Like, totally

I'm only reviewing the band's career between 1978 (their debut) and 1984 (in which they wittily issued an album entitled 1984), in which they were fronted by this obnoxious showman by the name of David Lee Roth. Mind you, I'm not a huge fan of Roth - I don't own any of his solo albums - but there's one good solid reason why my dalliance with Van Halen ends with Roth's departure. The reason is called Sammy Hagar. It's hard to imagine a more pedestrian vocalist and frontman than Hagar, who seems to have watched Spinal Tap a dozen times without once clueing in to the irony. However, I'm not quite sure you can entirely blame Hagar for Van Halen's decline into self-parody; also factored must be some sort of creative drought for Eddie Van Halen, who seems to be so enamoured of guitar technique that he's forgotten how to write decent pop songs.

Ah, now that's the rub: leaving aside Eddie's groundbreaking guitar playing, what separated Van Halen from the metal hordes was a sharp sense of good pop songwriting. As far as hooks and melodies, some of their tunes are worthy of the concurrent Buzzcocks - and some even worthier. They were the biggest and loudest party band of their era, literally defining life for millions of highschoolers coming of age in the early '80s. They were the ultimate soundtrack to a Cameron Crowe flick involving beer and babes, and they totally rocked, dude! No, really, they did - sometimes (I'd better check that excessive irony of mine. Might turn into a typical '90s slacker asshole). Especially the hooks - Eddie found weird places on the guitar to turn into weirder sounds, and turned those into grab-ya-on-the-radio anthemic riffs. They were the Led Zeppelin of the '80s, only not as full of themselves, they wrote lyrics that actually made sense, they didn't wank off very much, and they were fun. Sorry, metal dudes, I just think Zep are way overrated. Influential, for sure, but half of Zep's music is too pompous to not bore the Tolkien out of me. But anyway, I like the Halen Bros. & Co. By the way, have I mentioned that Eddie, on a technical level, may be the greatest rock guitarist since Hendrix? Does stuff Tom Verlaine can only dream of (I like Television, too, that's not a knock against'em).

The second song, "Eruption," must have blown guitarists' minds back in the day; today it sounds like dated wank-off filler, but hey - so does nearly the entirety of Sgt. Pepper. I'm not an ace guitar technician - I know a few chords and can play around with'em a little, that's it - so I'm going to face the Sisyphean task of reviewing Van Halen's output without spending much technical detail on Eddie's playing. It's neat, and those hammer-ons and bluesless speedy runs were revolutionary, and that's all I've got to say. Anyway, the record kicks off with some fake Satanism (if you're in a heavy metal band, the rules stipulate that you write at least one song adressed to the man downstairs. And at least one ode to a slut. And the anti-authority song. And the let's rock and party dude song), and doesn't really let up until the final three songs - some folks like the cover of "Ice Cream Man", but to me it's just typical smarmy Dave goin' to Vegas corn, which I can most certainly do without. In between, they send a Kinks classic over the top to self-parody, sprint with a trio of neo-punk songs that never get played on the radio 'cause they're too "punk", I guess ("I'm One," "On Fire," and oh yeah, "Atomic Punk"). "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" was later covered by the Minutemen. And if you find a more brutally honest song about treating a girl like shit that isn't written by Elvis Costello or the Afghan Whigs than "Janie's Crying", then tell me about it.

It sounds the same as the debut, but something's wrong.... Hey, what happened to the hooks? It leads off with another cover, this one via Linda Ronstadt, that tries hard to be atmospheric and foreboding but falls flat on its face. Luckily, that leads straight into the album's highlight, "Dance the Night Away," that cuts the Motors' song of the same title, and stands as one of the band's best-ever pure pop songs. Unfortunately, the next big highlight comes at the very end, "Beautiful Girls," that gets over on Diamond Dave's hysterical beach bum monologue. In between there are a bunch of songs they don't play endlessly on the radio (like they do with nearly everything off the debut), for good reason. Some of it's okay, but too much of this sounds like a rush job. Steady Eddie's magic fingers and Diamond Dave's manic mugging save this from mediocrity - not the weak songwriting.

Two dull albums in a row; fortunately, their fortunes started perking up with the next album. At least it starts off really hot. "And the Cradle Will Rock" shows their songwriting develop a little bit, as Dave gets misty-eyed over '50s rebellion ("Have you seen junior's grades?") - corny as all get-out, more Back to the Future than Clockwork Orange is their idea of teen rebellion, but then again nihilistic anti-social tendencies aren't as cool as they're cracked up to be. "Everybody Wants Some!!" gets straight to the heart of the matter of human existence: as a wise man (Ice Cube) once said, "Life ain't nuthin' but bitches and money." Then it starts sliding downhill, though "Tora Tora" is a nice way to waste 40 seconds. For some reason, Dave mugs even more than usual - it's sad to see a grown man act like a 13--year-old boy.

