Agreed, those are some great tunes.  If CD has more of the same I will be VERY happy with the result.

It is, Balance is by far the best album they did with Hagar.  I was actually starting to like them more and more at this point then they broke up!

By the way, I agree with James about Jump...it's not that good even though it was a big hit.  I think it was like the biggest song of that year, if not it was close.  House of Pain is my favorite from 1984, but I do like Panama, Drop Dead Legs and Girl Gone Bad.

Great questions/points James and by the way I liked Diver Down as well, Secrets/Hang 'Em High/Intruder/Where Have All The Good Times Gone?/The Full Bug ... noone can argue those are great tunes but at the same time (in my opinion) it was their weakest album to date. 

In many ways 1984 was itself a natural progression from Diver Down but 5150 was overkill .  There were some songs that were just unquestionably great such as Dreams/Best of Both Worlds/5150 but other than that most of the album was hit and miss.  Some of the more popular songs like "Love Walks In" and the catchy "Why Can't This Be Love?" had great writing and even great EVH (albeit softer side EVH) licks but the "VH Flavor" wasn't quite evident.  "The Inside" was probably the lowest point of the record as Hagar succumbed to actually try to imitate Roth's attitude with poor results.

I think Roth would have made the next album more "Rock N Roll".  Look at the debut album...pure balls and guts rock.  VHII is once again solid rock but with a bit more "radio friendly" tunes thrown in.  Then what happens?  You get Women and Children First and Fair Warning...both back to a solid rock sound and slightly less polished.  Diver Down comes out and it is almost a mixture of the VHII feel mixed in with the rawer albums that followed, 1984 follows suit.  Roth never let the band get into a stale mate situation.  I think 1984 was as far as "pop" VH he was willing to go, the next album would have been much more raw in my opinion.  I believe his excellent Eat Em and Smile is more what he was looking for as 1984's follow up.

So my answer to your question is no...a Roth VH album in 1986-1987 would NOT have been like 5150, Roth would have went back to a heavier, less "radio friendly" sound and the follow up would have been fairly similar to Eat Em and Smile...which to me would have been an improvement.

For that pic I would as well!!

I prefer Roth but I do like the Hagar stuff as well.  In fact I think the last full album Hagar did with VH was his best although least successful.   Balance had the rockers, the ballads and the in betweens down perfectly.  I loved "Humans Being" from Twister as well although Edward basically says this was the beginning of the end of the group.  He didn't like the fact that Sammy was wanting to do something more "Tornado" titled or something like that.

David does have a loud mouth and can be a total ass but man when he and VH pairs up it is like vodka and orange juice...the perfect mix!