Van Halen is the debut studio album by American hard rock band Van Halen. Released on February 10, 1978, the album peaked at #19 on the Billboard 200. The album became widely recognized as the band´s popularity grew, selling more than 10 million copies in the United States by August 7, 1996 and being certified Diamond.[3]
Van Halen contains many of Van Halen´s signature songs, including "Runnin´ with the Devil", the guitar solo "Eruption", their remake of The Kinks hit "You Really Got Me", "Ain´t Talkin´ ´bout Love", "Jamie´s Cryin´", "Feel Your Love Tonight" and their remake of John Brim´s "Ice Cream Man".
Van Halen began recording demos in 1976. However, a three-track tape financed by Gene Simmons attracted no interest from record labels. Guitarist Eddie Van Halen was not convinced of the quality of the material because they could not make the recordings with their own equipment. Simmons left to tour with Kiss after recording the demos, but said he would try to secure Van Halen a record deal afterwards.
After recording the demos, Van Halen was offered several concerts. At a sold-out show in their hometown, Pasadena, the group's future manager, Marshall Berle, discovered the band. He and musical entrepreneur Kim Fowley paired them with punk rock band Venus and the Razorblades for a gig at the Whisky a Go Go. After being well received by Berle at the Whisky a Go Go, the band gained the attention of Mo Ostin and Ted Templeman of Warner Bros. Ostin and Templeman were impressed with the band's performance at the Starwood, and Van Halen proceeded to sign a contract with Warner. The recording of their debut album began in October 1977 and lasted only three weeks. With producer Ted Templeman, it was mostly recorded live. "Runnin' with the Devil", "Jamie's Cryin'", "Feel Your Love Tonight" and "Ice Cream Man" contain guitar overdubs. Overall, the album cost approximately $40,000 to produce.
"We didn’t have a ton of material", recalled bassist Michael Anthony, "so we basically just took our live show and all the songs we knew and went for it. The whole album took a couple of weeks. Ted Templeman wanted to make a big, powerful guitar record, and he had all he needed in what Eddie was doing."
The subsequent tour began with the band opening for Journey, along with Montrose, in the United States. They later opened for Black Sabbath in Europe and the United States.
The cover photos for Van Halen were taken at the Whisky a Go Go, a Los Angeles club at which Van Halen often performed during the mid-1970s. The guitar pictured on the cover of the album is Eddie Van Halen's famous Frankenstrat Guitar (before he added the red paint), a Fender Stratocaster replica which is now housed in the Smithsonian Institution.
In the United States, Van Halen reached number 19 on the Billboard Top 200; their debut single, a cover of The Kinks' "You Really Got Me", spent three weeks on the chart, peaking at number 36.
Soon after its February 1978 release, Van Halen became regarded by fans and critics as one of rock and roll's greatest debut albums; however, its initial critical reception was mostly negative. In 1978, Rolling Stone critic Charles M. Young predicted, "In three years, Van Halen is going to be fat and self-indulgent and disgusting ... following Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin right into the toilet. In the meantime, they are likely to be a big deal." But he also wrote that: "Van Halen's secret is not doing anything that's original while having the hormones to do it better than all those bands who have become fat and self-indulgent and disgusting. Edward Van Halen has mastered the art of lead/rhythm guitar in the tradition of Jimmy Page and Joe Walsh; several riffs on this record beat anything Aerosmith has come up with in years. Vocalist Dave Lee Roth manages the rare hard-rock feat of infusing the largely forgettable lyrics with energy and not sounding like a castrato at the same time. Drummer Alex Van Halen and bassist Michael Anthony are competent and properly unobtrusive." Village Voice critic Robert Christgau said, "For some reason Warners wants us to know that this is the biggest bar band in the San Fernando Valley ... The term becomes honorific when the music belongs in a bar. This music belongs on an aircraft carrier."
According to Rolling Stone's Holly George-Warren, with the album's release the mainstream media focused on Roth's "swaggering good looks and extroverted persona", while fans and musicians "were riveted by Eddie Van Halen's guitar mastery", which included "an array of unorthodox techniques." She notes that, even before the band's debut, "Eddie became a legend among local guitarists."
Kerrang! magazine gave the album a very positive review, and considers the album to be an "essential purchase." They wrote, "IT'S DIFFICULT to overstate the effect VH's debut had upon its release. With the music world split between punk, disco and prog rock, Van Halen combined a dazzling live show with a party-hearty motto and, in Eddie Van Halen, a guitarist who redefined what was possible on six strings. His sound on this album—christened 'The Brown Sound'—remains the holy grail of guitar tones."
On August 7, 1996, Van Halen was re-certified by the RIAA for selling ten million copies in the United States alone. One of only six rock bands to release two RIAA Diamond status albums, Van Halen remains one of Van Halen's two best-selling albums, along with 1984.
Van Halen went to Gold status on May 24, 1978, and then went to Platinum status just a few months later, on October 10, 1978. In less than a year the album sold more than one million copies in the US alone, meaning that the album was already a great success. However, on October 22, 1984, the album went to 5× Multi-Platinum status, in other words, with that, the album still had a lot to sell. The album went to 6x Multi-Platinum on February 1, 1989, and then went to 7× Multi-Platinum on September 29, 1993. In less than a year later, on July 11, 1994, the album went to 8x Multi-Platinum, and finally, on August 7, 1996, just two years later, the album went to Diamond status by RIAA.
The Van Halen album, like Van Halen's other David Lee Roth-era albums—excepting Van Halen II, which was re-certified in 2004, to coincide with the promotion of a Warner Bros. Records greatest hits collection—was last brought by Warner Bros. Records to the RIAA for re-certification in 1996, while 1984 was re-certified on February 8, 1999. The band's split with Warner Brothers in 2002, and subsequent agreement with Interscope has eliminated Warner Brothers' incentive for paying the [relatively substantial] fee to promote Van Halen's back-catalog by having its albums re-certified. Despite lack of re-certification, Van Halen's 1978 debut has continued to sell prolifically, re-appearing numerous times on the Billboard 200 and Billboard Top Pop Catalog Albums charts, as recently as 2014.
AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine described Van Halen as "monumental" and "seismic", while noting that it is typically not viewed as an "epochal generation shift" in the same way as the debut albums of Led Zeppelin, the Ramones, The Rolling Stones, and the Sex Pistols. He explains, "The reason it's never given the same due is that there's no pretension, nothing self-conscious about it." He commented: "The still-amazing thing about Van Halen is how it sounds like it has no fathers ... Like all great originals Van Halen doesn't seem to belong to the past and it still sounds like little else, despite generations of copycats." In Erlewine's opinion, the album "set the template for how rock and roll sounded for the next decade or more." A retrospective review by Q noted, "Hit singles came later, but this dazzling debut remains their trump card."
In 1994, Van Halen was ranked number eight in Colin Larkin's Top 50 Heavy Metal Albums. Larkin described it as "one of the truly great" debut albums of heavy metal. According to authors Gary Graff and Daniel Durchholz, writing in MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide (1999), Van Halen is a "headbanger's paradise"; before its release, "no one had heard or seen anything like it." In 2003, Rolling Stone, listed it among The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, at number 410. According to Rolling Stone's Joe Levy, the album "gave the world a new guitar hero and charismatic frontman" in Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth, respectively. Levy credits the tracks "Runnin' with the Devil" and "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" with "putting the swagger back in hard rock", praising Eddie Van Halen's "jaw-dropping technique", which "raised the bar for rock guitar." In 2006, Guitar World readers ranked it number 7 on a list of the Greatest Guitar Albums of All Time. In 2013, Rolling Stone listed the album at number 27 of the 100 Best Debut Albums of All Time.
On April 15, 2013, David Lee Roth was interviewed by Jay Mohr for his podcast, where he selected the album as his favorite Van Halen album.
In 2017, students of the Los Rios Rock School in San Juan Capistrano, California, re-recorded the full Van Halen album in one day with the help of the Produce Like a Pro team. The session was recorded in the same studio that Van Halen recorded in, using the same recording equipment that Van Halen originally used. The Van Halen album continues to inspire young musicians 40 years after its creation.
All tracks written by Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, David Lee Roth and Michael Anthony, except where noted.
Van Halen II is the second studio album by American hard rock band Van Halen, released on March 23, 1979. It peaked at number 6 on the Billboard 200 and spawned the singles "Dance the Night Away" and "Beautiful Girls."
As of 2004, it has sold almost six million copies in the United States. Critical reaction to the album has been positive as well, with The Rolling Stone Album Guide praising the feel-good, party atmosphere of the songs.
Recording of the album happened at Sunset Studio less than a year after the release of the band's eponymous debut album. Recording of the album began on December 10, 1978, just one week after completing their first world tour, and was complete within a week. The band used a Putnam 610 console to record the album. Many of the songs on Van Halen II are known to have existed prior to the release of the first album, and are present on the demos recorded in 1976 by Gene Simmons and in 1977 by Ted Templeman, including an early version of "Beautiful Girls" (then known as "Bring On the Girls") and "Somebody Get Me a Doctor." On the third try of the photo shoot for David Lee Roth's spread-eagle jump, which was used on the back cover, Roth landed sideways and broke a bone in his right foot.
The black-and-yellow guitar on the back of the album is buried with Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell, who was killed December 8, 2004. Eddie Van Halen placed it in his casket at his funeral because Darrell had said it was his favorite. However, Eddie himself stated in interviews that the guitar itself was not actually used on the Van Halen II album, as it had only been completed just in time for the photo shoots for the album. David Lee Roth is shown in a cast in the inner liner notes, as he allegedly broke his heel making the leap also seen in the picture on the back cover art.
