January 10, 2015
Van Halen - Van Halen
When I look at the tracks, listen to, and think about this album, a lot of adjectives immediately come to mind. First one - Fierce. Others descriptions: Revolutionary. Energy! From beginning to end. It's a special album - every song. It's one of the favorites in my vinyl collection.
Clearly, I'm not alone in this feeling. Released in 1978, the album sold more than ten million copies by 1999, which achieves RIAA diamond status. The RIAA has 4 levels of achievement with respect to sales:
500,000 units: Gold album
1,000,000 units: Platinum album
2,000,000 or more units: Double-Platinum album
10,000,000 units: Diamond album
Rolling Stone magazine conducted a reader poll on their favorite hard rock/metal albums of the 1970s and this debut album by Van Halen came in at number 5. It was recorded in three weeks between September and October of 1977 at Sunset Sound Recorders, Hollywood, California for $40,000-$46,000 - funny considering other big albums of that time cost $150,000 to $200,000 to produce and sometimes even took several years. 25 songs were considered for the album. It was eventually narrowed down to 11.
Frankly, this is masterful and genre changing album. As a debut album accomplishing this, it puts the album in the ranks of the The Doors debut album, Jimi Hendrix’s Are You Experienced album, Led Zeppelin's debut album, the Ramones debut album, the Sex Pistols debut album, and the Rolling Stones debut album. Allmusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine writes that these albums are the kind that are so original that they sound like they have no fathers. In Erlewine's opinion, the album "set the template for how rock and roll sounded for the next decade or more."
Eddie Van Halen brought a new sound to the electric guitar just as Jimmy did many years before. 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." On December 20, 2014, David Lee Roth was interviewed by the website Something Else!, where he selected the album as his favorite Van Halen album.
The photos for the album sleeve were shot at the Whisky a Go Go nightclub on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, California, the same place the Doors, Motley Crue, and Guns 'N Roses launched their careers!
The guitar on the album cover was one of Eddie’s $200 creations assembled from a pile of cheap guitars into what he called a Frankenstrat. After Van Halen’s first world tour Eddie added red paint to the white and black guitar and also had bike reflectors attached to the back to throw lights around onstage. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History now houses a replica - Van Halen's "Frank 2" played by Eddie and made in 2006 as part of a joint venture between the artist and Fender.
Van Halen used a stock unmodified Ibanez Destroyer on several of the tracks of this album: You Really Got Me and Runnin' With the Devil. This Ibanez Destroyer was later modified and nicknamed "The Shark" by Van Halen fans.
The track listings on this album are:
Side A
1. "Runnin' with the Devil" 3:36
2. "Eruption" (instrumental) 1:43
3. "You Really Got Me" (Ray Davies) 2:38
4. "Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love" 3:50
5. "I'm the One" 3:47
Side B
1. "Jamie's Cryin'" 3:31
2. "Atomic Punk" 3:02
3. "Feel Your Love Tonight" 3:43
4. "Little Dreamer" 3:23
5. "Ice Cream Man" (John Brim) 3:20
6. "On Fire"
The first song "Running' with the Devil" contains lyrics inspired by funk and R&B band the Ohio Players song “Runnin’ From The Devil”. In 2009 it was named the 9th greatest hard rock song of all time by VH1. The song begins with a collection of car horns sounding taken from the band’s own cars (Alex’s Opel, Eddie’s Volvo, a Mercedes Benz and a Volkswagen). In 2009, VH1 rated it as the 9th greatest hard rock song of all time.
"Eruption" is an instrumental rock guitar solo performed by Eddie Van Halen. The song often appears on many 'greatest guitar solos' lists. The highlight of the solo is the use of two-handed tapping and popularized the tapping trend of the '80s. Eddie said in an interview that the song wasn't even planned to be on the album. Eddie showed up early to the recording studio and was warming up and practicing a guitar solo for an upcoming gig and producer Ted Templeman walked by and said that the solo should be on the album. Eddie is very often named the greatest rock guitarist of all time on major polls (such as Guitar World Magazine) and this song is very often voted the greatest rock guitar solo of all time. The long descending growl at the end was created using a Univox EC-80 echo unit that Ed housed in an old WWII practice bomb that he picked up from a junkyard.
