(Roth-era) Van Halen vs. Guns N' Roses?

I respect VH, and EVH is a guitar God....but outside a few tracks I can't get that far into them...and some of those tracks are Van Hagar.

GnR...Appetetite was a masterpiece of grit and groove. Use your Illusion 1&2 were solid.
 
I'm torn because I listen to VH and Gn'R, more than any other bands.
 
VH, better catalogue and better entertainers; not that GNR were slouches in either department, but they are going up against the archetype for rock from the late 70's to mid 80's (AC/DC being the other band that can be considered this, but starting earlier and still going now).
 
Van Halen because Eddie was a great innovator and a maestro, and set the bar higher for guitarists. Guitarists like Slash are dime a dozen to me - plays the same old blues scales, can't improvise for crap, and has sloppy technique.

Plus we all know it was Izzy Stradlin who wrote the awesome riffs to all of the iconic songs and laid down the canvas for Slash to noodle over.
 
therealdope said:
I'm torn because I listen to VH and Gn'R, more than any other bands.
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On any given day I could say either of these or Metallica for my favorite band of all time so I’m really having to think.

I’m going to say that VH is a better band but I think GnR has a better catalog. I wish we had seen VH get more into the gritty types of things that Guns sung about and more epic tracks like November Rain. VH was kind of stuck in party anthems as long as Roth was there. They were really really really good partly anthems though that spurred a hundred copycat bands though and that was also a product of their time. Prime for prime maybe the two most untouchable live bands of all time.
 
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Chad R. Thundercock said:
Van Halen because Eddie was a great innovator and a maestro, and set the bar higher for guitarists. Guitarists like Slash are dime a dozen to me - plays the same old blues scales, can't improvise for crap, and has sloppy technique.

Plus we all know it was Izzy Stradlin who wrote the awesome riffs to all of the iconic songs and laid down the canvas for Slash to noodle over.
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Can't say I disagree with this tbh.

Slash wrote a great solo though.
 
I would say personally for great albums only Van Halens debut is on the level of the first 3 GnR albums but they did obviously hang around longer and put out albums with a few stand out tracks for longer with Roth.

So ultimately very similar kind of level.
 
moreorless87 said:
I would say personally for great albums only Van Halens debut is on the level of the first 3 GnR albums but they did obviously hang around longer and put out albums with a few stand out tracks for longer with Roth.

So ultimately very similar kind of level.
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Hmmm. If you go by albums, Van Halen (not Van Hagar) was around from 1978 to 1984. Gn'R (Lies to the Spaghetti Incident was 1987 to 1993. So both were around for 6 yrs, in terms of albums.
 
That is a hard question, but I would have to give the nod to VH, because of Eddie's guitar virtuoso status, and their importance as rock pioneers. Slash is great, and I really love GNR, but Eddie was a guitar god. That said, I probably listen to GNR more.
 
therealdope said:
Hmmm. If you go by albums, Van Halen (not Van Hagar) was around from 1978 to 1984. Gn'R (Lies to the Spaghetti Incident was 1987 to 1993. So both were around for 6 yrs, in terms of albums.
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Not sure I really count that as a mainline GnR album though were as Van Halen put out half a dozen albums in that period.
 
moreorless87 said:
Not sure I really count that as a mainline GnR album though were as Van Halen put out half a dozen albums in that period.
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Van Halen's albums were the shortest of any band. I can remember my buddy in HS saying, '31mins? And they call this an LP?'. Gn'R's 5 albums have more music than Van Halen '78-'84.

These are two of my favorite bands so I'm not looking to piss on either but they were both active for about the same amount of time.
 
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