In the liner notes, The Sheraton Inn of Madison, Wisconsin is thanked. On Van Halen's first tour, they stayed at the hotel and destroyed the seventh floor, having fire extinguisher fights in the hallways and throwing televisions out windows. They blamed the incidents on their tour-mates at the time, Journey.
In a 1979 Rolling Stone review, Timothy White writes, "Scattered throughout Van Halen's second album are various Vanilla Fudge bumps and grinds, an Aerosmith-derived pseudobravado, a bit of Bad Company basement funk and even a few Humble Pie miniraveups," adding that the "LP retains a numbing live feel." In a retrospective review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine from AllMusic rates Van Halen II 4 stars out of 5. He notes the album is "virtually a carbon copy of their 1978 debut," though goes on to say it is "lighter and funnier" and "some of the grandest hard rock ever made." Erlewine praises Eddie's "phenomenal gift" and Roth's "knowing shuck and jive."
It reached #6 on the Billboard 200 charts and #23 on the UK charts. Van Halen II was certified 5× Platinum in 2004. Approximately 5.7 million records have been sold in the United States as of 2004. In 2000, Van Halen II was remastered and re-released.
All tracks written by Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, Michael Anthony and David Lee Roth, except where noted.
Women and Children First is the third studio album by American hard rock band Van Halen, released on March 26, 1980 on Warner Bros. Records. Produced by Ted Templeman, it was the first to feature compositions written solely by the band, and is described by critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine as "[the] record where the group started to get heavier, both sonically and, to a lesser extent, thematically."
The opening track, "And the Cradle Will Rock...", begins with what sounds like a guitar, but is, in fact, a phase shifter-effected Wurlitzer electric piano played through Van Halen's 1960s model 100-watt Marshall Plexi amplifier.
The album is somewhat different from the band's first two albums in the way that it features more studio overdubs and less emphasis on backing vocals. "Could This Be Magic?" contains the only female backing vocal ever recorded for a Van Halen song; Nicolette Larson sings during some of the choruses. The rain sound in the background is not an effect. It was raining outside, and the band decided to record the sound in stereo using two Neumann KM84 microphones, and added it to the track.
The first single from the album was the keyboard-driven "And the Cradle Will Rock..." Although it was not a success like previous singles "Dance the Night Away" or the cover of "You Really Got Me," the album itself was well-received and further entrenched the band as a popular concert draw. The song "Everybody Wants Some!!" was also a concert staple through the 1984 tour, and continued to be played by David Lee Roth after he left Van Halen.
The album contains a track at the end of "In a Simple Rhyme," a brief instrumental piece entitled "Growth," which begins at 4:19. While "Growth" faded out on the original vinyl LP and cassette, it was given a cold ending at full volume on the compact disc. At the time the band was toying with the idea of starting what would become their next album Fair Warning with a continuation of "Growth," but this did not occur. "Growth" was a staple of the band's live shows with Roth and often used as the start of their encores. Several outtakes from these sessions exist, including an unreleased instrumental often referred to as "Act Like It Hurts," which was the title Eddie Van Halen originally wanted for "Tora! Tora!" "Act Like It Hurts" also provided a riff for "House of Pain," released on 1984.
The album version included a poster of a photograph by Helmut Newton featuring Roth chained to a fence.
"Everybody Wants Some!!" was featured in the 1985 comedy Better Off Dead, during a sequence featuring a singing, guitar-playing claymation hamburger. A nod is given to Eddie in the animation, as the hamburger's guitar sports the Frankenstrat design made famous by him. "Everybody Wants Some!!" is also featured in the 2009 film Zombieland.
In the band's licensed game, Guitar Hero: Van Halen, four of the nine tracks of this album are available for play: "And the Cradle Will Rock...," "Everybody Wants Some!!," "Romeo Delight" and "Loss of Control."
Reviews for Women and Children First were generally favorable. David Fricke for Rolling Stone highlights the songs, "Romeo Delight", "Everybody Wants Some!!", and "Loss of Control", calling them "works of high-volume art". Fricke praises the band, calling them "exceptionally good players". Both Fricke and Robert Christgau compare Eddie's guitar work to Jimi Hendrix. Christgau gives the album a B rating, stating, "Eddie earns the Hendrix comparisons, and he's no clone--he's faster, colder, more structural." In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine rated the album 4.5 stars out of 5. Erlewine calls the album, "mature, or at least get a little serious", noting "there's a bit of a dark heart beating on this record".
Kerrang! magazine listed the album at #30 among the "100 Greatest Heavy Metal Albums of All Time", and Rolling Stone listed the album at #36 in their list of "The 100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time".
All songs by Edward Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, Michael Anthony and David Lee Roth.
Fair Warning is the fourth studio album by American rock band Van Halen. Released on April 29, 1981, it sold more than two million copies, but was still the band´s slowest-selling album of the David Lee Roth era. Despite the album´s commercially disappointing sales, Fair Warning was met with mostly positive reviews from critics.
The album was listed by Esquire as one of the 75 Albums Every Man Should Own. It is their shortest album to date.
The cover artwork features a detail from The Maze, a painting by Canadian artist William Kurelek which depicts his tortured youth.
The album´s cover artwork is accompanied by an insert of a black-and-white picture of the band, as well as a view of a ghetto drywall with a wire running across it, cracked windows at the top and a Roth-era Van Halen logo with plaster cracked over the left wing. Also on the wall is a lyric from the album´s opening song, "Mean Street".
The Village Voice´s Robert Christgau rated Fair Warning a B-, signifying "a competent or mildly interesting record that will usually feature at least three worthwhile cuts." He stated that it featured "not just Eddie´s latest sound effects, but a few good jokes along with the mean ones and a rhythm section that can handle punk speed emotionally and technically." He also explained that "at times Eddie could even be said to play an expressive – lyrical? – role. Of course, what he´s expressing is hard to say. Technocracy putting a patina on cynicism".
A retrospective review by AllMusic´s Stephen Thomas Erlewine found the album fairly positive. In the review, he initially stated that "it´s a dark, strange beast, partially because it lacks any song as purely fun as the hits from the first three records" and that "whatever the reason, Fair Warning winds up as a dark, dirty, nasty piece of work." He went on to say that "dull it is not and Fair Warning contains some of the fiercest, hardest music that Van Halen ever made. There´s little question that Eddie Van Halen won whatever internal skirmishes they had, even with the lack of a single dedicated instrumental showcase". He concluded that "nastiness is the defining characteristic of Fair Warning, which certainly doesn´t make it bunches of fun, but it showcases the coiled power of Van Halen better than any other album, which makes it worth visiting on occasion."
The Rolling Stone Album Guide, however, gave the album two-and-a-half stars out of five, stating that "the most significant musical development is the synthesizer introduced at the end of Fair Warning, which would be exploited to greater effect on later albums."
All tracks written by Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, Michael Anthony and David Lee Roth.
Diver Down is the fifth studio album by American hard rock band Van Halen, released on April 14, 1982. It spent 65 weeks on the album chart in the United States and had, by 1998, sold four million copies in the United States.
The album cover artwork displays the "diver down" flag used in many US jurisdictions (which indicates a SCUBA diver is currently submerged in the area). Asked about the cover in a 1982 interview with Sylvie Simmons (Sounds, June 23, 1982), David Lee Roth said it was meant to imply that "there was something going on that´s not apparent to your eyes. You put up the red flag with the white slash. Well, a lot of people approach Van Halen as sort of the abyss. It means, it´s not immediately apparent to your eyes what is going on underneath the surface." The back cover of the album features a photo by Richard Aaron of Van Halen on stage at the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando, Florida that was taken on October 24, 1981 as they concluded a set opening for The Rolling Stones.
Five of the twelve songs on the album are covers, the most popular being the cover of "(Oh) Pretty Woman", a Roy Orbison song. At the time, the record company thought it had a greater chance of a hit record if the album was composed of songs that were already successful. In retrospect, it turned out to be one of the Van Halen brothers´ least-favorite albums, with Eddie stating "I´d rather have a bomb with one of my own songs than a hit with someone else´s." However, at the time while he admitted to the pressure the band was put under to record it, he was able to tell Guitar Player (Dec. 1982) that it "was fun": "When we came off the Fair Warning tour last year [1981], we were going to take a break and spend a lot of time writing this and that. Dave came up with the idea of, ´Hey, why don´t we start off the new year with just putting out a single?´ He wanted to do ´Dancing in the Streets.´ He gave me the original Martha Reeves & the Vandellas tape, and I listened to it and said, ´I can´t get a handle on anything out of this song.´ I couldn´t figure out a riff, and you know the way I like to play: I always like to do a riff, as opposed to just hitting barre chords and strumming. So I said, ´Look, if you want to do a cover tune, why don´t we do ´Pretty Woman´? It took one day. We went to Sunset Sound in L.A., recorded it, and it came out right after the first of the year. It started climbing the charts, so all of a sudden Warner Bros. is going, ´You got a hit single on your hands. We gotta have that record.´ We said, ´Wait a minute, we just did that to keep us out there, so that people know we´re still alive.´ But they just kept pressuring, so we jumped right back in without any rest or time to recuperate from the tour, and started recording. We spent 12 days making the album... it was a lot of fun." In addition to this, two of the original songs were around long before the album was made. "Hang ´Em High" can trace its roots back to the band´s 1977 demos as "Last Night", which had the same music but different lyrics. "Cathedral" was also nothing new, being played in its current form throughout 1981 with earlier versions going back to 1980. Additionally, "Happy Trails" had been recorded for their 1977 demos as a joke.
Two interviews from the period give the best account of how the band – certainly Roth and Eddie – saw the album at the time. The comments here are taken from Roth´s interview with Sylvie Simmons (Sounds, June 23, 1982) and Eddie´s interview with Jas Obrecht (Guitar Player, Dec. 1982).
"Where Have all the Good Times Gone"
Dave: "We´re capable of playing six different Kinks´ songs. Because at one time, back in our bar days, I bought a double album from K-Tel or something that had 30 Kinks tunes on it. We learned all of one side and played them into the dirt during the club gigs, twice a night each one, because they sounded so good and they were great to dance to, etc., etc." He added that the band had never met Ray Davies but that "we had a seance once and tried to dredge up his spirit. And Chrissie Hynde materialized for a brief moment."
Eddie: "The solo was more sounds than lines. I ran the edge of my pick up and down the strings for some of those effects. I think I used my Echoplex in that song."
"Hang ´Em High"
Dave: "It´s like all those Westerns where there´s some kind of dissonant sound in the background. Like they´ll have one harmonica that hits only one note—eeeeeeeeee—and that´s when you know the hero is coming to town or something terrible is going to happen. And what happens is Edward will come up with a song or a riff and then immediately I´ll hear it and I´ll know right away what the scenario is."
Eddie: "The solo was just loose, fun, craziness. I play it better every night than I did on the record, but who cares? It has feeling. Actually that was a really old song."
"Cathedral"
Eddie: "I´ve been doing ´Cathedral´ for more than a year and I wanted to put it on record... it sounds like a Catholic church organ, which is how it got its name. On that cut I use the volume knob a lot. If you turn it up and down too fast, it heats up and freezes. I did two takes of that song, and right at the end of the second take, the volume knob just froze, just stopped."
"Secrets"
Dave: "The nucleus of the lyrics come from greeting cards and get-well cards that I bought in Albuquerque, New Mexico on the last tour, and they were written in the style of American Indian poetry. ´May your moccasins leave happy tracks in the summer snows´."
Eddie: "I used a Gibson doubleneck 12-string, the model Jimmy Page uses, and played with a flatpick. The solo in ´Secrets´ was a first take. I kind of laid back, and it fit the song."
"(Oh) Pretty Woman"
The music video for "(Oh) Pretty Woman" was one of the first banned by MTV, although VH1 Classic has consistently aired it in recent years. In 1982, Roth explained the ban as the result of complaints that it made fun of "an almost theological figure" the Samurai warrior (Michael Anthony in the video) and also because two midgets appeared to molest a woman (actually a Los Angeles area drag queen performer). The video, directed by Roth, was, he said: "rather like a surrealistic art project ... where they paint the picture and come back three days later and try to figure out what they meant." The track "Intruder" on the album, which precedes "(Oh) Pretty Woman", was written specifically in order that there would be enough music to cover the length of the film that was edited down for the "(Oh) Pretty Woman" video. In his 1982 interview with Simmons, Roth takes credit for "Intruder," stating: "I wrote that... When we finished the movie (i.e., the video) it was about three minutes too long. So, I said, we won´t cut any of it; we´ll write soundtrack music for the beginning. So we went into the studio and I played the synthesizer and I wrote it. It took about an hour to put that together."
"Dancing in the Street"
Dave: "It sounds like more than four people are playing, when in actuality there are almost zero overdubs — that´s why it takes us such a short amount of time [to record]."
Eddie: "It takes almost as much time to make a cover song sound original as it does writing a song. I spent a lot of time arranging and playing synthesizer on ´Dancing in the Streets,´ and they [critics] just wrote it off as, ´Oh, it´s just like the original.´ So forget the critics! These are good songs. Why shouldn´t we redo them for the new generation of people?"
"Little Guitars"
Dave: "Edward was saying he´d just seen this TV show with a flamenco guy doing all these wonderful things with his fingers, and he says ´I´ve figured out how to do it with one pick, watch this.´ And he did it. And it sounded better than the original... It sounded Mexican to me, so I wrote a song for senoritas." The guitar used on the recording (and subsequent tour) was a miniature Les Paul, built by Nashville luthier David Petschulat and sold to Eddie on the earlier "Fair Warning" tour.
Eddie: "I think that the best thing I do is cheat. I came up with the intro after I bought a couple of Carlos Montoya records. I was hearing his fingerpicking, going, ´My God, this guy is great. I can´t do that.´ So, I just listened to that style of music for a couple of days and I cheated! [Using a pick] I am doing trills on the high E and pull-offs with my left hand, and slapping my middle finger on the low E. If there´s something I want to do and can´t, I won´t give up until I can figure out some way to make it sound similar to what I really can do."
"Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)"
Dave: "I think it´s a great song. And there´s been this thread winding its way through all of Van Halen´s music and all of our albums since beginning with ´Ice Cream Man.´ I played acoustic guitar and songs like this for quite a while before I ever joined Van Halen. It´s music. Why do I have to bang my head to every single song on every single album? I don´t think the audience has that much lack of creativity or imagination."
Eddie: "It was Dave´s idea to do ´Big Bad Bill´. He bought himself one of those Sanyo Walkman-type things with the FM-AM radio, and you can record off the radio if you like something you hear. He was up in his bedroom at his father´s house and he found that if he stood in a certain spot and pointed his antenna a certain way, he picked up this weird radio station in Louisville, Kentucky. He recorded ´Big Bad Bill´ and played it to us, and we started laughing ourselves silly and going, ´That is bad! Let´s do it!´ Dave suggested, ´Hey, we can get your old man to play the clarinet.´ We said, ´sure.´
"It´s so funny, because I couldn´t play the song for you right now. I had to read because there were so many chords, I just couldn´t remember it. So here´s my father to the left of me, sitting on a chair with a music stand in front of him, and I´m sitting next to him with sheet music in a stand. Mike was there, too, playing like an acoustic guitar bass – the kind they have in Mexican restaurants where they come up, play in front of your face, and aggravate you. We had a great time. It looked like an old ´30s or ´40s session. I used some thick Gibson hollowbody with f-holes. My father hadn´t played in a long time because he had lost his left-hand middle finger about 10 years ago. He was nervous, and we told him, ´Jan, just have a good time. We make mistakes! That´s what makes it real.´ I love what he did, but he was thinking back 10 years ago when he was smokin´, playing jazz and stuff. He played exactly what we wanted."
Dave: "I think when you hear Mr. Van Halen playing, you´ll have an idea it´s a shadow of where Eddie and Alex are now. There´s a sense of humour in there, a lot of technique and a whole lot of beer!"
"The Full Bug"
Dave: "You know when you have a cockroach and they run round the house and get into a corner? We used to have these shoes called PRFCs – Puerto Rican Fence Climbers, okay? And this was aptly titled because if you were running from the police or what have you, and you were wearing your PRFCs, you could hit the fence at a dead run and your foot would stay in and you could commence climbing immediately, which was the essence of the whole sport anyway. And these were also great shoes for when the cockroach moves into the corner and you can´t get at it with your foot or the broom anymore. You just jam your toe into the corner and hit as hard as you can. And if you did it right you got the full bug. So this slang means — bammm! — you have to give it everything you´ve got. Make the maximum effort, do everything possible, get the full bug."
Eddie: "Dave plays the acoustic guitar and harmonica on the intro of ´The Full Bug.´ My lines in the middle of that are different. I´ve been doing a lot of stuff with Allan Holdsworth, and he inspires me."
"Happy Trails"
Dave: "Joke ´em if they can´t take a fuck, Sylvie! You wouldn´t believe the number of TV commercials and radio jingles this band can sing in four-part harmony. I was nannied and weaned by TV—that´s the babysitter around here when you´re growing up, to sit in front of the tube. You turn into a vidiot. I remember all the commercials. We´ve been singing ´Happy Trails´ for general airport use for years. And we wanted to do something wonderful and different for you."
All tracks written by Eddie Van Halen, Michael Anthony, David Lee Roth and Alex Van Halen, except where noted.
1984 (stylized as MCMLXXXIV) is the sixth studio album by American hard rock band Van Halen, released on January 9, 1984. It was the last Van Halen album until A Different Kind of Truth (2012) to feature lead singer David Lee Roth, who left in 1985 following creative differences, and the final full-length album with all four original members. 1984 and Van Halen´s debut are Van Halen´s bestselling albums, each having sold more than 10 million copies.
1984 was well received by music critics. Rolling Stone ranked the album number 81 on its list of the 100 Greatest Albums of the 1980s. It reached number two on the Billboard 200 album chart and remained there for five weeks, behind Michael Jackson´s Thriller (on which guitarist Eddie Van Halen made a guest performance). 1984 produced four singles, including "Jump", Van Halen´s only number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100; the top-20 hits "Panama" and "I´ll Wait"; and the MTV favorite "Hot for Teacher". The album was certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America in 1999, signifying ten million shipped copies.
Following the group´s 1982 album, Diver Down, guitarist Eddie Van Halen was dissatisfied by the concessions he had made to Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth and producer Ted Templeman. Both discouraged Eddie from making keyboards a prominent instrument in the band´s music. In 1983, Eddie built his own studio in his backyard, naming it 5150 after the Los Angeles police code for "escaped mental patient". There, he composed Van Halen´s follow-up to Diver Down—without as much perceived "interference" from Roth or Templeman.
The result was a compromise between the two creative factions in the band: a mixture of keyboard-heavy songs, and the intense rock for which the band was known. In Rolling Stone´s retrospective review of 1984 in its 100 Best Albums of the Eighties list, producer Ted Templeman said, "It´s real obvious to me [why 1984 won Van Halen a broader and larger audience]. Eddie Van Halen discovered the synthesizer."
At the time, Eddie was in the process of building his own studio with Donn Landee, the band´s longtime engineer (and later producer on 5150 and OU812). While boards and tape machines were being installed, Eddie began working on synthesizers to pass the time. "There were no presets," said Templeman. "He would just twist off until it sounded right."
