David Lee Roth: The Best

David Lee Roth titled one of the least well-known of his decreasingly popular solo albums A Little Ain't Enough; unfortunately, this collection proves the opposite to be true. A single dose of Roth will pretty much supply all the pop-metal showmanship you need. That's not to say that The Best is without its pleasures—far from it. There's something undeniably appealing about hearing David Lee Roth trade quips with Steve Vai's talking guitar at the beginning of "Yankee Rose," or the should-have-been 90210 theme "Just Like Paradise," but 20 tracks really stretches things about 15 tracks too far. Factor in that at least some of the affection for this material may stem from misguided nostalgia, and add to that the fact that the money spent on this could be spent on something legitimately great (or Roth's considerably more entertaining jumble of an autobiography). Divide it all by the number of tracks you're not going to listen to more than once (basically everything after Vai's 1988 departure—there's something about Roth that needs a wanky guitar expert to balance him), and you have no real reason to pick this up.