Review Summary: My first TBT, this is the second most overrated album ever.
In the late 70’s, a musical phenomenon called punk swept up the American and British youth culture, suddenly causing them to turn on bands they had been extremely loyal to just a few years before, such as Led Zeppelin, The Who, and The Rolling Stones. Out of nowhere, Zeppelin was “dinosaur rock” and fast, aggressive punk bands such as The Ramones and The Clash became the forefront of rock.
This proved to be a short-lived fad, however, a fact often attributed to Van Halen’s debut album, released in 1978, which caused a resurgence in popularity for hard rock music. Van Halen took the hard rock format and sped it up and added whimsicality factor, which proved to be wildly popular with Americans. Surprisingly, Van Halen’s striking good looks and party-hard attitude caused them to successfully introduce the hard rock genre to a significant female audience.
Pity the music is trash.
Below is a track by track review of this unfortunate classic, directly responsible for legions of faceless hair metal bands in the 80’s. Please don’t give me any stupid comments now about how I don’t give enough detail and the like, because clearly, I did on this one.
1. Running with the Devil
This track opens up with an odd sound effect, which slowly fades in before you are blasted with a short bassline and then a pounding riff. Unfortunately, the riff is about as dumb as the riff from “Black Sabbath.” It is annoying and extremely loud, for seemingly no reason other than the purpose of being loud. We then get treated to some of front-loser David Lee Roth’s infamously terrible lyrics. “I live my life like there's no tomorrow, and all I've got I had to steal.” Okay. You’re cool then, Dave. You’re runnin’ with the devil. Yeehaw. This features on of Eddie’s worst solos, even by his standards. The rhythm is also predictably terrible; Van Halen is famous for their awful drummer and bassist, who sound like they belong in an R&B band. Overall, one of the worst tracks in the entire history of the world. 0/5
2. Eruption
Ooooo, ahhhhh. How impressive, indeed! Two handed tapping—how difficult! And what an original idea—not like Jimmy Page had already done this in the solo in “Heartbreaker.” And even if he did, he didn’t have a ton of effects pedals to make it sound faster and more technical than it really was like this god did! All hail Eddie! This is an entirely instrumental track which consists of Eddie making some extremely irritating and unmelodic noises with his guitar. It brings to mind the first time you got an electric guitar, and you didn’t know how to play, so you messed around with it and made some crappy sounds and said “Screw learning—I’ll just make this my trademark style!” It also represents the point in which a large part of heavy metal became trying to craft as outrageously annoying a guitar solo as humanly possible, regardless of if the solo even makes sense musically or fits the song. 0/5
3. You Really Got Me
Overall, the best song on the album. Of course, it was written by the Kinks. The riff is incredibly catchy. Again, it was written by the Kinks, not these buffoons. David Lee Roth’s voice is a poor substitution, indeed, and the solo is unsurprisingly, crap, as it doesn’t fit the song one bit. 1/5
4. Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love
This song contains a terribly cheesy riff that could easily be found in a Kiss record. The lyrics are incredibly sexist (“You know, you’re semi-good lookin’”). I also found the “Hey! Hey! Hey!”’s nothing but annoying. The solo is extremely bad as well. It isn’t even fast, which I guess is one thing you have to hand to Eddie: he can hit a bunch of random notes fast. Here he does it slow for no reason. Drumming sucks, bass sucks. 0/5
5. I’m The One
What is this song about again? I have no idea. All I know is that the riff is repetitive and there are three (!) piss-poor solos in this crapfest. Dave sounds particularly self-important in this idiotic song; I can’t quite explain it but his tone when he sings “Show your love, babe” he sounds like he thinks he’s Frank Sinatra or something. He’s actually a terrible excuse for a terrible singer, mostly because he isn’t even a singer, he just shouts.0/5
6. Jamie’s Crying
These lyrics would actually seem to be against sexism if not for the sarcastic tone they’re sung in. So I think this is actually another sexist song. It’s extremely poppish, and that annoying tribal drum beat has been endlessly sampled in rap music. I still hate it just as much today as I did then. The solo sucks. Michael Anthony’s harmonies aren’t too terrible in this song, though. So a .2. .2/0
7. Atomic Punk
This is probably getting repetitive, but people want details on here. Contains a futuristic rock riff with some cool effects. Of course the lyrics absolutely suck (“Nobody rules these streets at night but me, the atomic punk!”), the solo does not fit the song, and David Lee Roth annoys me when he says “Puunnnnkkkkkk!” But that riff doesn’t meet the standard of awfulness set by most of the album. .1/5
8. Feel Your Love Tonight
A lot like “Jamie’s Crying.” Even Michael Anthony’s harmonizing is irritating on this one. 0/5
9. Little Dreamer
A ballad that sucks. The lyrics don’t make any sense, and the whole song is the same three second riff. The solo really disconnected here. Overall, it is Van Halen attempting to be serious. And when not hiding behind the “We’re a big party band! Woo hoo!” shtick, it’s even easier to see that this band had not an ounce of talent and ruined the 80’s rock scene and indeed metal forever.
10. Ice Cream Man
A bluesy cover song that starts off with an acoustic. The acoustic with just David is mildly cool, sounds like something you’d hear in a bar, which works. Then Eddie’s horrific playing pops in and the song is instantly ruined. The solo sounds like defecation. 0/5
11. On Fire
Woo hoo! Scream with Dave! He’s on fire!
Actually I couldn’t’ care less about this piece of garbage, with yet another terrible riff, yet another terrible solo, and still yet Dave’s “singing.” And hey. Michael and Alex, try playing a different rhythm,
just once. 0/5
Overall, this is a terrible album and Eddie is one of the most wildly uninventive guitarists in the history of overrated crap. The bassist sings better than the frontman and the drummer plays one beat, always. Don’t buy this terrible trash, ever. It is a disgrace to human kind and ruined hard rock forever, placing right behind Nirvana’s Nevermind as the second most overrated album of all time.
True, this album did destroy the atrocity of punk rock bands like Sex Pistols etc. But in its place it gave us a decade of hair metal and terrible guitar playing. I wish this album would have never been released.