The album´s original release credits all songs to Edward Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, Michael Anthony and David Lee Roth. The UK single release for "I´ll Wait" credited Michael McDonald as a co-writer, but he was not credited on the US version.
The ASCAP entry for "I´ll Wait" lists Michael McDonald as co-writer with Roth and the Van Halens. Like many bands starting out on their career, Van Halen shared songwriting credit equally between all members (including guitar instrumentals, which were clearly composed only by Eddie), but subsequent claims would lend credibility to the view that all songs were entirely or predominantly written by Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth, with little input from Van Halen´s rhythm section.
After the release of Best Of – Volume I (1996), Van Halen renegotiated their royalties with their label Warner Bros. In 2004, Roth discovered that the rest of the band had renegotiated a royalty rate five times greater than his for releases made during his time as lead singer. This was later rectified.
Songs from 1984 that appear on compilations after the royalty renegotiation and Roth´s lawsuit were credited to Edward Van Halen, Alex Van Halen and David Lee Roth, with Michael Anthony´s name removed from the credits, as evident in the end song credits of the 2007 film Superbad.
The cover art was created by graphic artist Margo Nahas. It was not specifically commissioned; Nahas had been asked to create a cover that featured four chrome women dancing, but declined due to the creative difficulties. Her husband brought her portfolio to the band anyway, and from that material they chose the painting of a putto stealing cigarettes that was used. The model was Carter Helm, who was the child of one of Nahas´ best friends, whom she photographed holding a candy cigarette. The front cover was censored in the UK at the time of the album´s release. It featured a sticker that obscured the cigarette in the putto´s hand and the pack of cigarettes. The back cover features all four band members individually with 1984 in a green futuristic font.
The album´s first two singles, "Jump" and "I´ll Wait", feature prominent synthesizers, as well as the album´s intro track, "1984", a one-minute instrumental. Eddie Van Halen played an Oberheim OB-Xa synthesizer on the album.
1984 saw the release of the album´s third single "Panama", which features a heavy guitar riff reminiscent of Van Halen´s earlier work. The engine noise was from Eddie revving up his Lamborghini, with microphones used near the tailpipes. Later, a video of "Hot for Teacher" was released and played regularly on MTV, giving the band a fourth hit which sustained sales of the album. Other songs on 1984 included "Girl Gone Bad", parts of which previously had been played during the 1982 Tour amidst performances of "Somebody Get Me a Doctor" (most famously at the US Festival show), the hard rock "Drop Dead Legs" and "Top Jimmy", a tribute to James Paul Koncek of the band Top Jimmy & The Rhythm Pigs. The album concludes with "House of Pain", a fiery, heavy metal song that dates back to the band´s early club days of the mid-1970s.
Eddie told an interviewer that "Girl Gone Bad" was written in a hotel room that he and then-wife Valerie Bertinelli had rented. Valerie was asleep, and Eddie woke up during the night with an idea he had to put on tape. Not wanting to wake Valerie, Eddie grabbed a cassette recorder and recorded himself playing guitar in the closet.
Eddie Van Halen stated he wrote the arrangement for "Jump" several years before 1984 was recorded. In a 1995 cover story in Rolling Stone, the guitarist said Roth had rejected the synth riff for "Jump" for at least two years before agreeing to write lyrics to it. In his memoir Crazy From The Heat, Roth confirms Eddie´s account, admitting a preference for Van Halen´s guitar work; however, he says he now enjoys the song. Additionally in his memoir, Roth writes that he wrote the lyrics to "Jump" after watching a man waffle as to whether to commit suicide by jumping off of a skyscraper.
1984 peaked at number 2 on the Billboard album charts, (behind Michael Jackson´s Thriller, which featured an Eddie Van Halen guitar solo on "Beat It",) and remained there for 5 straight weeks. As previously noted, it contained the anthems "Jump", "Panama", "I´ll Wait" and "Hot for Teacher". "Jump" reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. 1984 is the second of two Van Halen albums to have achieved RIAA Diamond status, selling over ten million copies in the United States. Their debut Van Halen was the first. "Jump" went on to be certified Gold in April 1984, only months after the album´s release.
The album´s follow-up singles – the synth-driven "I´ll Wait", and "Panama", each peaked at Billboard number 13 on the Pop charts, respectively, in March and June. "Hot for Teacher", was a moderate Billboard Hot 100 success, reaching number 56; the MTV video for "Hot for Teacher" became even more popular. The "Hot for Teacher" video, which was directed by Roth, stars preteen lookalikes of the four Van Halen band members; a stereotypical nerd named "Waldo"; David Lee Roth as Waldo´s bus driver; and numerous teachers stripping.
To promote the album, the band ran a contest on MTV. The contest was called, "Lost Weekend" with Van Halen. Fans mailed over 1 million postcards to MTV in hopes of winning the contest. In the promo for MTV, David Lee Roth said, "You won´t know where you are, you won´t know what´s going to happen, and when you come back, you´re not gonna have any memory of it."
Kurt Jeffries won the contest and was flown to Detroit to join the band. Jeffries was allowed to bring along his best friend. He was given a Lost Weekend T-shirt and a hat. He was also brought on stage and had a large sheet cake smashed in his face which was followed by about a dozen people pouring champagne on him.
In the band´s licensed game, Guitar Hero: Van Halen, three of the singles from 1984 were included; "Jump", "Panama", and "Hot for Teacher".
Reviews for 1984 were generally favorable. Robert Christgau rated the album a B+. He explained that "Side one is pure up, and not only that, it sticks to the ears" and that "Van Halen´s pop move avoids fluff because they´re heavy and schlock because they´re built for speed, finally creating an all-purpose mise-en-scene for Brother Eddie´s hair-raising, stomach-churning chops." He also called side two "consolation for their loyal fans—a little sexism, a lot of pyrotechnics, and a standard HM bass attack on something called ´House of Pain´."
J.D. Considine, a reviewer for Rolling Stone, rated 1984 four out of five stars. He called it "the album that brings all of Van Halen´s talent into focus." He stated that ""Jump" is not exactly the kind of song you´d expect from Van Halen", but that "once Alex Van Halen´s drums kick in and singer David Lee Roth starts to unravel a typically convoluted story line, things start sounding a little more familiar". Although he mentioned "Jump" as having "suspended chords and a pedalpoint bass in a manner more suited to Asia", he went on to state that "Eddie Van Halen manages to expand his repertoire of hot licks, growls, screams and seemingly impossible runs to wilder frontiers than you could have imagined." He concluded that "what really makes this record work is the fact that Van Halen uses all this flash as a means to an end—driving the melody home—rather than as an end in itself" and that "despite all the bluster, Van Halen is one of the smartest, toughest bands in rock & roll. Believe me, that´s no newspeak."
In a 1984 review, Billboard states the album is "funnier and more versatile than most of their metal brethren", calling the production "typically strong". A retrospective review by AllMusic´s Stephen Thomas Erlewine was extremely positive. He noted that the album caused "a hoopla that was a bit of a red herring since the band had been layering in synths since their third album, Women and Children First". He further stated that "Jump"´s "synths played a circular riff that wouldn´t have sounded as overpowering on guitar", but that "the band didn´t dispense with their signature monolithic, pulsating rock." He also stated that "where [previous] albums placed an emphasis on the band´s attack, this places an emphasis on the songs, and they´re uniformly terrific, the best set of original tunes Van Halen ever had." He concluded that "it´s the best showcase of Van Halen´s instrumental prowess as a band, the best showcase for Diamond Dave´s glorious shtick, the best showcase for their songwriting, just their flat-out best album overall. There´s no way Van Halen could have bettered this album with Dave around (and they didn´t better it once Sammy [Hagar] joined, either)."
Guitar Player magazine writer Matt Blackett praises the "deeper cuts" of the album, "Drop Dead Legs", "House of Pain", and "Girl Gone Bad", calling the guitar work "fresh and vital", noting Eddie´s "dark, complex sense of harmony and melody". Len Comaratta from Consequence of Sound felt Van Halen reached the pinnacle of its commercial and critical success. At the end of the 1980s, Rolling Stone, which had previously been critical of Van Halen, ranked 1984 at number 81 on its list of the 100 Greatest Albums of the 1980s. The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
All tracks written by Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, Michael Anthony and David Lee Roth, except where noted.
5150 (pronounced "fifty-one-fifty") is the seventh studio album by American hard rock band Van Halen, released on March 24, 1986 by Warner Bros. Records. It was the first of four albums to be recorded with new lead singer Sammy Hagar, who replaced David Lee Roth.
It was named after Eddie Van Halen´s home studio, 5150, itself named after a California law enforcement term for a mentally disturbed person (a reference to Section 5150 of the California Welfare and Institutions Code). The 5150 name has been used several times by Van Halen. The album hit number 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, surpassing the band´s previous album, 1984, which had peaked at number 2 at the same time as Michael Jackson´s Thriller album, on which Eddie Van Halen made a guest appearance.
Van Halen had considerable difficulty finding a replacement for the popular David Lee Roth. To make matters worse, Warner Bros. Records advised them to discontinue the Van Halen name; at the beginning of 1986, Eddie and Alex Van Halen formally refused. The brothers and bassist Michael Anthony even considered having a series of temporary singers on the album to replace Roth, including Patty Smyth, Eric Martin and Jimmy Barnes. However, in July 1985, Eddie was referred to former Montrose singer Sammy Hagar by a mechanic working on his Ferrari. The pair hit it off and the new singer and band immediately began work on new songs.
Van Halen went to work on the album in November 1985; it would be finished in February 1986, just one month before its release.
