Rock Star: Van Halen

(Long time readers of the blog (and I thank each and every last one of you) have probably noticed over time that my Thursday night postings always seem to lack a little bit of the energy and verve of the other postings. Which really is saying something. There is a little bit of an explanation that is warranted. Thursday nights tend to be pretty busy for me. I’m usually either a) playing poker, b) at a concert or c) playing trivia. There is also the always popular d) which is that I tend to run out of ideas pretty quickly and by Thursday we are pretty much at the bottom of the barrel. I’m going to try to improve this over the next few weeks but hey, I figured that open communication is the best policy.)

Anyway, so they are thinking about Rock Star: Van Halen? David Lee Roth must be rolling over in his grave. What, you mean he isn’t dead yet? That’s hurting my Dead Pool, I can tell you that. As an avid analyzer of reality television, I might as well weigh in on the subject.

First of all, Rock Star is at least an interesting take on the American Idol genre. While in American Idol you could probably go up there and sing Barry Manilow songs for two months and win the competition (Clay, I’m looking in your direction), Rock Star at least focuses on rock songs. So there is actually a real band behind the performers and some sense of actual performance. I understand that people really like American Idol but it does go completely against what I like in music. American Idol is entirely about the singer and absolutely nothing about the song. It’s singing in a fashion that results in the Star Spangled Banner taking five minutes to perform. Rock Star is still about the singer but at least it is a little less so.

There is an interesting question as to whether you can fault the contestants or not. If you are trying to make a career in music do you go on a game show in an attempt to make your name? Well, if you take the contest for what it is, an open audition to fill a lead singer spot, is it that much different than answering an ad in the paper? I’m definitely not say that it is the route that I would take but if you want to be famous, might as well take your shot any way you can. I think everyone should just realize that the people trying out are the people who are more interested in fame than a lasting musical legacy. They’re not trying to invent their own sound, they want to perform in a way that wins the contest. In and of itself, that is not a bad thing. It’s just not what I want to hear.

The bigger question is why would a band like Van Halen piss on their own legacy to be a part of something like this. Easy answer, because fame is a drug. When was the last time you gave a crap about Van Halen? Seriously, when in the past decade have you gone, “Man, I really would like to get that new Van Halen album.” When you used to travel the world and play in front of twenty thousand people a night and now you’ve been delegated to the answer of a trivia question it effects your ego. And you’ll do anything to get one last taste of the spotlight. Even selling out your own legacy to be a part of a game show.

It’s very difficult to retire gracefully. To step away from a situation when you know all is lost. Every guy who has ever tried to hold on to a relationship that ended six months previously knows what I am talking about. At the end of the day, one of the things that is the final judgment of your character is how do you react when you’ve reached the end of a journey. For Van Halen, it appears that their solution for reaching the end of a journey is to turn into Journey.