Metal Sludge Gossip Board

What’s even funnier is Eddie Trunk attempting to repeatedly carry Sammy Hagar’s water on a weekly basis about not getting an interview with Al in regard to Sammy being omitted from his book.

BernieTaupson wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2025 3:12 pm

BernieTaupson wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2025 2:34 pm “It could have my friend, but instead we went on to sell over 50 million records for (sic) No. 1 album(s) sold out every building and stadium in the world for a whole decade. That never happened again.”

It never happened then either. Sam himself writes in his book that the Monsters of Rock stadium tour in 88 was hit or miss with some venues selling well and some not, and outside of that tour when did they play stadiums at all? They were an arena band.

They did stadiums opening for Bon Jovi in Europe in 1995 and again, Sam’s words from his book - you had a small group of VH fans up the front with their hands in the air and the rest of the audience standing around not caring.

Any stadiums on the FUCK or Balance tour?

No. And they did an arena leg in fall '88 to make up for all the $ the MoR tour lost.

You know what? Completely fair comment from Sam this time.

Dismissing the Hagar era completely is wild when people fuckin’ loved the Van Halen iteration of the late 80s and 90s. I’m not a fan, but millions are.

BernieTaupson wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2025 3:23 pm 50 million is wrong too.

5150 6
Ou812 4
FUCK 3
Live 2 (double album so it’s actually 1)
Balance 3

VH never sold dick outside the USA, Roth or Hagar. Add another five million to adjust which is more than enough. That’s twenty-two. Round it up to twenty-five and it’s still only half of what he’s claiming he sold.

Precisely.

Not even close to 50 million.

Sammy is always exaggerating his numbers to the point of being hyperbolic. At this point, it’s almost pointless to even comment on it, because he spouts off shit like this so often, but here we are.

Yeah I and 84 alone outsold the entire Van Hagar run

Balance selling 3mil is kind of surprising to me tbh

BernieTaupson wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2025 3:23 pm 50 million is wrong too.

5150 6
Ou812 4
FUCK 3
Live 2 (double album so it’s actually 1)
Balance 3

VH never sold dick outside the USA, Roth or Hagar. Add another five million to adjust which is more than enough. That’s twenty-two. Round it up to twenty-five and it’s still only half of what he’s claiming he sold.

Easy to tell when Sammy is lying......his lips are moving

it's Alex's story to tell.

The best is when Sammy claims in his book that he was just as big as Van Halen was as a solo artist before he joined them.

Dude has some major insecurity issues.

FreddyFender wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2025 4:52 pm You know what? Completely fair comment from Sam this time.

Dismissing the Hagar era completely is wild when people fuckin’ loved the Van Halen iteration of the late 80s and 90s. I’m not a fan, but millions are.

nah.
It’s Alex’s auto-bio called ‘BROTHERS.’
He’s not writing the definitive VH history

DangerZone wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2025 11:41 pm

FreddyFender wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2025 4:52 pm You know what? Completely fair comment from Sam this time.

Dismissing the Hagar era completely is wild when people fuckin’ loved the Van Halen iteration of the late 80s and 90s. I’m not a fan, but millions are.

nah.
It’s Alex’s auto-bio called ‘BROTHERS.’
He’s not writing the definitive VH history

Yeah, Alex did not talk about amount of records sold.
All he is saying is Van Halen was unique and that uniqueness ended with the original band.
What came after does not compare to him, even if it sold well.

Pretty sure that I heard Alex say in an interview that the Hagar lineup is another story to tell. Like it was said, his focus here was immigrating to America and the rise of the band.

El Vampiro Blanco wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2025 1:38 am

DangerZone wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2025 11:41 pm

FreddyFender wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2025 4:52 pm You know what? Completely fair comment from Sam this time.

Dismissing the Hagar era completely is wild when people fuckin’ loved the Van Halen iteration of the late 80s and 90s. I’m not a fan, but millions are.

nah.
It’s Alex’s auto-bio called ‘BROTHERS.’
He’s not writing the definitive VH history

Yeah, Alex did not talk about amount of records sold.
All he is saying is Van Halen was unique and that uniqueness ended with the original band.
What came after does not compare to him, even if it sold well.

Yeah if anything Van Hagar is an example of brand recognition being key to marketing.

Sam is delusional if he thinks after the dirty laundry he aired about Al and Ed in his book that Al, of all people, would not completely dismiss him from thereon out. Maybe it wasn't worth it in the long run. Sam seems to be frustrated that Al and Wolf won't forgive him for what he did. I've read both books, and the intentions of both are completely different.

Yep Al took the best tactic - ignoring an attention ho like Spazzy hurts more than insulting him.

BernieTaupson wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2025 3:23 pm 50 million is wrong too.

