ON THE VAN HALEN ALBUM ARTWORK CONTROVERSY

By now several websites have reported that the Van Halen brothers have gone ahead and airbrushed out estranged bassist Michael Anthony from the album cover artwork shown on their official website. MetalSucks commenter green&grey first alerted us to this news at 4:20am Tuesday morning (what are you doing up so early/late, dude?). On some album covers Anthony has been replaced by EVH son and new bassist Wolfgang, and on others deleted entirely.

Since we here at MetalSucks aren’t edited by any corporations, let me be the first to say: WHAT THE FUCK?? Obviously working out a deal with Michael Anthony didn’t happen, and I fully understand how complicated that can be. The people on various message boards who are saying things like “Why couldn’t they just pick up the phone and call Michael?” or “Must’ve been a money issue” or “They worked it out with the craziest guy in show biz, so why couldn’t they work it out with Michael?” — these people are morons. It’s obviously a combination of all of those issues and a whole lot more, such as ego, Sammy, and interpersonal dynamics that none of us have any clue about. This is fine; after all, even the members of Van Halen are people and subject to disagreements. But to airbrush the dude out of your history? That is FUCKED up. He helped create the platform you stand on, and to delete the guy from tiny icons of your cover artwork on your website goes beyond petty to classless.

Hey, Van Halen: FUCK YOU.

-VN

P.S.: We’re still coming to see you at the Garden on Nov. 13!