To me, Eruption is super deep.
https://youtu.be/sI7XiJgt0vY
No one was writing this stuff then. Not like this. It is timeless 90 + seconds of sheer genius. Depth requirement to me speaks of elitism but I get what you are saying. But EVH grew poppy but he didn't start that way. Les Paul thought highly of him too, while he thought Slash was crap.
Anyway...
I dunno, when I first heard Eddie (first album, first month) I just heard an extension of all the stuff Beck had already done.
Even some traces of "Astronomy Domine" from
Ummagumma
A lot of technique but not so much "music", so I kinda get what Quantum was thinking.
His tapping technique was pretty innovative for hard rock but he wasn't the first to use it:
(From the usual source
The technique began to be taken up by rock and blues players in the late 1960s. One of the earliest of such players was Canned Heat guitarist Harvey Mandel, whom Ritchie Blackmore claims to have seen using the technique onstage as early as 1968 at the Whisky a Go Go.[5] George Lynch has corroborated this, mentioning that both he and Edward Van Halen saw Mandel employ "a neo-classic tapping thing" at the Starwood in West Hollywood during the 1970s.[3] Mandel would utilize extensive two-handed tapping techniques on his 1973 album Shangrenade.
And I'll freely confess to being a little snobbish at the time as well, having started my exploration of European progressive rock, (Van Der Graaf, Crimson, Ange) and jazz ala Weather Report and Oregon.
And I was already a staunch Mandel fan as well.
In a time of limited funds for record acquisition, VanHalen wasn't even on the list, and Beck had found his way back to my favorite spot after not being real thrilled with
Blow by Blow, with
Wired and
Live With Jan Hammer.
Then a funny thing happened, I saw the video for "Panama" and finally had to give 'im grudging respect for musical compositional ability.
It was the beginning of the abandonment of musical snobbery for me.
But DLR still makes me gag.
And when I see those bikini babes dipping and wiggling and holding their noses in the "California Girls" video, I only hear "Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in....wait! My nose is locked!"
:friendly_wink: