Van Halen : Van Halen : Review : Rolling Stone

Van Halen were veterans of the Pasadena, California, bar circuit, but on their 1978 debut their sound was already large enough to fill football stadiums. Singer David Lee Roth yowled like a Vegas performer in heat, Michael Anthony played the bass lines that let Eddie Van Halen go wild on guitar, and Eddie crammed a whole season of soap-opera plot twists into every solo, making liberal use of the whammy bar but never losing the melody. The only element of the formula missing was a spoken Roth rap (the pinnacle of that art would come two years later, with the "I like the little way the line runs up the back of the stockings" bit on "Everybody Wants Some!!").

Multiple tracks from Van Halen crashed into heavy rotation on rock radio: "Runnin' With the Devil," "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" and their version of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me." The best was "Jamie's Cryin'." Discarding crass lyrics such as "You know you're semi-good-lookin'," Roth wrote a surprisingly empathetic song about a girl regretting a one-night stand, while Eddie delivered a guitar lick that would later do wonders for Tone-Loc's "Wild Thing." During the making of the song, Roth was monitoring his diet and exercise to preserve his voice -- but found that he didn't sound right in the studio. So he sucked down a joint, a soda and a cheeseburger, and promptly nailed it. Rumor has it that Van Halen have continued in recent years with a new lead singer, but since their 1985 breakup, nobody involved has ever recaptured that spontaneous cheeseburger magic.

GAVIN EDWARDS
(RS 962 - November 25, 2004)

(Posted: Nov 25, 2004)

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Review 1 of 2

5of 5 Stars

It's not easy to see a revolution coming, until it's already kicked you in the ass! That's very much what I thought when I first heard Van Halen's self-titled debut. Everybody was having a great time listening to great rock and roll in the 70's, this is true, very much. But no one had approached it with this much originality and power since the days of the Beatles, or the first Led Zeppelin record in 1968. I remember hearing this record for the first time in 1978, and I remember thinking to myself that a monster was coming through my stereo speakers. But I was wrong, it was "Runnin' with the Devil" instead. This is an amazing record, even to this day, and I still consider it my favorite of all Van Halen records, hands down!
-Cody Marmon

May 11, 2007 10:20:01

Review 2 of 2

5of 5 Stars

Van Halen's self-titled debut is one of the most amazing hard rock albums of all time. It is the perfect chemistry between the kamikaze guitar-playing of Eddie Van Halen, vocalist David Lee Roth's party-fuelling charisma and the steady-as-it-goes rhythm-section that's so immediately impressive. Scorching rockers as "Runnin With the Devil", "Jamie's Cryin" and "Atomic Punk" marks the statement that Van Halen knew how to play their heavy, popish metal right from the outset. Just as Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and several other great rock bands, Van Halen's debut stands as probably their best - and although their sound would later develope and achieve new fans, it is their debut that marked their own blueprint and continuing evolution of hard rock music. And whether you like it hard-n-heavy or catchy-n-cool it's all here, making it an ultimate coming-of-age album. Eddie Van Halen's guitar virtuoso of "Eruption", the one-night-stand tale of "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" and their perfect cover-version of Kinks' all-time classic "You Really Got Me" stands as probably the album's biggest highlights.

Jan 15, 2007 05:20:30

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