The album 5150 was notable for a number of love songs and ballads, a contrast of the straightforward rock stylings of the Roth era. Many called the new incarnation "Van Hagar" either derisively or affectionately; a nickname so ubiquitous that, as Hagar points out in his book, Warner Bros. asked them to consider renaming the band as such. Bolstering criticism was the loss of Ted Templeman – who, having produced every previous album for the band, left to helm Roth´s solo Eat ´Em and Smile. (Templeman would return to produce Van Halen´s For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge a few years later, which Andy Johns was tapped for.) Donn Landee took over producer duties for 5150 after serving as an engineer on previous albums. However, the production on this album was markedly different from their albums with Templeman. Eddie´s guitar, previously high in the mix and frequently pushed to the left channel (to simulate a "live" sound"), now sat equal in the mix and its overall sound had changed. This may have been his doing, as he was not a fan of the "live mix" that Templeman created with the Roth band. This is also the first Van Halen album to feature no instrumentals.
Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones was also brought in as a producer, after Warner Bros. denied the band full creative latitude. According to Jones, the Van Halen brothers were "going through a particularly charged emotional relationship at the time, and there were some crazy situations that went on there". Jones feels his biggest contribution was working with Hagar on his dynamic vocal performances.
Despite the controversy of replacing Roth, the album was their first to top the US chart (although each prior Van Halen album had gone platinum). It was also Hagar´s first #1, as stated by him on the Live Without a Net concert video. "The album went platinum in one week," Hagar recalled in 2014. "It was the fastest million-selling record in Warner´s history... It was such a high."
A live video created during the tour for this album was released as Van Halen - Live Without a Net, which has since been released on DVD. The tour itself was a significant change from previous tours. Where Van Halen previously had years of material to work with, even on tour supporting the first album, Hagar was uncomfortable performing a number of Van Halen´s Roth-penned hits. Therefore, most of the band´s back catalog was dropped from the set lists. Instead, the shows consisted of almost the entire 5150 album, a few Hagar solo hits ("I Can´t Drive 55", and "There´s Only One Way to Rock"), and a cover of Led Zeppelin´s "Rock and Roll"; the band also played a humorous verse of Robert Palmer´s "Addicted to Love" as part of "Best of Both Worlds." Of the Roth-era tracks, "Panama", "Ain´t Talkin´ ´bout Love" and "You Really Got Me" were performed with regularity. Unlike Roth, Hagar was a proficient guitarist, allowing Eddie to play keyboards.
Album opener "Good Enough" can be heard in the movie Spaceballs.
The artwork features an art deco depiction of Atlas holding a sphere on his shoulders while kneeling; the model for the album was ESPN BodyShaping´s Rick Valente. The Van Halen logo is wrapped around the sphere. The title of the album appears as a placard on a chain around Atlas´ neck. The back cover of the album sees the Atlas character collapsed, with the sphere dropped and broken open, revealing the band inside.
Reviews for 5150 were initially mixed. The Village Voice´s Robert Christgau rated the album a C+, which signifies "a not disreputable performance, most likely a failed experiment or a pleasant piece of hackwork." He wondered how "the guitar mavens who thought Eddie equalled Van Halen are going to like his fireworks displays and balls-to-the-wall hooks now that video star David Lee Roth has given way to one of the biggest schmucks in the known biz." He also stated that "no musician with something to say could stomach responding to Sammy Hagar´s call".
Furthermore, Tim Holmes for Rolling Stone rated the album three out of five stars. He noted that "when it was announced that Van Halen had completed its talent search and the new voice was Sammy "I Can´t Drive 55" Hagar, the response—even among hardened DLR detractors—tended more toward a bewildered "Huh? Montrose? What?" than resounding hosannas, huzzahs and what-a-good-idea´s." Despite this, he stated that "part of Eddie Van Halen´s cheeky genius lies in his ability to think in terms of both complex orchestration and rock banalities". He also said that "Eddie can still split the atom with his axe, and he knows it. It´s a Van Halen world with or without David Lee Roth, and 5150 shoots off all the bombastic fireworks of a band at the peak of its powers." He concluded that "ultimately, it is Eddie Van Halen´s uncanny and intuitive ability to orchestrate these contradictions that gives the Van Halen machinery its velocity and amplitude, the qualities that blast the roof off the garage. There´s plenty of hot party action down in rockland, but Eddie´s band is the one with the chops—not just notes and chords and string-bashing Sturm und Drang, but the filigree detail that makes a simple-minded riff a symphony. On 5150, Eddie Van Halen and Sammy Hagar speak each other´s language."
A retrospective review from AllMusic´s Stephen Thomas Erlewine was fairly positive. Erlewine noted that "Eddie Van Halen wanted respect to go along with his gargantuan fame, and Roth wasn´t willing to play. Bizarrely enough, Sammy Hagar—the former Montrose lead singer who had carved out a successful solo career—was ready to play, possibly because the Red Rocker was never afraid of being earnest, nor was he afraid of synthesizers, for that matter." He criticized the album for the more heavy-handed feeling that resulted from Hagar´s performance: "Where Diamond Dave would have strutted through the song with his tongue firmly in cheek, Hagar plays it right down the middle, never winking, never joking. Even when he takes a stab at humor on the closing "Inside"—joshing around about why the guys chose him as a replacement—it never feels funny, probably because, unlike Dave, he´s not a born comedian." He concluded that "it worked because they had the songs and the desire to party, so those good intentions and slow tunes don´t slow the album down; they give it variety and help make the album a pretty impressive opening act for Van Halen Mach II."
All tracks written by Sammy Hagar, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen and Michael Anthony.
OU812 (pronounced "Oh You Ate One Too") is the eighth studio album by American hard rock band Van Halen, released in 1988, and the second to feature vocalist Sammy Hagar. Van Halen started work on the album in September 1987 and completed it in April 1988, just one month before its release.
Once the tour for 5150 concluded, Eddie Van Halen had some riffs he had been working on and Sammy Hagar "had a bunch of lyrics in notebooks that I had been thinking about and writing", so they decided to work on another album soon. While the album acknowledges Van Halen for writing and performing and Landee for recording, there was no production credit because according to Hagar, "the band pretty much produced the album ourselves. And we weren´t producers, in the sense that we went in with an idea and told everybody what to do and took control. There just wasn´t a producer." The only cover song on the album, Little Feat´s "A Apolitical Blues", was coincidentally also done by former Van Halen producer Ted Templeman and Landee, to the point the engineer used the same setup to record Van Halen´s version.
When Hagar was brought to the studio, Eddie showed a piano and drums demo he recorded with Alex Van Halen, which the band soon developed into the song "When It´s Love". Given the musical parts were finished quicker than the lyrics, Hagar took some weeks off and travelled to his Mexican house at Cabo San Lucas to work on more songs. There he found the inspiration for the song "Cabo Wabo", which borrowed the melody of "Make It Last", a song Hagar composed for his previous band Montrose, and whose title later named Hagar´s nightclub in the city. The last song to be developed was "Finish What Ya Started", which Eddie and Hagar composed one night late into the production. However, the last track to which Hagar recorded his vocals was the eventual album opener "Mine All Mine", as he felt unsure about the lyrics. The deeper metaphysical lyrics to "Mine All Mine" were rewritten seven times, with Hagar saying "it was the first time in my life I ever beat myself up, hurt myself, punished myself, practically threw things through windows, trying to write the lyrics." Although it was considered a joke song, "Source of Infection" was written about Eddie´s hospitalization with dengue fever during his vacation in Australia in April 1988, celebrating his seventh wedding anniversary with Valerie Bertinelli.
The working title was Bone, which Alex hated. Hagar then decided on OU812 after seeing this on the side of a delivery truck on the freeway and finding it funny (rumors persist, though, that the title was a disguised response to the title of David Lee Roth´s 1986 solo album, Eat ´Em and Smile). OU812 is seen in "Cheech and Chong´s Next Movie" (1980) on the license plate of the car given to Cheech at the "Comedy House" when he was leaving. It was also scribbled on the cinderblock column on which is mounted the payphone that the cab drivers used in the TV sitcom "Taxi" (1978-1983). The album´s front cover is an homage to the classic cover of With the Beatles. The cover is also similar to that of Blue Cheer´s Vincebus Eruptum (1968) and King Crimson´s Red (1974). Album artwork for the back cover is Hugo Rheinhold´s statuette Affe mit Schädel.
The track listing on the back cover is arranged in alphabetical order, instead of in sequence on some releases.
The album is dedicated to Eddie and Alex´s father, Jan, who died on December 9, 1986, at the age of 66. The inner linings of the album include the words, "This one´s for you, Pa". Jan had previously appeared playing clarinet on one track, "Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)", on Van Halen´s 1982 album, Diver Down.
Reviews for OU812 were initially mixed. Robert Christgau rated the album a C in The Village Voice, which signifies "a record of clear professionalism or barely discernible inspiration, but not both." He noted that "trading Dave for Sammy sure wrecked their shot at Led Zep of the ´80s--master guitarist, signature vocalist, underrated rhythm section." However, he stated: "Eddie´s obsessed with technique, Roth´s contemptuous of technique, rhythm section´s got enough technique and no klutz genius. But Sammy . . . like wow. If I can´t claim the new boy owns them, you can´t deny he defines them." Rolling Stone´s David Fricke rated the album three-and-a-half out of five stars. He said of "Source of Infection": "While Eddie Van Halen sprays you with a machine-gun succession of speed-metal-guitar arpeggios, Sammy Hagar sends out the party invitations with his usual savoir-faire — "Hey! All right! Whoo!" Alex Van Halen and Michael Anthony, of course, take him at his word, shooting into hyper-beat space before you can say, ´Jump´." He noted that "Van Halen, contrary to purist grumbling, did not wimp out when Diamond Dave hit the bricks. Nor did the band go — ugh! — pop: the 5150 ladies´ choice "Why Can´t This Be Love" wasn´t really a ballad; it was more like Big Rock Melancholia. In fact, all the 5150-model Van Halen did was replace one mighty mouth with another and trot out some hip, new songwriting tricks." Still, he stated that "the curve balls don´t always hit the strike zone. "Finish What Ya Started" is an unexpected turn into wheat-field-rock country." Despite this, he concluded that "maybe Eddie and company haven´t been pushing the envelope, so to speak, far enough in terms of songwriting. But "Mine All Mine" is a good teaser for the future, the slow stuff is classy radio fare, and at its best, OU812 is a veritable feast of great white rock & roll wow." Xavier Russell of Kerrang! was more enthusiastic and called OU812 "loud, rude, dirty and very much a Van Halen album".
