The Tapes Archive

Chapter 5: The Van Halen Records

What a great band comes down to is great records. Without great albums, nobody would hear the band, nobody would go see the band, and nobody would care whether or not they were born in Holland or if the band’s name really was a German armored personnel carrier. If a record contains good music, it doesn’t matter if it took six days to record or six years. If a record is appealing and strikes a winning chord in millions of people’s heads, then it will go platinum. What we have here is a loud, rowdy band that has made six clean, powerful records that have generated record-breaking tours and created larger-than-life personalities. Just what’s so great about those records is something different to everyone who owns them. But it’s worth taking time to listen to them again and hear the momentum build.

Van Halen I

Coming out of the bars and into our homes, Van Halen announced themselves with the overwhelming opening chord blasts on Runnin’ with the Devil. With David Lee Roth telling us he’s “living at a pace that kills” and then screaming that scream around Eddie Van Halen’s short furious solos, Van Halen opens with a fusillade that tells the listener straight-up what this band is all about. Then, without hesitation, Eddie goes into his trickbag Eruption solo, leading to the remake of You Really Got Me. Its edges are tinged with menacing feedback. As if that barrage isn’t enough, Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love comes up next, the song from Van Halen that Eddie thinks most typified the band in 1978, with its high cymbal ticking from Alex, “Hey, Hey, Hey” chorus and delayed, almost sitar-like guitar solo.

That rousing opening was topped off with the high-speed boogie of I’m the One. complete with  acappella refrain, contains 15 minutes of blistering “big rock” that was clearly music of a different ilk than that made by the Aerosmiths of the day. Its refreshing energy and loose-limbed exuberance, enhanced by being recorded “live,” set it apart from and above the hard rock norm. That was certainly apparent to listeners as the album began almost a two-year stay on Billboard’s Top 200 album chart.

But critical response to Van Halen was mixed. Several scribes at England’s MELODY MAKER were smitten, acknowledging Eddie’s “impressive work” and citing the album as an “outstanding” debut and as “unquestionably one of the greatest heavy-rock releases of our time.” Creem, in a typically non-committal review, thought the album “accomplished musically” and “plain old kinetic.” while CRAWDADDY had little good to say about Roth’s “spattered-ba- con-grease lead vocals” and Eddie’s “look-ma-no-hands leads.”

But who was reading? The album’s second side leads off with one of the band’s best originals Jamie’s Cryin’, about a girl who says no. Other highlights include Eddie’s manic and slightly tipsy solo on the futuristic foray Atomic Punk and the then “daring” acoustic guitar blues of Ice Cream Man, the first of many recording risks by a band too cocky to think twice.

Finally, check out the album cover for a glimpse of how our boys really were in ’78. The sweaty inside sleeve photos reveal just how young the band was when they made it. But more hilarious is the back cover shot of David Lee Roth: those platform shoes, the long hair, the leather pants, the bare chest (which has proved to be Roth’s most prominent feature). Looks kind of like Ted Nugent, doesn’t he?

Van Halen II

Speaking of album covers, this is the one for which Roth broke his foot. The front features the flying VH logo, while the back finds each band member doing his thing, with Roth executing one of his patented flying splits. Well, it seems that David Lee came down wrong when performing the pictured leap and snapped one of his royal bones.

Thus, on the record’s inner sleeve, Roth rests on a stool attended by a string of buxom nurses, with a bandaged appendage prominently displayed. This was just the first in a series of bone-splitting mishaps for the furry vocalist.

Album number two opens with a cover of You’re No Good taken at a droogish pace, with that followed by what was to become the album’s hit, the appealing melody of Dance the Night Away. Now, it’s the norm to start an album with a cut released as a single and rarely a cover of an old song, and that was the order preferred by the band’s producer, Ted Templeman. The guys, though, chose the ominous thud of You’re No Good over the commercial appeal of Dance. See, they feared their fans would be scared away by the relative tameness of Dance, and so Templeman, realizing the self-assured naturalness of Van Halen’s success, was overruled. Didn’t seem to hurt the single’s appeal as it filled the country’s airwaves. No Van Halen single neared its success until (Oh) Pretty Woman from the fifth album.

Many fans and critics eagerly had awaited Van Halen II, curious to see whether or not the band was one-shot wonder and if they could top their stunning debut. But the band apparently entertained no worry, scurrying in and out of the studio in even less time than it took for their first vinyl creation. The pencil pushers at MELODY MAKER once again were impressed, calling II “stronger and more accessible” than the debut, and Robert Christgau, dean of rock critics and music editor at the VILLAGE VOICE, uncovered some spare good words calling the band’s music “heavy metal that’s pure, fast and clean.” The best ROLLING STONE could come up with, though, was a portrait of the quartet as “flawless thud rockers.”

It seems, upon re-evaluation, that Van Halen II isn’t quite as raw and startling as the band’s reckless debut. The songs aren’t as distinct from each other as those on Van Halen, but that doesn’t mean they don’t kick ass or pump up the blood just as well. The flippant good times of Beautiful Girls (a single that bombed) and the non-stop boogie on Bottoms Up! both display the party in the band’s music as well as their single greatest outside obsession—females. The entire album is notable for Eddie Van Halen’s increased use of harmonics in solo and ensemble play. Light Up the Sky features some phased chorus vocals signaling an increased studio sophistication, while Eddie’s solo spot, the acoustic speed sketch Spanish Fly, acknowledged that the band knew from whence their musical development was coming, as well as Eddie’s expanding abilities and techniques on guitar. The guitarist always has had a flair for the experimental, spending hours alone “inventing” new guitar noises, and he has told of his enjoyment in getting the band’s albums to “flow” by including splashy instrumental breaks and intros. On this and each ensuing album, his solos are included not so that he can show off but just so he can have fun.

