Cheers - fun thread started with many different opinions...
Halen with Hagar was awesome. But I liked DLR as well.
Warrant sans Jani Lane is night and day. Lani was not only musically gifted - he was an extremely talented writer. Take for example Heaven's opening stanza...
"
Got a picture of your house
And you're standing by the door
It's black and white and faded
And it's looking pretty worn
See the factory that I worked
Silhouetted in the back
The memories are gray, but man, they're really coming back"
There's no fucking way in hell that I could write such concise, evocative prose. Jani was a genius.
If you think that the above was a one-off exception - well, google the lyrics for any popular Warrant song...
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And too, Jani's tunes were beyond my ability - although I can envision myself reworking a tune over and over to come up with something interesting.
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Many of my friends seem to ignore lyrics - going only by melody when judging a song. In this vein, maybe sans Jani Warrant was the same.
But for me, the lyrics really matter. If a band has a catchy tune, but the lyrics are inane, I simply cannot ever enjoy the tune, nor the band, with some exceptions... Led Zeppelin for example.