A retrospective review from AllMusic´s Stephen Thomas Erlewine was fairly positive. Erlewine stated that "when David Lee Roth fronted the band, almost everything that Van Halen did seemed easy – as big, boisterous, and raucous as an actual party – but Van Hagar makes good times seem like tough work here." Still, he stated that "the riffs are complicated, not catchy, the rhythms plod, they don´t rock, and Sammy strains to inject some good times by singing too hard." However, he concluded that "if it isn´t as good as Fair Warning (even if it´s nearly not as much fun), it´s nevertheless the best showcase of the instrumental abilities of Van Hagar." Canadian journalist Martin Popoff defined OU812 music as "cynical corporate rock" and found the album "over-produced and actually more commonplace" than its predecessor 5150, implying that "the philosophical soul and warmth" of Van Halen "evaporated when David Lee Roth packed it in."
In a music magazine interview published a few years after the release of the album, Eddie Van Halen expressed his opinion that the record was not mixed as well as he would have liked: "Sonically it was shit."[citation needed] Some criticism of the album noted the bass guitar parts are of a low level in the mix compared to the vocals and other instruments. There has been speculation that the thin presence of bass guitar in the mix may be related to the Van Halen brothers´ rumored growing animosity towards bassist Michael Anthony. In later years Anthony would be forced out of the band and his songwriting credits removed or altered.
All tracks written by Van Halen, except where noted.
For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (also known as F.U.C.K.) is the ninth studio album by American hard rock band Van Halen, released in 1991 on Warner Bros. Records. It debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart and maintained the position for three weeks.
The album´s title came from lead singer Sammy Hagar, who wanted to push the issue of censorship with naming Van Halen´s album with a vulgarity, stating, "That´s when censorship was a big issue. I wanted to name the album just Fuck." Hagar eventually backed away from the outright vulgarity after he was told by his friend, former world lightweight boxing champion Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini, that the word "fuck" was an acronym for the phrase "for unlawful carnal knowledge" (though this is a false etymology). Their tour promoting the album was unofficially named F.U.C.K. ´n´ Live. Prior to recording, the term "for unlawful carnal knowledge" was first used by the band Coven as a track on their album Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls in 1969.
Van Halen started work on the album in March 1990 and finished in April 1991 (just two months before its release). The album itself was marketed as the "return" to Van Halen´s hard rock roots, with most songs being guitar driven, and the synth sounds being replaced by pianos. This can be prominently heard on "Right Now", the most popular song from the album and likely from the "Van Hagar era". [citation needed] The band also reconciled with producer Ted Templeman who produced earlier Van Halen albums to return to work on the album. According to Eddie Van Halen, this happened because singer Sammy Hagar did not want to work with Andy Johns and Templeman "let him get away with everything". The year-long production led to the labored sound.
This was the first album that Eddie recorded without his trademark Marshall Super Lead serving as the primary amplifier. The Marshall was fading, so Eddie went with his 1989 Soldano SLO-100 to record the album primarily, though the Marshall was used sparingly. A prototype for what would become the Peavey 5150 series of custom amplifiers was also used. Peavey´s release of the 5150 series coincided with the release of the album.
"Poundcake" featured the sound of a battery operated power drill, which Eddie held to the pickups of his guitar and revved, creating the intro. The song "Top of the World" features a riff that was first heard during the outro of the 1984-era hit "Jump". For this reason, "Top of the World" is frequently played directly after "Jump" and appears immediately after it on the Best of Both Worlds compilation. The instrumental "316" is named for the March 16 birthday of Eddie´s son Wolfgang, who is currently Van Halen´s bass player, although the song predates his birth (as part of it was used by Eddie at the beginning of his guitar solo on tour, as seen on "Live Without a Net", and was originally written for 5150).
Rolling Stone´s John Milward rated the album two out of five stars, explaining that it "is so stuffed with zigzagging guitars and blustery vocals that it almost forgets to rock. Eddie Van Halen, who probably has more guitars than teeth, upends such a tackle box of hooks that they only start to surface after repeated listenings. Tasteful simplicity, which is never really simple at all, would have proved a better course to follow." He concluded that the guitars "are busier, the beats are heavier, and the fun is fleeting. Van Halen has chops to burn, but For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, like its lumbering opening track and first single, ´Poundcake,´ is stale."
Gina Arnold of Entertainment Weekly gave the album a C and said, "It would be nice to believe that the acronym formed by the title of Van Halen´s new, top-charting album was intended as a covert blow against censorship in America. Unfortunately, it´s far more likely that the punny name merely indicates VH´s love of the kind of bathroom talk that third graders think is funny. For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge doesn´t contain even one mind-numbingly catchy melody. Only ´Top of the World´ and ´The Dream Is Over´ come close to working up a truly fist-thrusting chorus, and the gist of the latter—´dream another dream, this dream is over´—may well be advice that Van Halen and their fans ought to take to heart."
In his Consumer Guide, Robert Christgau gave the album a "dud" rating.
A retrospective review by AllMusic´s Stephen Thomas Erlewine was mixed. He stated that the title "indicates the true nature of For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge ... Backing away from the diversity of OU812, the band turns in some of the most basic, straightforward rock & roll of its career." However, he also stated that it was "undeniable that [Sammy Hagar´s] limited vocal power had a great deal to do with the obvious nature of most of this music." He concluded that, even though the band continued to be tight and professional, the songwriting "is, by and large, undistinguished, with the anthemic ´Right Now´ standing out as the most memorable song of the batch, mainly because of its incessant chorus."
All tracks written by Eddie Van Halen, Michael Anthony, Sammy Hagar and Alex Van Halen.
Balance is the tenth studio album by American hard rock band Van Halen, released on January 24, 1995 by Warner Bros. Records. The album is the last of the band´s four studio releases to feature Sammy Hagar as the lead singer. Balance reached number 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200 in February 1995 and reached Triple Platinum status on May 12, 2004 by selling more than three million copies in the U.S. "The Seventh Seal" was nominated for a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance.
According to Ian Christe´s book, Everybody Wants Some: The Van Halen Saga, Balance was Van Halen’s tenth album and was released amid internal fighting between Sammy Hagar and Eddie and Alex Van Halen. The band worked eight-hour days for three weeks recording the album. The first song on the record, "The Seventh Seal", features mystical overtones that came, in part, from Eddie’s newfound sobriety. His therapist, Sat-Kaur Khalsa, urged him to relax and imagine where he was after drinking a six-pack of beer. After smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, and playing guitar for twenty years, he tried writing songs sober and wrote three songs in one half hour period. The album then moves into Sammy’s territory with "Can’t Stop Lovin’ You". This song was taken from his ex-wife’s point of view, believing that she was still in love with him. The band saw more success with its hard rock genre as seen in the album’s song, "Aftershock". The album reached number 1; their fourth consecutive number one studio album.
Most of the Balance album was recorded at Eddie Van Halen´s 5150 Studios, located in Studio City, except for five lead vocal tracks that were recorded in Vancouver, where the album´s producer Bruce Fairbairn resided. It was mixed by Mike Fraser and mastered at Sterling Sound, New York, by George Marino.
Following the recording of Balance and its subsequent Ambulance Tour (the band renamed the "balance" tour to the "ambulance tour" because Eddie was having hip issues and brother Alex had to wear a neck brace), Van Halen´s second incarnation broke up. Regarding this time period, in 1997, Eddie Van Halen told Guitar World: "There had been a variety of conflicts brewing between manager Ray Danniels, Sammy, and the band since I quit drinking on October 2, 1994... It got so bad that I actually started drinking again."
"The Seventh Seal" kicks off the album. Complete with chanting monks and dangling metal bells, the song unveiled a vast, open, U2-like guitar wall that propelled through the darkest terrain the band ever tackled. As a side note Eddie revealed in 2012 that "The Seventh Seal" was written before Van Halen became a band.
"Amsterdam" was written about the capital city of Eddie and Alex Van Halen´s country of birth; their actual birthplace being the town of Nijmegen, further to the east. Eddie is on record in Guitar World as saying, "I always hated the words to ´Wham, Bam Amsterdam´, from Balance, because they were all about smoking pot. They were just stupid. Lyrics should plant some sort of seed for thought, or at least be a little more metamorphical."
During The Balance tour show in Pensacola, Florida, Hagar stated that "Take Me Back (Déjà Vu)" was "a true story". The song itself features a then almost 20-year-old riff Eddie had previously used on a song entitled "No More Waiting", which the band played on occasion in the pre-Van Halen I era.
