Van Halen

With one foot in metal and another in hard rock, guitar god Eddie Van Halen paired up with two very different frontmen to dominate the heavier end of the pop music spectrum for nearly three decades. In one of pop music's most deliciously ironic moments, Van Halen's most recognizable song, "Jump," is built around a keyboard riff. Go figure. Like any great rock band, VH has its own heroes, and their update of the Kinks' British Invasion classic "You Really Got Me" honors the original while adding a heapin' slab of molten rock goodness. And "Dance the Night Away" is a party in a song, with a phase-shifted guitar hook heavy enough to bend light.

In Next Steps, Van Halen changes lead singers and gains the moniker Van Hagar.

After losing original vocalist David Lee Roth, Van Halen recruited former Montrose frontman Sammy Hagar, who led the band into four #1 studio albums in a row — a feat the Roth-era incarnation had never attained. On OU812's "Black and Blue," Hagar screams and struts over a hip-grinding, bluesy rocker, putting him right out in front like he owns the band. Three years later, on "Runaround," Hagar's vocal takes a back seat to Eddie's fingers-on-fire soloing and brother Alex's steam-powered chunka-chunka beat. And Balance's "Not Enough" catches the band in a rare, dialed-back moment of power balladry that features both keyboards and guitar nicely in . . . you guessed it: balance.

Deep Cuts brings you a tip of the Van Halen hat to a fellow scene-maker, a meeting of silver screen cowboy and barbershop quartet, and more.

"Top Jimmy" pays homage to Jimmy Koncek, the hard-living (and now-deceased) bandleader of the bluesy Rhythm Pigs, a fixture in the late-'70s/early-'80s Los Angeles rock scene, and a friend to many of the up-and-coming bands of the era (including VH). "Bottoms Up," a goodtime-y hard-rockin' shuffle, celebrates the time-honored meeting of the booze and the babes, with the title explaining Van Halen's intentions with them both. And on "Happy Trails," the band trance-channels a Disneyland-style barbershop quartet as they rope Roy Rogers' signature theme and drag it in from the prairie to Main Street.

Lead guitarist Eddie Van Halen has not only established himself as the American heir to Jimi Hendrix's unassailable status as the king of the guitar gods, but he's also managed to shepherd the band that bears his name from the quiet Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena to the Rock Hall of Fame. By walking the tightrope of hard rock and heavy metal, the band has sustained massive popularity over four decades, selling more than 80 million albums in the process. In the ongoing Van Halen game of "Who's the lead singer," that role currently goes to David Lee Roth, who succeeded Sammy Hagar, who took over for Gary Cherone, who took the mic from Sammy Hagar, who supplanted . . . David Lee Roth. Given that Eddie's son has now joined the family biz as bassist, it seems that VH is looking to extend their dynasty into yet another generation — and they're just the band to do it.