Women and Children First

Well, now, back to important stuff like album covers. This is the record that originally included the Helmut Newton poster of David Lee Roth in chains, and in retrospect, that seems appropriate. For all the talk of Eddie Van Halen’s maturing guitar style and the band’s increasing power, little is made of the development of David Lee Roth as a sex symbol and mouthpiece. Throughout Van Halen’s first two albums, Roth’s yelping increased and became more piercing, his voice almost a fourth instrument trying to cut through the monolithic crunch of Alex’s drums and the dense vibration of Michael Anthony’s biting bass. But it’s here on Women and Children First, that Roth really begins to strut his stuff.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that he has some of the band’s best songs to date to play with. But Roth’s rapping on Women really sets him up as the bawdy, sexy, come-on artist he so loves to be. Everybody Wants Some!!, with its jungle drums and baying intro, is one of the band’s all-time best numbers with the surging, blatant desire of its chorus and Roth’s infamous “leave- ’em-on” striptease rap. But he’s just warming up. Roth talks in and out of the verses on the blues grinder Fools; looks for “somebody to squeeze” on Romeo’s Delight while doing his best breathy Robert Plant imitation; yells, laughs and does “Mayday” radio squawks through Loss of Control; and fishes out a gin-soaked blues croak for Take Your Whiskey Home and the in-studio-first, totally acoustic Could This Be Magic (with Eddie on slide). On Women and Children First, Roth’s “Van Halen-ese” lyric style grows up and reaches puberty. The man of many words tries to expand his vocabulary and don more than one vocal guise and at least gets respect for trying.

At least from some. PEOPLE magazine didn’t take too kindly to Van Halen’s third, unrepentant in giving the album a solid F grade. ROLLING STONE at least acknowledged some songs as “works of high-volume art” despite describing the band as having tossed “melody—along with subtlety and good manners—straight out the barroom door.” (Maybe that’s really a compliment.) But, for the first time, CREEM managed unadulterated praise.

And the fans plainly offered unadulterated affection, sending Women and Children straight up to number six, going head to head with industry blockbusters like Pink Floyd, Billy Joel, Bob Seger, Linda Ronstadt, and Eric Clapton (Eddie on a level with his idol). The young upstarts had struck again, and all without the help of a hit, And the Cradle Will Rock being the only single release and managing just a brief visit to the 55th position. The boys had fun with this one with its palsy acoustic cuts, noisy preludes, fade-in codas, and even the first appearance of keyboards played through Eddie’s wall of amps on Cradle. Van Halen convinced many with Women and Children First that they were no flashes and that a loud, sexy, sharp sound made by talented musicians having one helluva good time can be just as popular and important as any million-dollar superstar production. (Trivia note: only album title of more than two words.)

Fair Warning

It’s funny how the tastes and preferences of the critics and the public can pass each other like ships in the night. So it was with Fair Warning, the most critically acclaimed of the first four Van Halen albums but the least taken to by the record-buying masses. Eddie Van Halen’s guitar playing takes a giant step on Fair Warning, and the band’s sound seems even more sure and as big and overwhelming as ever. The group spent more time in the studio on Warning than on any previous album, but something didn’t click with the fans. Sure, three weeks after it came out, it rose to number five on Billboard’s chart, a new high, but it fell off completely in just 23 weeks, the shortest chart stay for any Van Halen album. And not one of its cuts cracked the singles chart, a first and last for the band. Despite complaints of a lack of Warner’s promotional effort, the album just didn’t grab hold like its predecessors.

But if some kids cooled to the sound, more and more critics climbed on the bandwagon. In a VILLAGE VOICE review, noted rock writer Ken Tucker dubbed the band ‘ ‘the coolest American heavy metal band.” (For some reason, the critics have never been able to stop thinking of Van Halen as heavy metal when they plainly are not.) Both AUDIO and VARIETY magazines gave the album a B +, their highest grades yet. (“The boys showed improved writing and working skills but still suffer from unruliness, short attention spans and continually pester the girls,” the teachers said.) PEOPLE even found it in its gossipy pages to tell mainstream America that Fair Warning was C— material, a considerable improvement. GUITAR PLAYER made a comment, as did many, that “Eddie’s not only red-hot, he’s expanding.” And CREEM’s John Stix noted that Fair Warning was a “breakthrough album” showing a “great leap forward” in Van Halen’s guitar playing.

Warning contains more overdubbing than any previous album, and Eddie has said that he prepared himself more for this recording than any other. There is certainly more variety and subtlety in his playing than previously, and his work is awesome for its breadth—he seems to get a myriad of new sounds from his guitars. The album’s highlight is the sultry kick-funk of Push Comes to Shove. On it. Eddie fully integrates his guitar into the concept of the song, from some slippery chording and brief dancing breaks to his full-blown, cartwheeling solo that mixes tricky bends with his high-speed signatures. He chugs and squeals through the knifing on Mean Street, unravels a long, sinuous melodic line when the prom queen goes porno on “Dirty Movies,” and cuts loose his only “live” solo on the anxious boogie of the song with the F- word, Sinner’s Swing. And his playing seems to have inspired his brother because Alex’s drumming is more propelling and inventive on Fair Warning than before. It becomes notable as more than just “end-of-the-world” crashing for the first time.

The album also features several other curiosities. We get the first recorded appearance of the band’s stated fifth member, Ted Templeman, on Unchained, as the producer implores Roth to “give me a break.” Dave complies. And we’re treated to Van Halen’s first instrumental keyboard piece, Sunday Afternoon in the Park, on which Eddie plugs a mini-synth into his Marshall amps and plays monster with Alex. The following One Foot Out the Door contains a keyboard melody as well, and clocking in at one minute and 56 seconds finishes the band’s shortest album— 30:58.

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