Rhino will unveil a very special David Lee Roth box set, “The Warner Recordings 1985-1994″, on February 21, 2025. It includes the first five solo releases recorded by the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductee and original VAN HALEN lead vocalist in one comprehensive collection for the very first time.

“The Warner Recordings 1985-1994″ arrives in multiple configurations, including 5CD at retailers nationwide and D2C online, digital on streaming platforms, and as a special 5LP version available only at Rhino.com.

“Crazy From The Heat” track listing:

A1. Easy Street
A2. Just A Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody

B1. California Girls
B2. Coconut Grove

“Eat ‘Em And Smile” track listing:

A1. Yankee Rose
A2. Shyboy
A3. I’m Easy
A4. Ladies’ Nite In Buffalo?
A5. Goin’ Crazy!

B1. Tobacco Road
B2. Elephant Gun
B3. Big Trouble
B4. Bump And Grind
B5. That’s Life

“Skyscraper” track listing:

A1. Knucklebones
A2. Just Like Paradise
A3. The Bottom Line
A4. Skyscraper
A5. Damn Good

B1. Hot Dog And A Shake
B2. Stand Up
B3. Hina
B4. Perfect Timing
B5. Two Fools A Minute

“A Little Ain’t Enough” track listing:

A1. A Lil’ Ain’t Enough
A2. Shoot It
A3. Lady Luck
A4. Hammerhead Shark
A5. Tell The Truth
A6. Baby’s On Fire

B1. 40 Below
B2. Sensible Shoes
B3. Last Call
B4. The Dogtown Shuffle
B5. It’s Showtime!
B6. Drop in the Bucket

“Your Filthy Little Mouth” track listing:

A1. She’s My Machine
A2. Everybody’s Got The Monkey
A3. Big Train
A4. Experience
A5. A Little Luck
A6. Cheatin’ Heart Café
A7. Hey, You Never Know

B1. No Big ‘Ting
B2. You’re Breathin’ It
B3. Your Filthy Little Mouth
B4. Land’s End
B5. Night Life
B6. Sunburn
B7. You’re Breathin’ It (Urban NYC Mix)

LP box, and 5CD images

Does anyone do it quite like Diamond Dave? We don’t think so! THE WARNER RECORDINGS 1985-1994 features the first five solo releases recorded by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame® Inductee and original Van Halen lead vocalist in one comprehensive collection for the very first time. Spanning one of the greatest runs in rock ‘n’ roll history, the set offers lifelong fans and newcomers alike the chance to experience CRAZY FROM THE HEAT [1985], EAT ‘EM AND SMILE [1986], SKYSCRAPER [1988], A LITTLE AIN’T ENOUGH [1991], and YOUR FILTHY LITTLE MOUTH [1994] in succession. Due February 21st, there’s a Rhino.com exclusive 5LP set limited to 2,000 and a 5CD. Hummala bebhuhla zeebuhla bop!

Will this box set be a Remastered one ?

^ Yes it is

As a massive DLR fan, I believe A Little Ain’t Enough was Dave’s best solo album. DLR finally found his own sound. Skyscraper seemed like Dave was imitating Huey Lewis and Eat Em and Smile was too short and had too many corny cover tunes.

I hope the remastering will be tastefully done. Remastering doesn’t necessarily mean better than the originals. I plan to download the hi-rez version of the DLR box and compare it to the original masters.

https://www.popmatters.com/david-lee-roth-warner-recordings

David Lee Roth Explores Every Aspect of Himself on Excellent Compilation
Van Halen’s David Lee Roth is more than a pretty singer who used to front a group. He is a vocalist of resilience and impressive ingenuity.
By Eoghan Lyng / 19 February 2025

The Warner Recordings 1985-1994
David Lee Roth
Rhino
21 February 2025

Although the Van Halen brothers gifted the band their energy, heft, and name, singer David Lee Roth implemented the group with joviality, swagger, and soul. Anthemic ballads “Running With the Devil”, “And the Cradle Will Rock”, and “Jump” were an energizing cocktail of anarchic energy and playful, passionate stylings, making the vocalist equal parts John Lydon and Tom Jones. Roth was one of the liveliest frontmen on the rock circuit, his onstage theatrics a combination of acrobatics, vocal theatrics, and impish, flirtatious grins. Maybe that’s why Sammy Hagar and Gary Cherone failed to make as lasting of an impression on the Van Halen fanbase: they performed their vocals too earnestly.

