Best Van Halen Album

haha, why am i NOT surprised that there's so much "Fair Warning" love on ILX?

From allmusic:

This album ain't a whole lotta fun. Fair Warning is the first Van Halen album that doesn't feel like a party.

I listened to this a little while back for the first time in probably 25 years. It's a record that's simultaneously depressing AND entertaining. Definitely VHs one "art" record.

no votes for van halen ii? :(

yeah 2 is rad, fair warning is soo lame, halen trying to be all street wtf

I relistened to Fair Warning the other week and didn't like it as much as I thought I did - 'Mean Streets' and 'Unchained' are both great (the tough VH sound really works on those two) but a lot of the album sort of passed me by. I've only heard II once, I need to give it another go.

OK, what joker voted for "III"?!?!

i don't like fair warning that much overall, but push comes to shove is a jam and a half

no votes for van halen ii? :(

That album is basically part 2 of the debut, so no wonder really. I like II, but they did the exact same thing even better on the debut.

VH = best example of a virtuoso musician who (at least in the Roth days) used his talents to add additional color to the songs rather than letting wanky virtuosity BECOME the song. flourishes, mostly, and god were they good.

btw, Women and Children First getting this little love? come the fuck on now!

Complicated, but I'm not sure I'd consider Eddie Van Halen a virtuoso. That is, I don't think EVH is such an adept guitarist he can play anything. Like Lindsey Buckingham, he's more of a self-taught, sui generis sort of guy. I mean, has anyone ever heard anything featuring EVH sitting in with someone else? Can he play well with others?

he can't even play well with his own band anymore

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdFJTbaFcZ0

^^ that's awful. i've never heard EVH play so badly.

listen to that idiotic crowd clapping too

Ha, I actually posted that only because it shows him playing with other folks. So I sought out whatever jam session it was that teamed him with Tony Levin and ... Jan Hammer? Anyway, I saw that it was a Les Paul tribute, so I figure maybe it was something oddly Les Paul-ish. Then I play the original clip, and it's "Hot for" fucking "Teacher!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1VOcZ280vA

actually, the intro on the real clip is pretty noodly. only marginally better than the sanders pisstake.

haha

Complicated, but I'm not sure I'd consider Eddie Van Halen a virtuoso. That is, I don't think EVH is such an adept guitarist he can play anything. Like Lindsey Buckingham, he's more of a self-taught, sui generis sort of guy. I mean, has anyone ever heard anything featuring EVH sitting in with someone else? Can he play well with others?

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, June 21, 2011 4:22 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol I see Josh has been at this for awhile!

my guitar teacher in hs loved van halen, and so I learned some of their songs back when. but I've only recently been able to appreciate this band's music. guitar magazines ruined so much good stuff for me for too long.

lol @ posting a St Sanders "shreds" video as an example.

Would have went with Fair Warning.

20+ years ago i saw him stumble drunkenly onstage during a simon and garfunkel reunion at a bridge school benefit and attempt to solo along with "sound of silence"

two of the all-round better albums got 0 votes (i am not talking about 5150 for the record).

xpost holy shit, you saw that? That gets special put-down status in the Sammy Hagar book. Here it is in all its WTF-nesss:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzZsl1YVkZw

Oh no. What a terrible idea.

that is worse than st sanders

oh my that was horrible. strange how he wasn't even remotely able to complement the song, even after several minutes, but i guess he was off in his own little world.

Ie, apparently dead drunk.

it would be hard to complement 'Sound of Silence' with a run of notes played as fast as EVH would prefer to play them.

also just the idea of S&G softly cooing

'Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence'

and then *guitar solo*

it could be a fantastic solo, but it would still ruin the song

LOS ANGELES – Van Halen will release its first-ever live album to feature original singer David Lee Roth. Recorded on June 21, 2013 at the famed Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan, TOKYO DOME LIVE IN CONCERT includes 23 songs, spanning all seven of the band’s albums with Roth. It will be released as a double CD; four-LP set on 180-gram vinyl; and digitally beginning March 31, 2015. ...

The band recently went back to the original analog tapes and remastered both of these landmark albums – Van Halen and 1984 – which are now also set for release on March 31, 2015 through Warner Bros. Records with pre-orders through Amazon available now. Mastering engineer Chris Bellman, who remastered the original albums for Bernie Grundman Studios, Hollywood, CA, was enlisted for these new versions. In order to produce the original sound the band intended, Bellman cut straight from the quarter-inch tapes for CD; for 180-gram vinyl; and for the digital version. Newly mastered versions of Diver Down, Women and Children First, Van Halen II and Fair Warning are also being cut for each format and will be available soon.

god the "shreds" videos still make me giggle like an idiot

II very underrated here and just in general imo

yeah that's a really good record

I break it down like this:

Van Halen - practically perfect debut
Van Halen - some super highs, but feels sort of like leftovers from the same sessions (which is cool)

Women and Children First: Luster and novelty fading a bit.
Fair Warning: The brown sound epitomized, grungy and grim.

Diver Down: Van Halen has totally run out of steam and ideas.

1984: So cohesive and awesome I am convinced it was ghost written (*my person conspiracy theory)

BTW, I stand by my opinion that VH features a totally shit rhythm section, but I'm torn, because so many of their songs feature these insanely complex odd time breakdowns. "Unchained," "Jump," even "Why Can't This Be Love."

