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Poptrend Music Industry News

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RIP

Bobby Hart, the songwriter who, with Tommy Boyce, co-wrote "Last Train to Clarksville" and "(Theme From) The Monkees," has died.

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09/09/2025

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09/08/2025

How David Lee Roth’s Plan To Cover The Classic Song “California Girls” By The Beach Boys Led To The Break Up Of The Original Lineup Of Van Halen In The Mid-1980s :

Below is great photo of Carl Wilson of The Beach Boys and David Lee Roth, the lead singer/frontman of Van Halen, taken late in 1984.

On this day 41 years ago the original members of Van Halen played their very last show together. They gave their final concert of the "Monsters Of Rock" festival in Nuremberg Germany on September 2, 1984 and it was supposed to be a short break before returning to the studio to record their follow up to their now classic record "1984”.

It’s what happened on the plane ride home that would change the trajectory of music history when David Lee Roth played Eddie Van Halen a cassette of a demo of him covering the legendary Beach Boys’ song “California Girls”.

The past few years David had been irritated that Eddie was working on projects outside of the band. Especially appearing on Michael Jackson’s song “Beat It”. So he enthusiastically came up with an idea to do something on his own with producer Ted Templeman by recording a few cover songs for a solo project while Eddie composed music in his 5150 studio for the next Van Halen studio album.

Problem is Eddie Van Halen hated Dave’s demo of “California Girls” when he first heard it which enraged Roth causing a huge argument between the two . This coupled with other factors that had been causing friction between the two bandmates for the last couple of years would result in Roth eventually taking steps to leave the band.

It’s not certain when Roth decided he no longer wanted to be in Van Halen, but he would record the song “California Girls” to officially kick off his solo career. He would recruit Carl Wilson to arrange the song and sing backing vocals along with Carl’s good friend Christopher Cross.

The timing could not have been better, especially since at the time Roth was one of the biggest music stars in the world and his cover of the song definitely introduced the music of The Beach Boys to a whole new generation of fans.

The timing was also perfect because The Beach Boys were recording what would become their self titled 1985 album which was to be released just a few months after this cover song became a huge hit. And it definitely helped MTV to embrace the video for “Getcha Back” which got solid airplay making that song a surprise hit.

David Lee Roth’s version of “California Girls” would become a huge success peaking at #3, just as the original song had 20 years earlier. Yet at this point Dave was still saying his solo career was just a side project and that he was still a member of Van Halen. But with continued friction with Eddie and his solo career making him one of the biggest rock stars on the planet it’s understandable why those close to him, and his own personal ego made him feel that he no longer needed to be a member of the band to remain popular and relevant in the music world.

Eventually the enormous success of the songs “California Girls” and “Just A Gigolo”, also the EP “Crazy From The Heat” going platinum, along with wanting to pursue and acting career would solidify his decision to leave Van Halen, making it official that he was not coming back.

As for Carl he was very disappointed that the self titled 1985 album didn’t perform better on the charts and made him realize after years of denial that sadly most music fans only wanted to see The Beach Boys as a nostalgia act.

Then again, Kokomo would become a #1 song three years later.

Just more proof that the music business and the legacy of The Beach Boys is always unpredictable.

As for Van Halen ?

Even though David Lee Roth would reunite with Eddie and Alex Van Halen, the original line up of the band with Michael Anthony would never play on a concert stage again.

And now that Eddie Van Halen is no longer with us, September 2, 1984 will always be known as the very last time that the original members of one America’s greatest and iconic bands ever played live together.

09/08/2025

RIP

Rick Davies was the author of Bloody Well Right, Goodbye Stranger and more

09/05/2025

RIP

Mark Volman, a founding member of the 1960s rock band the Turtles and singer known as "Flo" of Flo & Eddie, died in Nashville, Tenn. on Friday.