David Lee Roth’s impishness is felt all over The Warner Recordings (1985-1994), a 50-track collection that showcases the vocalist’s range, rebellious spirit, and journey; like all worthwhile voyages, it all seems to return to the starting point. Impressively, the vaudeville opener “Easy Street” and closing song “You’re Breathing It”, an experiment in sonics, seem to speak to each other, a conversation based on mindset and growth. In between these numbers comes the pounding force of “Knucklebones”, a turbo-charged drum-heavy rocker that exhibits Roth ranging from silent, sincere whispers to raucous screams during the instrumental segments.

“Just Like Paradise” is a poppier affair, with the singer crooning to the sound of a keyboard splashing across the speakers as if emulating a Genesis track during the Invisible Touch era. “The Bottom Line”, a collation of crisp, choppy guitars, chugs along with the speed of a freight train, while the esoteric “Skyscraper” is another surprise: an outlier that permits the heavy metal frontman an opportunity to purr like Dean Martin.

The only track that sounds like a Van Halen outtake is “Elephant Gun”, which boasts a solo barrelling on all edges, a passage based on gumption and spirit. Otherwise, the singer expresses himself in any way that is less the virtues of a rock vocalist and more the workings of a (David Lee) Roth vocalist.

The blues grooves of “Goin Crazy” are embellished by a choppy percussive instrument undulating beneath the melody. “Your Filthy Little Mouth”, an epithet-driven song, benefits from a brusque Jimmy Page-style hook. The rapid-fire opening to “Lady Luck” is anchored by what sounds like a church organ. In Steve Vai, Roth had a guitar player who managed to compliment his vocals in a way even Eddie Van Halen couldn’t; rather than drown out the singer, Vai padded out the backdrop, building the cement from which Roth could extend his vocal cords.

Invariably, David Lee Roth pulls himself back before making that dive into cock-rock pastiche a la Steven Tyler during the Permanent Vacation era, as the admittedly ridiculously-titled “Hammerhead Shark” testifies. Following a verbal exertion in depth and dimension at the appropriate moment, Roth brings it down to sing “be-bop-a-lula” in a nursery rhyme vein.

“Tell the Truth” throws some jazzy inflections into the mix, proving that Roth had much more to his arsenal than the 12-bar blues the Van Halen brothers offered him across six albums. By the time “Babys on Fire” comes on, Roth has more than proven himself as a performer, meriting this rendition of a hair metal track, which is a fun time for the singer and audience.

The Warner Recordings (1985-1994) boasts 50 songs, which might trouble casual fans, but the open-minded will enjoy this hefty tome as a warts and all exposé. In many ways, this is the most open David Lee Roth will be outside of writing an autobiography, as the set encompasses the entirety of the singer’s spectrum. Slide-heavy standout “Sensible Shoes” could easily have appeared on a Muddy Waters record, just as “No Big Ting” could sit on a white reggae playlist beside 10cc, the Clash and the Police.

Curiously, Roth reunited with Van Halen for the underwhelming A Different Kind of Truth in 2012, a work fixated on replicating 1970s stadium rock through a series of aggravated guitar hooks and derivative choruses. Where that album sounded dated and stale as soon as it was issued to the public, The Warner Recordings (1985-1994) is the workings of an artist pushing himself to new, surprising terrains where he aimed to deliver a professional sound, without sacrificing the bubbly persona who fronted one of the most successful metal acts America has produced.

David Lee Roth is more than a pretty singer who used to front a group. He was a vocalist of resilience and impressive ingenuity.

RATING 8

A couple of reviews seem on Amazon:

I don’t think these are remasters. In fact, there’s no mention of these being remasters apart from on this Amazon listing. Eat ‘Em and Smile still as sounds murky and low volume as it always has.

A nice package if you’ve not got DLR’s work already, but otherwise nothing new here.

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This is not remastered was very excited especially the first album still sounds low in volume David Lee Roth it’s a cheapskate for not doing this right

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NOT REMASTERED!!!
Save your money

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While David Lee Roth’s solo career never quite rose to the level of his first band (Van Halen, of course), there’s still some really good stuff worth owning and this package gets you nearly all of it, although not at a cheap price.

Included are Dave’s first 5 solo releases for $50 (as of this writing).

“Crazy From The Heat” (1985 EP)
“Eat ‘Em and Smile” (1986)
“Skyscraper” (1988)
“A Little Ain’t Enough (1991)
“Your Filthy Little Mouth” (1994)

$10 per disc is not terrible, but one disc is a 4-song EP and not a full album (“Crazy From The Heat”) and another is a pretty sub-par release imo (“Your Filthy Little Mouth”), especially if you’re looking for the VH style of flair that Dave effortlessly brought to his full-length solo debut “Eat ‘Em and Smile”.

