Man, as the headline states, could this year get any worse?

Eddie Van Halen, TMZ reports, has passed away at the age of 65.

For the past decade, it was reported, he had been battling throat cancer and, finally, it spread to his brain and other organs.

As someone who grew up in the 1970’s and 1980’s, Eddie Van Halen and his band, Van Halen, were one of the big ones that were heard frequently on the radio. Lead singer David Lee Roth provided plenty of swagger as the lead singer but Eddie Van Halen’s guitar work was impressive, to say the least…!

I still remember when the album 1984 was released and these songs were HUGE hits on the radio upon their release…

As should be obvious by now, my preference of Van Halen songs tends to skew toward the David Lee Roth years. They were known for their very heavy sound, certainly, but unlike some metal music acts that came later they always seemed to be playing around/goofing off. In the case of Eddie Van Halen in particular, it seemed he always played with a huge smile on his face, like he was having a blast and never taking things all that seriously.

After the release of 1984, though, things started to go south for Van Halen. There were tensions between the band and David Lee Roth and he was gone after that album and Sammy Hagar joined the group as the lead singer.

Truthfully, I can’t say I was much of a fan of that version of Van Halen, even though I have/had nothing against Mr. Hagar. It just didn’t work as well for me. Though that version of the band was together for some 10 years, Hagar left and Gary Cherone was brought in for one album (if memory serves) but lasted together only some 3 years.

David Lee Roth re-united with the band twice while Hagar re-joined once but it was always temporary and the glory days of the band, it seemed, were in the past.

For the past several years very little has been heard about Eddie Van Halen other than that he was sick, but I never knew the situation was as grave as it was and the news of his passing is a real shock.

Think I might pull out an old album and give it a whirl…