Van Halen’s final studio album A Different Kind Of Truth has returned to streaming platforms.
The 2012 album featuring the return of David Lee Roth and the debut of Wolfgang Van Halen, had disappeared from Spotify and Apple Music in 2022, leading fans to wonder why. During an October 2023 appearance on Sirius/XM’s Trunk Nation, Wolfgang commented on the album’s disappearance, hinting that it was Roth who was preventing its return.
“The contract ran out on putting it up on streaming services,” said Wolfgang. “So we’ve been working on getting it back, but there are some people involved who do not like that record and are not making it easy to get it back up.”
When asked by host Eddie Trunk if the “people” who were preventing the album from returning were also “involved with the record,” Wolfgang replied: “Yeah.” Trunk then asked, “Might that person commonly be known by three initials?” Wolfgang’s response: “Probably. I mean, yeah, you can put it together. I hate to say it, because people will think I’m making stuff up, but it’s, like, man, I’d love to have the record back up there, but he doesn’t like it and he’s not working with us to get it back up there. So I hope people who like it have a physical version of it. [Laughs]”
Earlier this year, Roth responded through a video posted to YouTube titled “Family Therapy…”. Roth voiced a scene depicting Wolfgang with a therapist who is listening to Wolfgang complain that his “LP” (presumably A Different Kind Of Truth) isn’t getting any streams. The therapist responds by bluntly stating that the album was “DOA (dead on arrival)”, “KTC (kicked to the curb), and “a complete FP (faceplant)”, adding, “Son, commercially speaking, you got your ass handed to you.”
Roth (still in therapy character mode) then implied that there was more than one person behind why the album was removed from streaming platforms. Roth revealed that he and Alex Van Halen decided against putting it back into the streaming universe. They both felt it wasn’t worth the money spent on high-priced attorneys to negotiate a better deal with the record company and streaming platforms for an album that doesn’t match up with the band’s previous Dave-era albums.
No official word has been given as to what led the album back onto streaming services.