Dumb party-hearty clowns? Well, Van Halen do fit that description, but this album doesn't. In fact, the album is rather dark. Obviously influenced by the upstart hardcore punks infiltrating L.A. at the time, these songs are the band's heaviest and meanest, and least pop. Kicks off with Dave walking past the crazies on "Mean Street" and the next one has underage porn stars in it. The only radio hit was "Unchained," 'cause every Van Halen album has to have at least one radio song off it according to AOR radio programmers, but none of the rest sound very commercial at all. That's why some folks don't like this too much, but what they're missing is some of Eddie's best playing, some weird moody shit, and the sound of Dave not acting like a fool for once. Okay, so that last sound is genetically impossible, but at least Dave tries to not act like a boor ("Gimme a break, Dave" - "One break, coming up!"). A little instrumental ditty entitled "Sunday Afternoon In the Park" introduces Eddie's love affair with synthesizers (Pete Townshend parallel, anyone?). It's their art record and thereby not long on pop bliss, so if that's what you're looking for, skip it; but it doesn't sound like any of their other records, so it gets bonus points.

Their songwriting skills must have gone out the door at this point, 'cause half of these tunes are covers, and covers aren't why I listen to bands unless I'm paying a cover charge at the local beer mill. The Kinks cover, "Where Have All The Good Times Gone" is lame, as if Dave didn't grasp a syllable of Ray Davies' irony and he's playing it for a good time party tune. Dated synths ruin "Dancing In the Streets" a song that a)is over-covered, and b)wasn't even a good song in the first place. "Big Bad Bill" and "Happy Trails" further prepare Dave for Las Vegas. That leaves "Oh Pretty Woman" as the sole good cover, taking Roy Orbison's classic of leering lust to hooks it never imagined. The originals aren't very strong either, except for "Little Guitar", an ode to a Senorita that stands as one of the band's best-ever pop songs. And maybe "Cathredal" if you're into guitar playing as art-mood muzak. It's amazing to think that a band running this low on creativity would turn so far around with the next album....

Here's where it all comes together. You probably know exactly what you think of this album already, and of the songs that they don't play endlessly on AOR radio, only "Top Jimmy" (a tribute to a "legendary" L.A. musician, and I put legendary in quotes 'cause I've never heard his stuff. Anyway, what do "roots" mean in L.A., anyway - it's not like it's the Mississippi Delta. Top Jimmy probably laid down the roots of the L.A. Toto/Foriegner tradition for all I know), deserves to be (this sentence doesn't flow very well unless you ignore all the parantheses, so do so). "Drop Dead Legs" and "House of Pain" and "Bad Girl" just don't really do anything for me, though the synthesizer instrumental is pretty lively as far as synthesizer muzak goes. So that leaves the four songs they play endlessly on the radio and will continue to do until the military holds its annual underground Nevada nuke testing in Las Vegas, as they should have done a long time ago (seriously. We would have never have heard of Wayne Newton or Tom Jones if they'd done the right thing back in the '50s). Though I admit I play the acoustic Aztec Camera version a lot more, 'cause I'm sick of the original's radio overplay, "Jump" is one heckuva a single - it's got a synthhook catchier than "Baba O'Riley" and as someone once said (I'm atrociously paraphrasing) it has a life-affirming spirit that restores your faith in humanity. Okay, scratch that, I don't think anybody ever put it quite that way, but "Jump" really is a great song. As devout Trotskyite Libertarians, Van Halen disguise a pointed commentary on Jimmy Carter's return of the Panama Canal as a mindless car song. "Hot For Teacher" sounds like a wicked outtake from Schoolboys In Disgrace, though it blows out of the water anything off that weak Kinks album (and knowing what big Kinks fans these guys are, I bet it was an intentional homage. Or maybe Dave was just horny for some student teacher). "I'll Wait" possesses a nice, moody little synthesizer melody and has Dave falling in love with a centerfold, kind of like in "Pictures of Lily". My main problem with this album is that it's too short, but at least the bad parts are over pretty quick and you won't get bored with it. People complain about half-hour albums - I say we oughta bring'em back, 'cause what I get sick of is 70-minute CDs that go on forever with only (if you're lucky) a half-hour's worth of listenable material. Really, does anyone need to hear two hours of the Smashing Pumpkins - in a row?

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