12 Most Hated Hard Rock Songs (On Great Albums)
11. Dancing In The Street - Van Halen
Throughout the first years of the 80's, there seemed to be no stopping the Van Halen powerhouse. From their 1978 debut onward, the band refined their songwriting on each record and casually blew the minds of hard rock fans around the world. While Diver Down was yet another stellar release from this period, the production of it seemed to be a bit misguided.
Eddie Van Halen himself has claimed to have not enjoyed making the record because it was too rushed, which required the band to fill out the rest of the record with cover songs rather than new material. That should be no problem thanks to the band's brilliant covers like "You Really Got Me," but "Dancing In The Street" feels incredibly out of place coming from one of hard rock's greatest bands.
The original Motown classic was perfect the way it was, but the actual delivery of David Lee Roth feels more like a sideshow band rather than the band that wrote such classics as "Ain't Talkin Bout Love." Ever since its release, the Van Halen brothers have been pretty vocal about their disdain for this cover song, which they rarely performed live. The band may have been fragmented at the time, but this song feels like a David Lee Roth solo track that just happened to turn up on a Van Halen record.