name happens to be Gary Cherone, of course.