Image of Van Halen (Dave and Eddie) in around 1975 before they went big
Song three on the A side is a cover of the The Kinks song "You Really Got Me". It was a popular radio hit which helped jump-start the band's career, as it had done for The Kinks 14 years earlier. The Kinks' Dave Davies has gone on record as having a personal dislike of Van Halen's cover of the song and believes "They (Van Halen) would be penniless without The Kinks". He also told of how Kinks fans have approached him and congratulated him on performing a "great cover of the Van Halen song", and how Van Halen fans have approached him to accuse him of "ripping off Van Halen". lead singer and songwriter for The Kinks, Ray Davies, on the other hand, is said to have liked it.
Eddie wrote the next song, "Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love" a year before the album was released, but did consider it good enough to show his bandmates. It's been covered or sampled many times since then.
Eruption (0:00 to 2:27), Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love (2:27 to 6:26)
The fifth and last song on Side A is "I'm the One" . This song is pure Eddie guitar swaggered intensity! Guitar World magazine wrote this about the song:
"At its core "I’m The One" is a hot-rodded blues boogie tune that provided a springboard for Eddie to show off his impressive shredding chops, with a jazz scat vocal harmony interlude thrown in for comic relief. The true inspiration for Joe Satriani’s "Satch Boogie" starts here, as Satriani copied everything, from Alex's thundering double-kick shuffle to Eddie’s ascending triplet runs. Numerous shredders followed suit, but none were able to swing quite like Ed did here."
Instrumental version
Side B begins with "Jamie's Cryin'". The riffs.... the bass guitar, the drums, the lead guitar, the vocals ... that's what's amazing about Van Halen... each aspect is kickin'! David Lee Roth wrote this song (and it was the only song from the album written in the studio) about a girl who has a one-night stand and lives to regret it.
Lacking the time to fine tune the song in the Hollywood clubs and unsure of how to approach the song, Roth decided to put down the Camel cigarettes and lay off the booze for a day hoping to improve his raspy voice. After a couple takes, album Producer Ted Templeman came down on him for the sound of his voice. When he heard Roth’s explanation, Templeman requested Roth return to previous behavior and Roth immediately smoked a joint, drank a pop, and ate a cheeseburger to regain his raspy, threading voice.
The guitar riff from Jamie's Cryin' was later sampled for Tone Loc's 1988 hit "Wild Thing."
Atomic Punk - oh wow, awesome guitar! Awesome energy! Eddie rubbed his hand back and forth across the strings, while kicking in his MXR Phase 90 to produce the scratchy-sounding riff (same technique used in Everybody Wants Some!).
From the lyrics and rhythm, the next song, "Feel Your Love Tonight" is clearly party song with a purely sexual story. Eddie breaks into a sweat solo at 2:37 in the song.
"Little Dreamer" -- starts with a very cool, mellow guitar riff, and equally cool vocals. The song has a much slower rhythm, but is hard and awesome at the same time. Guitar solo at 1:47 (gotta have one you know!).
The second to the last song, "Ice Cream Man" was originally an acoustic intro written by John Brim penned and recorded by Elmore James. It's a fun song... and a classic DLR (Roth) song!! Roth is highly loved front-man by many! The song transitons from soft to hard at 1:12 at the solo guitar kicks in at 1:45.
The Elmore James and John Brim version of Ice Cream Man. Great blues jam!
After two songs with elements of a slower rhythm, this song, the last song on the album,"On Fire", closes the album with a return to pure energy - screaming Roth vocals and mean guitar riffs on Eddie's Ibanez Destroyer "Shark.".
References
Page on album at Van Halen News Desk
Wikipedia page on the album
AllMusic page on album
Story of Van Halen's beginning
Wikipedia page on Eddie
Eddie interview on some of the bands songs
Profile of band from Rolling Stone Magazine