A ghost, you say?

http://i.imgur.com/gQLQ9UB.jpg

haha, the fuck just happened to my picture of Michael McDonald?

He's a ghost!! QAhhhhh!

I don't know how the copyright holder did that, but kudos.

http://i.imgur.com/wjZpD8O.png

He's the root of my conspiracy, actually. So, Diver Down had the guys totally out of ideas, and they were so drunk/drugged out. Then blam, here comes 1984, which showcases a band at the peak of its powers, pop or otherwise. Totally tight. Yet the initial run did not credit Michael M for "I'll Wait," which makes me think there were other ringers involved too, who either didn't sue/question or were dealt with more quietly.

Can he play well with others?

This is a pretty interesting/sad interview with Eddie (and Steve Morse and Albert Lee) on an occasion when he had a little trouble sitting in:
http://www.stevemorse.info/interviews/199105musician.html

(VH's manager subsequently left an angry message on Musician magazine's answering machine, calling the interviewer "a k*ke.")

new live album and another round of remasters in the offing.

well as long as they don't include 23 songs, spanning all seven of the band’s albums with Roth, that'll be fine.

First I've heard.

Josh, no offense intended, but you really should try to keep up with these things

Did you hear the news?

Poor EZ Snappin, has a hard time sitting in with others.

I found a press release, too:

LOS ANGELES – Van Halen will release its first-ever live album to feature original singer David Lee Roth. Recorded on June 21, 2013 at the famed Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan, TOKYO DOME LIVE IN CONCERT includes 23 songs, spanning all seven of the band’s albums with Roth. It will be released as a double CD; four-LP set on 180-gram vinyl; and digitally beginning March 31, 2015. ...
The band recently went back to the original analog tapes and remastered both of these landmark albums – Van Halen and 1984 – which are now also set for release on March 31, 2015 through Warner Bros. Records with pre-orders through Amazon available now. Mastering engineer Chris Bellman, who remastered the original albums for Bernie Grundman Studios, Hollywood, CA, was enlisted for these new versions. In order to produce the original sound the band intended, Bellman cut straight from the quarter-inch tapes for CD; for 180-gram vinyl; and for the digital version. Newly mastered versions of Diver Down, Women and Children First, Van Halen II and Fair Warning are also being cut for each format and will be available soon.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, March 3, 2015 8:37 AM (3 hours ago)

now we're snappin at eddie's tempo!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5781HJqnhBk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krsai3plmKw

Like the Edge and U2, if I was forming a Van Halen tribute band, there is no guitarist I'd rather have than Eddie Van Halen.

brings a tear to the eye

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvSjJyQ6Pto

btw, this is what I see on my browser at work:

http://i.imgur.com/O6yxiqV.png

Went home last night, saw this page on a different screen, and MM looked fine. Some of you probably thought I was nuts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkaqpNsZKwE

These clips are horrible. I didn't expect much form a live record cut on the last tour, but ugh.

they had me on my knees, just begging for that last chorus of Panama

if you change your guitar's low E string, you know it's not ready for prime time until you can play the chorus of Panama and stay in tune

Yeah, we're runnin' a little bit hot tonight.

I can barely see the thread from the heat comin' off of it.

Ah, you place your mouse pointer between the 'g' and 'P', ease the seat back.

She's flag postin'. I'm flag postin'.

listening to 1984 it's such an odd blockbuster pop metal album....opens with a 1:30 Vangelis song then there's not a guitar til about halfway thru "Jump"...

obv it's got hits but there's also so many "prog in miniature" moments, little odd breakdowns or places where Eddie plays fancy 9th chords or some shit, weird touches that don't have to be there and make the song less commercial if anything but Eddie makes it work....or just having a hit with the ominous synths of "I'll Wait" they could really do it all

also like he's so much more fluid than every other pop metal guitar hero, he sounds like liquid mercury

also Alex and Ted Templeman never went for the big "Phil Collins" gated snare and huge cannon toms thing so the recording actually sounds a lot less dated than a lot of 80s stuff

like first 30 seconds of Top Jimmy is a good example, the weird little harmonic pattern is gorgeous but what other band of their era would start a song like that (that wasn't at least cod prog like Triumph or something?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8lFZdGpYhQ

Hard to believe 5150 is the followup - talk about two records light years apart on so many levels.

3,166 levels to be exact.

xpost I'm not sure there was enough sonic room for a big, booming gated snare. I think it was Jimmy Page who opined that you can either mix up the drums or mix up the guitar, but you can't do both. LZ obvious mixes the drums high, Phil Collins/Genesis was sort of radical for pushing the drums super high in the mix, but those 80s Genesis songs have virtually no guitar, let alone big guitars. VH goes for the guitar, which is also taking up a ton of sonic real estate. A big poosh-y snare in VH would detract from the guitar.

The toms and cymbals of "I'll Wait" comes as close to Collins, i suppose, but some fine trap-work and production on that track, fer sure.

These days, i go back to Women and Children First, moreso than any other of their albums.

xpost And not a coincidence, the guitar plays second fiddle on that track, at least until the solo.

Listening to the Gary Cherone album Balance right now (don't judge me motherfucker)

but anyway, like I swear to god his Hagar impersonation is uncanny.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYMcSHzHqxA