10 Rock Music Bands That Replaced Their Singer

Replacing a singer with the amount of charisma as David Lee Roth should be an impossible task. Even though Van Halen exploded onto the scene thanks to Eddie Van Halen's jaw dropping guitar playing, Roth's electric energy that came across every time he took to the stage was the entire appeal of their live show half the time, being practically the MC of the greatest hard rock party that you've ever been to. Him leaving after 1984 should have been a death blow, only for Van Halen to come back even stronger thanks to the Red Rocker.

After falling out during the making of 1984, Eddie was actually tipped off by his car mechanic to give solo star Sammy Hagar a shot behind the mic, which worked a lot better than anyone would have expected. Though Sammy's delivery was much different than what Diamond Dave was like, he still had the chops to pull it off, and 5150 was the moment where things really fell into place all over again.

Integrating both the guitars and synths in a more natural way, Sammy is singing like he's got everything to prove on every one of these songs and earned the respect of Van Halen fans along the way. On his first step up, you can hear the band getting a new lease on life and trying some new sounds, from the ballads like Love Walks In to the straight up hard rock of the opener Good Enough. Dave may have been out in the wild now, but the era of Sam Halen was now officially upon us.