The original title of the album was The Seventh Seal, to which photographer Glen Wexler created some concepts, including one with an androgynous four-year-old boy. Eventually they picked Balance, which Alex explained to Wexler was about the turmoil and changes surrounding Van Halen, including the recent death of long-time manager Ed Leffler. Alex asked something "exploring the duality of the human psyche". Wexler then sketched new concepts, with the band liking the one with conjoined twins on a see-saw. The androgynous boy, who actually hailed from Denver but fans mistakenly considered to be Eddie´s son Wolfgang Van Halen, was then photographed in Wexler´s Hollywood studio, with Wexler´s daughter being the hand model that pulled his hair. The images were combined with a miniature landscape for the background using Corel Painter. Wexler detailed that the Balance cover had a number of ironies: "the impossibility of the conjoined twins actually playing on the seesaw; the ´calm´ twin actually being the aggressive one, pulling the hair of his sibling to create the appearance of an aggressive child; and having no one else to play with in a desolate post-apocalyptic setting, in which unusable playground equipment is the only object in sight." He added that the twins were “designed” to mimic the shape of the “VH” logo. An alternate cover was used for the Japanese release, citing a cultural offense to the original version. On the inside, the compact disc shows the Leonardo da Vinci drawing Vitruvian Man, and the back of the booklet shows an egg sitting on a guitar.
Balance was released January 24, 1995 and is the first release by a platinum-certified act on Warner Bros. since Danny Goldberg stepped in as chairman/CEO. It´s also the band´s first album since the loss of their longtime manager Ed Leffler, who died of thyroid cancer on October 16, 1993, before Ray Danniels took over management of the band (mostly due to Alex´s personal relationship with Danniels as brother-in-law). Warner Bros. said that early 1995 would be the right time to release a new Van Halen album. "It seems like we´ve always had success with big acts right after the first of the year," says Warner Bros. VP of merchandising and advertising Jim Wagner. "Don´t Tell Me (What Love Can Do)," the first single from Balance, was released to top 40 and album rock radio on December 28, 1994. Van Halen became the first act to debut at No. 1 in 1995, as their first week sales of 295,000 units earned Balance the number one spot on the Billboard 200. The opening-week tally for Van Halen´s Balance was 21% higher than that of For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, the band´s previous studio album, which topped the chart with 243,000 units in the summer of 1991.
Two concerts during the Balance tour were filmed and aired as a pay-per-view event at the Molson Amphitheatre in Toronto, Canada on August 18 and 19. There was talk of releasing a live DVD of the performances, which found the band to be at their peak during the tour. While the release of the DVD never materialized, most of the source material can be viewed on YouTube
All songs by Eddie Van Halen, Michael Anthony, Sammy Hagar and Alex Van Halen.
The album was also released on vinyl, with a slightly altered track order and "Baluchitherium" removed due to time constraints. The Japanese bonus track "Crossing Over" was used as the B-side to the US CD single for "Can´t Stop Lovin´ You".
Van Halen III is the eleventh studio album by American rock band Van Halen, released on March 17, 1998 by Warner Bros. Records. Produced by Mike Post and Eddie Van Halen, it is the band´s only studio album to feature Extreme lead vocalist Gary Cherone, and the last to feature bassist Michael Anthony before he was replaced in the band by Eddie´s son Wolfgang in 2006. Work on a follow-up album with Cherone commenced in 1999, but never advanced past a few demos.
Van Halen III was the band´s last album for fourteen years, and their final album of the 20th century. It was also the final album the band released on Warner Bros. When they returned in 2012 with A Different Kind of Truth, it was with Interscope Records. It is their longest studio album to date, clocking in at slightly over 65 minutes.
The album´s title refers to Van Halen´s third recorded line-up, and to the band´s first two album titles, Van Halen and Van Halen II. None of its material is featured on The Best of Both Worlds, the band´s 2004 hits compilation.
As a producer, Eddie brought his friend Mike Post. The album´s final song, "How Many Say I", was an unusual acoustic piano ballad featuring Eddie on lead vocals and Cherone on backing vocals. Eddie declared he was forced into singing, and added harmonies so he would not perform alone.
Van Halen III is also known for its minimal use of Michael Anthony on bass guitar. Anthony only played bass on "Without You", "One I Want" & "Fire In The Hole". Eddie Van Halen recorded bass for the rest of the album. After Michael Anthony´s departure from Van Halen, he confirmed that Eddie Van Halen dictated to him how to play bass on this record. He said by the time of making this album, Eddie was playing the bass more as well as drums. "I don´t know if Eddie was basically making a solo record, which is what Van Halen III seemed like to me." A song entitled "That´s Why I Love You" was dropped at the last minute in favor of "Josephina". "Fire in the Hole" was added to the Lethal Weapon 4 film soundtrack.
"I would have preferred to tour with them and then put out a record," Cherone told KNAC. "It would have been a better idea to establish myself first and then hit the studio with the band… There were some great ideas and some little gems but it was not a great record. I had fun but at times it was like being a stranger in a strange land."
The album cover is a still picture from stock footage of Frank "Cannonball" Richards, a vaudeville and sideshow performer known for his act of getting shot in the gut with a cannonball.
Van Halen III debuted at the Billboard 200 in fourth place, with 191,000 copies sold. The album´s only significant radio hit was "Without You", which reached #1 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart on the March 7, 1998 issue of Billboard, and remained there for six weeks. Other songs receiving airplay on rock radio were "Fire in the Hole" and "One I Want".
Reception for Van Halen III was mostly mixed to negative. Stephen Thomas Erlewine from AllMusic stated the album, "suffers from the same problems as Hagar-era Van Halen – limp riffs, weak melodies, and plodding, colorless rhythms." Entertainment Weekly gave it a B grade rating, saying, "judging from the renewed intensity of Eddie’s guitar playing throughout much of III, having a merely competent, relatively ego-free singer seems to have reinvigorated his muse" but goes on to say "How Many Say I", a song Eddie sang lead vocals on was, "cringeworthy" and "unintentionally hilarious". Greg Kot from Rolling Stone gave it 2 stars out of 5 noting, "Cherone sounds disconcertingly like Hagar, full of spleen-busting bluster and incapable of understatement", and "When the band plays it heavy, it mires itself in a Seventies tar pit, with only the chorus of "Without You" achieving any sort of pop resonance." Kot compliments Eddie´s vocals saying, "´How Many Say I´ finds the guitarist singing in a disarmingly appealing, nicotine-stained voice over a moody piano melody." Billboard reviewer Paul Verna summed up III as "a wasted opportunity to breathe life into a now-tired formula".
All songs credited to Eddie Van Halen, Michael Anthony, Gary Cherone and Alex Van Halen.
A Different Kind of Truth is the 12th studio album by American hard rock band Van Halen. Released on February 7, 2012, by Interscope Records, the record is Van Halen´s first full-length album of studio material with former lead singer David Lee Roth since 1984. Likewise, it is Van Halen´s first studio album since 1998´s Van Halen III. It is the first to feature Eddie Van Halen´s son Wolfgang on bass guitar, replacing Michael Anthony, who had played bass on all of Van Halen´s previous albums.
A Different Kind of Truth was recorded at Henson Recording Studios and Eddie Van Halen´s own 5150 Studios and produced by John Shanks. Seven of the album´s 13 songs are musically re-worked and lyrically re-written songs that had been demoed in the late-1970s/early 1980s, but never officially released. The album received positive reviews upon release, with several writers referring to it as a return to form, and multiple publications ranked it as one of the best albums of 2012. It was also a commercial success, debuting in the top ten on numerous record charts. It debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and, by the end of 2012, had sold in excess of 411,000 copies in the United States alone. The album was promoted with an arena tour.
In 2007, Van Halen reunited with original lead singer David Lee Roth – who had left the band in April 1985, at the peak of their global popularity – for a North American Tour. This tour added bassist Wolfgang Van Halen, the then-16-year-old son of guitarist Eddie Van Halen and actress Valerie Bertinelli, forcing out original bassist Michael Anthony, who would go on to form Chickenfoot with Van Halen´s second lead singer, Sammy Hagar. The reunion tour consisted of 74 shows from September 2007 to June 2008, and became the band´s highest-grossing tour of its thirty-year history, earning over $93 million. Eddie Van Halen was reluctant about the possibility of recording new material with Roth in 2009, citing the poor reaction to the three new songs recorded with Hagar for the 2004 compilation Best of Both Worlds. After Wolfgang became enthusiastic about recording a new Van Halen album, Eddie´s opinion changed: "We´re doing this [album] for us."
Eddie, Wolfgang and Alex Van Halen began jam sessions at the former´s 5150 Studios three months after the tour´s completion. During this time, Wolfgang discovered rough, unreleased demos from the band´s archives. After listening to these and believing they had potential, he brought them to Alex and Eddie to rework and refine. The first of these tracks, "She´s the Woman," was completed by August 2009. It had originally been demoed by the band in the mid-1970s. Roth decided to join the project after hearing this song, as well as two other reworked tracks: "Let´s Get Rockin´" – later renamed "Outta Space" – and "Bullethead."
Wolfgang´s original intention with the album was to create a collection of previously released b-sides along with three reworked demos, with Eddie saying: "It would [have been] a record of our more hardcore songs and none of the pop stuff. That was the initial plan, but the deeper we dug, the more we found. At the same time I was writing new songs. Dave got very excited about that. We all did. We ended up recording demos for 35 songs." After deliberating over whether to self-produce the album or choose a producer from a list that included Rick Rubin and Pat Leonard, Roth suggested John Shanks. Shanks liked the first three songs, and agreed to produce the album, working alongside Wolfgang to pick the demos that would be developed into the album´s tracks. While all of Van Halen´s albums since 1984 had been produced inside 5150, Roth persuaded the band to work at Henson Recording Studios—where he had been recording for more than a decade.
"I wanted to remind my dad of the mindset he was in when he wrote songs like ´Runnin´ with the Devil´ and ´Dance the Night Away´. I thought that recording those old songs would make it easier for dad, Dave and Al to put their minds where they were back then and get back to writing how they would have then."
