The Tapes Archive

Diver Down

Coming off their poorest-selling album and, paradoxically, the one they’d spent the most time on, Van Halen went into the studio and cranked out the variety show of Diver Down for less money than they’d spent on any album. The result clearly mystified critics as the unpredictable band always seemed to do and pleased fans.

The vicious pre-album cover of Roy Orbison’s (Oh) Pretty Woman, only the second Van Halen song without a guitar solo ever, shot up to #10, garnering new success for the band and necessitating the rapid turnout of long-playing product. Thus, the band may have been a bit unequipped with original material when they hastily put old together with new on Diver Down, but they ended up concocting their most complete album. With four originals, five covers and three of Eddie’s guitar/noise experiments to make it flow, Diver Down is the most assured aural representation of the free-wheeling spirit the band has come to represent. The album climbed even higher than Fair Warning on the charts, looking down from number three for three weeks, topped only by Paul McCartney and Asia.

The somewhat slapdash appearance of Diver Down didn’t settle too well with Van Halen’s friends across the sea at MELODY MAKER, as those wordsmiths called it “the worst yet,” saying the band had started well and “worked their way to the bottom.” VARIETY opined that the album was “salvaged only by the meatgrinder covers.” But several reviewers at the rather staid AUDIO magazine finally admitted that “a finer bunch of players of this genre is difficult to find.” The reviewer in the VILLAGE VOICE, a weekly not noted for its affection for loud, popular music, called Diver “even better than its four platinum predecessors.” Not many people argued with that. Eddie readily admitted that Diver Down was just plain fun to make. His guitar pieces, ranging from the intricate Latin lines of the Little Guitars intro to the riotous, elephantine noisemaking on Intruder (recorded as an extension for the video of (Oh) Pretty Woman), are perfect transitions for the original and cover mix. His synthesizer arrangement for Dancing in the Street (the LP’s second single) was his most advanced of such work yet. The playful acoustic run-through of the old blues novelty tune Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now) features the Van Halen brothers’ father on clarinet, Michael Anthony on mariachi bass, Alex swishing the brushes and David Lee Roth doing his best blackface. Secrets is the closest thing to a ballad Van Halen had done, and, with Eddie’s notably uncrazy guitar work, is one of the album’s highlights. The no-brakes boogie of The Full Bug is as aggressive and stomping as the band gets and even has the bonus of real David Lee Roth acoustic guitar and harmonica playing, as well as a short but sweet fusion break from Eddie that’s an acknowledged nod to one of his current influences, Allan Holdsworth. There’s a lot to pick and choose from on Diver Down, more than the album often is credited with.

1984

After an uncharacteristically long time between albums, who would have predicted that Van Halen’s sixth and soon-to-prove most successful album would start with a quietly majestic synthesizer introduction? And who could have known that the band would finally find the combination of rollicking abandon, bone-crushing rock, and acute pop-savvy to produce not just a number-one single but one of the best albums of the year of the album’s title?

For the first time, there’s not a weak spot on a Van Halen album. The obviously painstaking effort and time spent in the studio makes this record shine like none of those before it while still retaining the fresh, hot-to-the-touch, live feel. The hours Eddie Van Halen had spent in his new home studio playing, fiddling around, learning, and ’’noodling” are evident in the layered, meaty sound and intricate overdubbed guitar. Check out Drop Dead Legs for some yowling guitar leads over drop-kicked rhythm fills. His willingness to experiment, evident on each Van Halen album, shows here in the chances he and the band took recording two synthesizer-based tunes like Jump! and this-time-for-real ballad and the album’s second single, /’// Wait. It’s not without risk that a band whose livelihood owes much to the hottest guitarist in rock heads off into synthesizer land. On 1984, Van Halen temporarily took themselves out of the arena, made themselves a studio band, and struck gold doing it (or, more truthfully, struck quadruple platinum).

Not that they didn’t have fun. Just listen to David Lee as he works himself into a tizzy on Hot for Teacher. Any worries about Van Halen getting synth-wimpy are easily dissuaded by the manic guitar drive of Teacher and the album’s third single (and second 1984 video), Panama. Those two songs, with Eddie cutting loose some of his juiciest, whiplashing riffs (see also Girl Gone Bad), are as hot as any boogie or brawl on record anywhere. Yet what makes the album so great, in addition to the amazing continued expansion of Eddie Van Halen’s guitar vocabulary, is that a song like I’ll Wait can follow Hot For Teacher and not slow the momentum one iota (due in part perhaps to Eddie’s most complete and emotionally deep guitar solo on /’// Wait). Part of that success lies in Eddie’s superior melodies, but much credit must also go to the massive work of brother Alex. His rumbling, warp speed intro to Teacher and Tomtom breaks on I’ll Wait are just as important to Van Halen’s sound as Eddie’s guitar.

1984 was a shock and is a revelation, but more importantly it’s a giant jump ahead for Van Halen. The album even managed to convert ROLLING STONE, whose reviewer gave it four of a possible five stars. (They still haven’t made the cover, though.) 1984 made everyone realize there is much more to this band than long hair, loud music, and childish bluster. It doesn’t just show the skill and musicianship of Van Halen but also serves notice that even after six years and albums, there’s no limit to the potential in this California time bomb. While 1984 continues to hang out in the Top 20 more than six months after its release, many can’t wait for what’s next. No doubt it’ll be full of surprises. The devilish innocence of the cigarette-smoking angel on the album’s cover seems the perfect image for the band. It almost looks like a boyish David Lee Roth. Now, if they’d just say what those shiny metal pods are that are pictured on the album’s inner sleeve. . . . 

Chapter 6: The Van Halen Party

Hey, hold on! Whose party is this, anyway? Who’s having more fun? Twenty thousand screaming fans bathing in the sound and light of another world tour of the four Californians on stage doing the exact same thing? Put those two groups together, and there simply is nothing you can do to stop the mayhem.

The only thing left to do is join the party, no matter what your tastes in music, even if you’ve already decided you hate David Lee Roth.

It’s infectious, contagious, just plain overwhelming. Van Halen- the music, facade, talent, obnoxiousness, popularity it all boils down to one thing: people having fun and lots of it. They let us party with them every night, and they let us believe that succeeding can be fun, and they let us see ourselves on stage creating the best big rock in the world. Hey, all you have to do is let go and join in. It’s your party too. Go ahead and jump! Hey Dave, Eddie, Michael, Alex, wait up!!