VH-I was a game changer for me in terms of music I listened to. I don't know how many times I listened to it, but it was definitely one of the most played albums in my initial formative musical years--if not THE most played. But the subsequent albums had no identity whatsoever, up until 1984. That album was VERY different. But still, outside the hits, the rest of the album gets lumped into that DLR-era pile of songs that I don't even remember now, other than the ones that to this day get a ton of radio play. So the only thing memorable of the DLR era for me was the first album, and probably an album to an album and a half worth of hits. And that's not bad. But they went from
Then Sammy joined, and 5150 was as big a game changer for me in terms of VH fandom as the first album was in terms of rock fandom in general. Almost every song was a winner, and the band was once again playing with conviction.
All in all, they are a band that early on seemed like they could have been a favorite. But after the debut album, they just became a band that would put out an album with one or two really great songs and a bunch of unmemorable filler. Stellar album in 5150, and then back to the same pattern, but with a much higher ratio (maybe up to half an album) of really good songs. But the problem for me with Van Halen overall, even with a lot of the good songs, is that the lyrics were just embarrassing. And I eventually just came to the realization that not being 12 years old was really a hindrance to being able to enjoy their music. That's the difficultly I have with polls like this, or even listening to most of their music at all these days.