5150 6
Ou812 4
FUCK 3
Live 2 (double album so it’s actually 1)
Balance 3

VH never sold dick outside the USA, Roth or Hagar. Add another five million to adjust which is more than enough. That’s twenty-two. Round it up to twenty-five and it’s still only half of what he’s claiming he sold.

You're not wrong here, but usually when people make claims like this it's worldwide, which while isn't big numbers, I'm sure is still a few, and it's including the sales of all the singles.

Still a far cry from 50 Million, but I could see it being close to 30.

And while they weren't playing stadiums outside of MOR, they were doing multiple nights in some cities on the 5150 and OU812 Tours, so they probably could have done baseball stadiums on those tours in places if they wanted to.

Anthrax442 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2025 3:28 pm

BernieTaupson wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2025 3:23 pm 50 million is wrong too.

5150 6
Ou812 4
FUCK 3
Live 2 (double album so it’s actually 1)
Balance 3

VH never sold dick outside the USA, Roth or Hagar. Add another five million to adjust which is more than enough. That’s twenty-two. Round it up to twenty-five and it’s still only half of what he’s claiming he sold.

You're not wrong here, but usually when people make claims like this it's worldwide, which while isn't big numbers, I'm sure is still a few, and it's including the sales of all the singles.

Still a far cry from 50 Million, but I could see it being close to 30.

And while they weren't playing stadiums outside of MOR, they were doing multiple nights in some cities on the 5150 and OU812 Tours, so they probably could have done baseball stadiums on those tours in places if they wanted to.

I’m pretty sure those sales figures are US only, and are pretty close to accurate.

As someone above pointed out, VH1 & 1984 alone outsold Sammy’s entire catalog with the band (probably without them, also).

BernieTaupson wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2025 4:07 pm

Anthrax442 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2025 3:28 pm
You're not wrong here, but usually when people make claims like this it's worldwide, which while isn't big numbers, I'm sure is still a few, and it's including the sales of all the singles.

Still a far cry from 50 Million, but I could see it being close to 30.

I was including worldwide. That’s why I adjusted and rounded up.

VH never sold shit outside the US.

And even if they had, platinum albums in Australia and UK and Japan (which they mostly don’t even have, but hypothetically) are only 75,000, 300,000 and 200,000 copies, so it’s fuck all compared to the USA and doesn’t move the total much anyway. 5150 did okay internationally then it steeply ramps off. Sales figures are easy to find.

No, those are US numbers. You didn't round anything up. Go look at RIAA's page, all those albums are certified at those numbers, and that doesn't include worldwide sales. Also, all those certifications were done in 2004, so you've got to add another 20 years of sales that isn't recognized.

So, that's a total of 17 Million, plus another 500K for BOBW as a platinum double album, in the US alone and that doesn't include probably at least another two million in singles. Round up, and that's 20 Million US twenty years ago.

I was probably being generous with the 30 Million number, it's probably closer to 25.

Again, you're not wrong, and Sammy doesn't do himself any favors by lying about shit like this, but he's not wrong that from 1986 to 1991 they were still a HUGE band, by any measure, and that Ed was still making great music. However, he's going about trying to make his point in the worst, most assholish way possible. He makes Roth look like a saint with some of the shit he says.

BernieTaupson wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2025 6:21 pm
And you can’t include BOBW because it’s half Roth, idiot.

My bad, I was going by the values you had for the individual albums, I missed the part below where you were just throwing in an extra 5.

And I'm absolutely including BOBW because Roth fans had already bought Best of Volume 1, and BOBW was clearly aimed at Sammy fans with the three new tracks and being released in conjunction with the 2024 tour. Not that it matters, because even with that and singles and the last 20 years of sales, Sammy is probably at least 20 million off.

BernieTaupson wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2025 6:21 pm I know they’re US numbers, fuckwit

https://youtu.be/4tcXpoPr6tk?si=SE4Nsu0wQcOyUoF2

Busch1724 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 07, 2025 2:36 pm https://chartmasters.org/van-halen-albu ... ngs-sales/

Based on the information presented on this website, which I am assuming to be a reliable source, it is evident that the sales figures for albums released during Sammy Hagar's VH tenure significantly trail those achieved during DLR's era with the band. This disparity in album sales suggests that the band's commercial peak, in terms of record sales, occurred during the Roth-fronted lineup.

A visual inspection of the first graph readily demonstrates that Hagar-era album sales fall considerably short of the 50 million mark - the numbers are more in line with Bernie's assessment presented above.

These numbers also show an exponential decline in album sales once Hagar assumed the lead vocalist role. This precipitous drop in popularity raises questions about the factors contributing to the band's diminished commercial appeal during this period. Similar to many other entertainment industries, it's likely that a confluence of nonlinear factors played a role in this decline - it would be an oversimplification to consider that the rise of hair metal in the mid 80's and the subsequent grunge movement of the 90's, which undoubtedly impacted the music landscape of the era, are sole external forces attributed to VH's decline.

Thanks by the way for the link!