New Reviews: Van Halen Return to Form on 'A Different Kind of Truth'

Van Halen, 'A Different Kind of Truth'

Interscope

In this week's slate of Rolling Stone reviews, Rob Sheffield praises A Different Kind of Truth, Van Halen's first album with David Lee Roth in nearly three decades. "As for Diamond Dave, the gods only made one of him, because they couldn't take the competition," says Sheffield. "Now this is a rock star, except no other rock star would try to get away with this many cornball one-liners."  Also, Monica Herrera digs the new mixtape from Das Racist emcee Himanshu, James Hunter endorses the giant soul hooks of the latest Marvelettes anthology and Jon Dolan says that the Black Keys' Patrick Carney's production on the new Tennis album improves on the sound of their debut.

ALBUMS

Van Halen - A Different Kind of Truth

Himanshu - Nehru Jackets

Tennis - Young & Old

Howlin Rain - The Russian Wilds

Heartless Bastards - Arrow

Punch Brothers - Who's Feeling Young Now?

Polica - Give You the Ghost

The Marvelettes - Forever More: The Complete Motown Albums, Volume 2

SONGS

Ane Brun – "Do You Remember"

Chieftains featuring Bon Iver – "Down in the Willow"

Amadou and Mariam – "Dougou Badia"

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  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
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  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
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  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
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  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

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