Anticipation was high for the Van Halen reunion with David Lee Roth in the summer of 1996 when it was revealed that Sammy Hagar had departed the ranks of the SoCal party rockers and their OG singer had returned to the fold. Unfortunately, the (re)union was short-lived, and after a disastrous fallout at the MTV Video Music Awards that year it was announced DLR was, once again, out.
Two songs came out of the brief reconvening though, the first being the single “Me Wise Magic,” which dropped a month following Roth’s exit and was part of the band’s first ever hits collection, Best Of – Volume One. Over at Ultimate Classic Rock, I looked at how the track came about, the difficulties in making it, and how it fared in the wake of the crashing and burning of the oh-so-typical VH situation. Read all about it here.
As a bonus, here’s the brothers Van Halen talking about why things failed so spectacularly with their frontman nemesis post the MTV VMAs:
The Chronicles of Michael Christopher 
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