The Van Halen Appreciation Thread

donbot

So, finished work early today to get my my COVID jab. Now had a few beers and slapped some Van Halen on the hifi. I’m thinking my faves are Van Halen I and Balance. Absolutely love both these albums. 5150 really makes my willy fizz too. 

So let’s have some Van Halen stories and your fave albums and tracks listed. Nothing to do with his passing. Just let rip with some cool tunes to listen to and maybe tracks that are fun to play. 

Go...

Philly_Q

My favourite Van Halen albums are Fair Warning and Diver Down, although they're very different from each other.

Fair Warning because it's dark, nasty and slightly disturbing.  Diver Down because it's full of cheerful, funny cover songs like Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now) - my favourite VH track - and Happy Trails.

donbot

What I love about Van Halen is the cheerful up-beat tunes. Even the darker stuff seems somehow happy and lifts your spirits.

darius

Well if we’re doing albums we also need to do your fave Ed guitar -
Black & White
Black & Yellow
Red & White & Black Frankie <— that’s the one for me!
Shark bite Explorer
Musicman EVH
Peavey Wolfgang
EVH Wolfgang


For me
Women&Children First and 1984
and VH1
and VH2
and fuckin all of them. Bah. 

Zapple

All the albums are brilliant apart from III and Balance. Still can’t believe EVH is gone :-(

Schnozz

Every album including III for me, although I appreciate it is the weakest.

I actually liked EVH's Danelectro/Charvel Star the best.

donbot

Interesting, what don’t you like about Balance? 

Whitecat

Because I am super lame and because this is the last song I ever saw VH play live - 

https://youtu.be/OZGXRCI-JzQ

Philly_Q

donbot said:

Interesting, what don’t you like about Balance? 

Now that I think about it, Balance is the only one I haven't got, apart from the live albums.

Logie

My first gig was supposed to be Sabbath in early 1978 but we got tickets for AC/DC the week before and that night was the first time I heard Eruption and You really got me. When my mate told me they were the support band for Sabbath I thought he was taking the piss. Not a bad first couple of gigs.
 My favourites are 1, II and 1984 in that order ( although I like all the early Dave Lee Roth albums )  VH went a bit west coasty for me in the Sammy era and I lost interest to be honest. 

Leiversalone

Eddie's tone on those early albums has never been bettered, and Eruption is the single most influential solo in rock history. When I was 15 I watched Live Without A Net and I'm still as floored by King Edward's solo spot now as I was then. A veritable emporium of techniques and innovation. 30 years later and I'm still trying to play the intro to Mean Street. The best.  

axisus

The strange thing for me is that those early albums were so iconic, but the ones I enjoy listening to most are the Hagar era. Most of my VH listening for years has been the Hagar era. The hit singles from 5150 are amazing. Eddie and Sammy were a great team, such a shame it went pear shaped. I think that Sammy is a great guy.

I also think that VH III is vastly underrated, my only qualm with it is that Cherone doesn't sing with his normal voice, it seems like he was told to 'grit it up' a bit'. It's a very long album at 65 minutes, the superb track Year to the day clocks in at a surprisingly long 8.34. 

1984 was a mind blowing album. Hot for teacher was an incredibly exciting track and the video is still utterly brilliant.

One album I always found very weak was Diver down. Terrible artwork, chronically short at 31 minutes, 5 cover songs and the instrumentals are pretty uninspired. Very low on content. Having said that, I loved that they recorded Big Bad Bill, I had a smile a mile wide first time I heard that one.

Danny1969

Diver Down wasn't meant to be an album that was made. They came off the road and wanted a break from recording so jut put out a cover of Pretty Women to keep their name afloat while they had a rest. That single became very popular though so the label demanded an album quickly to capitalise on that single ..... so they had to go back it and come up with something, hence all the covers 

VHII is my fave I think 

cosmiccarrot

For me there's something on all the albums (even VH3!!!) but the rawness of the Dave era has lasted the test of time. The early Sammy albums had a soft over-produced sound and some what dated when I listen to them now (I especially didn't like Alex's use of the electronic kit, very Eastenders!). When Balance was released the guitar was right up there, big and aggressive in the mix again... so that was a plus for me.

If I had to pick a few they would mainly be the one's where Ed is in the uptempo boogie-groove:

I'm the one

Light up the sky

Hang em high

The full bug

Sinners swing

Not in the uptempo groove but but the rhythm is out of the world...

Dirty movies

Drop dead legs

The list is endless really!!!

Don't know if it's been posted here before but I think this was a mighty achievement to do, especially in front of a bunch of musicians! No obvious faults from start to finish.

Redlester

I like 1984. Very commercial, and it's still essentially four blokes in a room and it's a very distinctive sounding record. 

VH is an incredible musician. In a way he sums up all that had gone before in guitar hero culture, and then looks forward to what was to come. 

darius

I wore out 2 VHS's of Live Without A Net. That whole show is etched into my brain.

They were the first band to just simply bring the party. Lets go out, melt some faces and have a laugh.

Philly_Q

darius said:

They were the first band to just simply bring the party. Lets go out, melt some faces and have a laugh.

Although the music was quite different and they didn't have anywhere near the same impact, I've always thought Montrose were a prototype for Van Halen - four piece band, built around a great guitar player, big-personality frontman.... and on Warner Bros records, produced by Ted Templeman! 

It seemed quite appropriate when Sammy joined Van Halen.

Danny1969

Redlester said:

I like 1984. Very commercial, and it's still essentially four blokes in a room and it's a very distinctive sounding record. 

VH is an incredible musician. In a way he sums up all that had gone before in guitar hero culture, and then looks forward to what was to come. 

I think 1984 is mainly Eddie and Alex, first album done in what was then his primitive 5150 studio, electronic drums bar the snare, Eddy playing a lot of bass. Vocals done a lot later. 
Kind of shows how good an engineer Don Landee is to get such a great sound in such a poor space. Over the years the studio was enlarged and had much better equipment but back then it wasn't considered suitable for making a commercial record. 

Lodious

Love all the DLR albums, probably VH2 is my least favourite, but I still think it's great., His rhythm playing on Mean Streets and the outro to drop dead legs are probably my favourite bit's, but there is just so much great playing across these albums. 

I'm afraid I just don't like anything past 1984 in any way. To me, it's like all the things I liked about Van Halen have been removed. I tried a few weeks ago to get into 5150 and I just can find anything I like in it. It's lost all the interesting bits which made VH great. The humour's gone, his tone has lost it's rawness, there is no live feel, no groove, no musical chances taken. 

stratman3142

darius said:

I wore out 2 VHS's of Live Without A Net. That whole show is etched into my brain.

I've got the DVD of that. A classic.

scrumhalf

I liked VH albums less as they went on. For me the rush of the first album is unmatched. Mind you, I don't think they topped Hot For Teacher, which swings like crazy.