They are advertised as newly remastered but I can’t distinguish the sound on these discs from my original copies of “Eat ‘Em and Smile” and “A Little Ain’t Enough”. The packaging is slim/effective but nothing special: 5 discs in individual sleeves that sit in a small box that holds all 5 disc sleeves. Each disc also includes a glossy color sheet replica of the album’s inner art work.

Roth of course first hit solo success while still a member of Van Halen with his solo debut EP that spawned the hit cover songs “California Girls” and “Just a Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody”. Those are fun tunes and nice to have but honestly, they should have put this 4-song EP as bonus tracks on “Eat ‘Em and Smile” and given us a 4-disc set at a better price.

My personal favorite is “Eat ‘Em and Smile” as there’s not a bad cut on that album. Did Dave out-VH the “real” VH on this one? I think so! (I prefer it to VH’s “5150″ released the same year, but your mileage may vary).

“Skyscraper” is still in that VH style, but something of a watered down version of “Eat ‘Em and Smile” to me. A few good songs, but mostly not his best songwriting and overall just lacking the punch that his previous release delivered. “Knucklebones” is a great deep cut and the hits “Just Like Paradise” and “Damn Good” are great too. “Stand Up” is another standout track but overall it’s a full step down from his debut in my opinion and it would mark the end of the original lineup of Dave’s stellar solo band with Steve Vai and Billy Sheehan moving on (only drummer Gregg Bissonnette would contribute to Roth’s 3rd album).

“A Little Ain’t Enough” is also less consistent than “Eat ‘Em and Smile” but also has some of my very favorite DLR songs: “Sensible Shoes” and “Tell The Truth” are just great bluesy rock and songs like “It’s Showtime!” and “Baby’s On Fire” would have fit nicely on a Van Halen album had he still been in that band. Overall, a 3 or 4-star album but there are some 5-star songs…

The plot is kinda lost with “Your Filthy Little Mouth” imo as not much from that one ever grew on me, but if you like that album more than me and want the best possible sound quality for your DLR collection, then it makes sense to get this set.

BUT… if you’re not a completist and aren’t super picky about having the absolute best sound quality possible, I would think it makes more sense just to buy the individual albums you want as I would think they’d be available for a pretty low price. The two truly essential releases for me would be “Eat ‘Em and Smile” and “A Little Ain’t Enough”. Adding his best-of collection called “The Best” gets you 3 of the 4 songs on “Crazy From The Heat” and a few cuts from “Skyscraper” and “Your Filthy Little Mouth” too and that would probably be considerably cheaper and serve the casual fan better than this set.

NOTE: Roth has two solo albums done after the 5 albums featured in this set: “DLR Band” (1998) which was recorded in 10 days and mostly sounds like it, although there are a few worthwhile tracks; his last album from 2003 (“Diamond Dave”) is an entertaining listen if you don’t mind Roth in bluesy and more ‘laid back’ mode. It has four songs written by Savoy Brown’s Chris Youlden and a slew of covers, not all of which quite work, but his update of “Ice Cream Man” and cover of the Jimi Hendrix classic “If 6 Was 9″ show Dave’s knack for interpreting (or RE-interpreting) songs written by others into a style all his own.

These are most definitely remastered, just not too different than the originals. Except Your Filthy Little Mouth, which is not as brickwalled as the 1994 release. For me, it’s the only album in this set that I would consider an upgrade.

Numbers don’t lie. Check out the dynamic range of the originals vs. the new versions here:
https://www.dr.loudness-war.info/?artist=david+lee+roth&album=

Thanks for the info Jason. I “found” the DLR Collection in 24-192 FLAC format online.
I will likely stick with the FLAC sets created from the decades old DLR CDs in my collection.
To me, most modern “remasters” sound worse than the original issues.

The Warner Recordings 1985-1994 debuts on two charts in the U.K. this frame. It sold well enough to appear on a pair of purchase-centric tallies, as the collection quickly became a must-own for those who have loved Roth throughout his career.

The set opens at No. 77 on the Official Physical Albums chart. It comes in just three spaces below that position on the Official Albums Sales ranking.

Doctor Rhino Unboxes David Lee Roth – The Warner Recordings 1985-1994

15% off until Monday night
https://store.rhino.com/en/rhino-store/artists/david-lee-roth/

Take 15% off on nearly* everything in the Rhino store and get free U.S. shipping on orders of $50 or more from now until Friday, November 28th at 11:59pm PT.

*Some exclusions apply. Offer valid until Friday, November 28th at 11:59pm PT.

https://store.rhino.com/collections/david-lee-roth