—Wolfgang Van Halen on recording older songs
By mid-January 2011, the band had moved into Henson Studios with Shanks, staff engineer Martin Cooke and engineer Paul David Hager. The band would record music for 12 hours a day, five days a week, with Roth coming in to track his vocals at night. The instrumental tracks were completed within three weeks. Eddie said that he was relieved to relinquish some of the production work to his son, who was considered by the band to be acting in a co-production role: frequently talking to Shanks, being consulted by his father on the musical direction and developing the songs. Along with creating new bits, such as a new breakdown on "She´s the Woman"—as the original ended up being used on Fair Warning´s (1981) "Mean Street"—and an arrangement for "Stay Frosty," Wolfgang improvised some bass sections, such as the capo intro to "Chinatown."
By the end of March 2011, the band returned to finish the record at 5150 with engineer Ross Hogarth. Most of the work at 5150 was for guitars and bass, as Eddie "couldn´t hear them at Henson the way I´m used to." Both he and Hogarth felt that attempts at mixing there were not progressing due to sound-quality issues. Eddie attributed this to the tape machines at Henson, claiming that: "Everything ended up sounding like it had a sock over it." The final mix took place over a period of six weeks in the summer of 2011, with each song taking a day to mix. Hogarth indicated that because the process was done at a mixing console, "We couldn´t move on to the next song until a mix had been approved by everyone and could go off the desk." Hogarth would start with the drums, adding bass and guitar to finish a backing track, which would be complemented with multing (hiving off different sections of a given part to different tracks) and parallel compression. It was then finished by bringing in Roth´s vocals, backing vocals, and further details such as ad libs, screams and guitar solos.
Hogarth aimed to "bring Ed´s guitar sound into the modern era, but maintaining all the DNA of the past." He suggested that the guitar sound be split naturally between stereo channels, instead of separating lead guitar to the left channel and panning effects to the right by using two guitar amplifiers placed far apart. The idea was to have a guitar sound "that was wide and mono, and not digital delay-driven, and it´s what you hear on the record, with only a few overdubs." A more-complex structure would be utilized for Wolfgang´s bass, as the band wanted "a bass sound that covered the whole spectrum, from high to low and clean to dirty," and his instrument was recorded by up to eight separate microphones. A multi-mic set-up was also employed for Alex´s drums, with most of the final drumming coming from overhead microphones. Roth´s vocals were all recorded at Henson, without compression.
A Different Kind of Truth was described by Roth as "a sort of collaboration with [Van Halen´s] past." Seven of the album´s tracks are based on material which Roth suggested dated back to between 1975 and 1977, whilst Eddie indicated that others had been composed "when I was still in high school and even junior high." "Blood and Fire" dates back to 1984. An instrumental version of the song, titled "Ripley," appeared in Eddie´s score for the film The Wild Life. The original title had been inspired by the Ripley guitar used by Eddie on the demo, and he sent that guitar back to Steve Ripley for repair so that it could be used on the album version.
Roth rewrote the lyrics for most tracks, as he wanted to incorporate a point of view from his current personal life. He declared that: "All music is autobiographic. Particularly when it´s not meant to be," adding that by retooling the songs "there is a body of new that meets halfway there, that I think makes very colorful sense." Only lead single "Tattoo" contains a synthesizer, which was played by Roth. Two other songs, "You and Your Blues" and "As Is," have a processed guitar that sounds like a synth. Roth also performs acoustic guitar on the intro for "Stay Frosty"—a song he had written which was re-arranged by Wolfgang. Among the effects units used by Eddie on the album were his signature model MXR Phase 90, a Whammy pedal, and a Wah-wah pedal. The latter is prominently featured on the "kind of Hendrix-ish" "The Trouble with Never."
Van Halen amicably split from long-time label Warner Bros. Records in 2002, although they would later sign a one-record deal with the label shortly afterwards for the 2004 release The Best of Both Worlds. The band briefly entered into negotiations with Columbia Records, but these stalled after Roth indicated he would not sign with the label. In November 2011, the band signed with Interscope Records, after its chairman Jimmy Iovine became personally involved in negotiations.
"Tattoo" was released as the album´s lead single on January 10, 2012. One day after its release on iTunes, it was the No. 1 selling rock song in the United States, Canada, Finland and the Netherlands, while also charting in Sweden, Belgium, Germany and the UK. By January 23, the song peaked at No. 1 on Billboard´s Hard Rock Singles chart, becoming the No. 1 most played song at classic rock radio, as well as the most added song at mainstream and active rock radio. Two days later, excerpts of both "Tattoo" and "Stay Frosty" were featured on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
The record was released on February 7, 2012 in both standard and deluxe edition versions, with the latter containing a bonus DVD titled The Downtown Sessions. This DVD included acoustic versions of "Panama," "You and Your Blues" and "Beautiful Girls." A performance of "You Really Got Me" from this acoustic session was posted online to promote the album. A double gatefold vinyl edition of the album was sold exclusively through Live Nation Entertainment. On February 28, "She´s the Woman" was serviced to radio as the second single. Its music video was released online on April 13, and on May 4 a promotional vinyl 7" single was serviced to 83 independent record stores to be given with purchases of A Different Kind of Truth. The band members opted to avoid excessive promotional press, an attitude that Roth described as "a sterling statement" on them not following "so many people on television telling you why you should buy something".
The cover artwork was designed by Los Angeles-based Smog Design, following a concept sent by Roth. Smog co-owner John Heiden picked the image, featuring a New York Central Railroad J-3A Dreyfuss Hudson steam locomotive, photographed by Robert Yarnall Richie, from the Southern Methodist University´s photo library, stating he chose it because "Richie´s angle on the photo makes it look like the locomotive is in motion and coming off the page." Aside from the reversed angle of the train, the artwork shares similarities to the 1975 Commodores album Movin´ On. The booklet includes Roth´s hand-written lyrics for the songs. Regarding the title, Eddie stated that he liked it because "there´s always their reality of what other people think, and there´s just the different kind of truth, which is the real truth."
After performing three warm-up shows at Cafe Wha? in New York City, Henson Studios in Hollywood, California, and The Forum in Inglewood, California, Van Halen began their A Different Kind of Truth Tour in Louisville, Kentucky on February 18. This tour consisted of 46 shows, ending on June 26 in New Orleans, and was the eighth-most-lucrative concert tour of 2012, with a total gross of $54,425,548 and attendance of 522,296. A second North American leg was cancelled, with the band claiming exhaustion. This was followed by the postponement of three Japanese concerts, as Eddie underwent emergency surgery to treat diverticulitis.
In 2013, Van Halen performed the rescheduled Japanese concerts, along with headlining gigs at three festivals: Stone Music Festival in Sydney (the band´s first concert in Australia since 1998), Rock USA at Ford Festival Park in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and the California Mid-State Fair in Paso Robles.
Upon its release, A Different Kind of Truth received positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 73, based on 21 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". It also holds an aggregate score of 6.9 out of 10 at AnyDecentMusic?, based on 16 reviews.
The Guardian gave the album four stars out of a possible five, calling it was a "frequently thrilling return" with songs that "crackle, fizz, and bulge with priapic exuberance". Likewise, AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine rated the album four stars out of five and wrote: "Van Halen are using their history to revive their present and they succeed surprisingly well on A Different Kind of Truth." The A.V. Club´s Steven Hyden stated, "After so many years of fumbling dysfunction that reduced the once-proud Van Halen name to a laughingstock, A Different Kind Of Truth matters because it´s a reminder of why this band mattered," while noting that, "Roth deserves some of the credit for that. For whatever reason, when Roth is in the band, Eddie Van Halen plays guitar like the world wants him to play guitar." Rolling Stone gave the album 3.5 out of 5 stars, with critic Rob Sheffield stating, "Van Halen´s ´heard you missed us, we´re back´ album is not only the most long-awaited reunion joint in the history of reunion joints, it is—against all reasonable expectations—a real Van Halen album."
William Clark of Guitar International gave the album a positive review, and said that the record features "some of the most elaborate, expansive, and simply wowing guitar playing that Eddie has passionately poured into a single album". Spin wrote, "the frantic, haute-for-teacher ´As Is´ and the mid-tempo shoulda-been-the-single ´You and Your Blues´ can hang with any heavy-breathing romp they made in their heyday." Jerry Shriver of USA Today gave the album 3.5/4 stars, saying that "this is the true kick in the butt that arena rock desperately needs." However, in the newspaper´s year-end retrospective, Edna Gundersen listed A Different Kind of Truth among the overrated albums of 2012, stating that "the reheated meat-and-potato riffs of Van Halen´s past had critics swooning and fans panting, but vanished from the charts after the band´s tour was scrapped" and the album deservedly got shut out of Grammy Award nominations. Guitar World picked A Different Kind of Truth as the best album of 2012. Rolling Stone named "Stay Frosty" the 16th best song of 2012, and the magazine´s readers ranked it the fifth best album of the year.
The record was also a commercial success. A Different Kind of Truth entered the US Billboard 200 at No. 2, selling 188,000 copies in its first six days of release, becoming the group´s 14th consecutive top ten album in the US. By the end of 2012, the album had sold 411,000 copies in the US, making it the 71st best-selling record of the year, and the third highest-selling hard rock album. The record also debuted at No. 6 on the UK Albums Chart with first-week sales of 14,040 copies, making it their highest charting album ever in the country. In Japan, it debuted at No. 3 on the Oricon chart, and was one of the few albums by western artists to appear on their year-end tally, finishing at number 89 with 79,517 copies sold.
All tracks written by Van Halen/Roth.