Van Halen on Rolling Stone Greatest 100 Debut Albums List

[Seshmeister]

It was fifty years ago that the Beatles’ released their first album, Please Please Me. In honor of that world-changing LP, we’ve compiled a list of the 100 Greatest Debut Albums of All Time. A note on how we made the list: Albums got docked points if the artist went on to far greater achievements (which is why Please, Please Me and Greetings from Asbury Park, great as they are, didn't made the top ten); conversely, we gave a little extra recognition to great debut albums that the artist never matched (hello, Is This It and Illmatic!). We also skipped solo debuts by artists who were already in well-known bands, which is why you won’t see John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band or Paul Simon. We focused, instead, on debuts that gave you the thrill of an act arriving fully-formed, ready to reinvent the world in its own image.

#27



Van Halen
Warner Bros. 1978

The strutting frontman as spandex-clad love machine, the finger-flying guitar hero, the kegstand rhythm section: Van Halen was the ultimate party band and their debut feels like the Eighties arriving two years ahead of schedule. Tunes like the fist pumping "Runnin' With the Devil," the muscular "Atomic Punk," a thunderous cover of "You Really Got Me" and "Ain’t Talkin' 'Bout Love" put the show-biz swagger back in hard rock, and Eddie Van Halen's jaw-dropping technique raised the bar for six-string pyrotechnics, particularly on "Eruption," the solo that launched a thousand dudes messing around at Guitar Center.



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[Seshmeister]

And here is Rolling Stone's original review of Van Halen 1 back in the day.

By Charles M. Young
May 4, 1978


Mark my words: in three years, Van Halen is going to be fat and self-indulgent and disgusting, and they'll follow Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin right into the toilet. In the meantime, they are likely to be a big deal. Their cover of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me" does everything right, and they have three or four other cuts capable of jumping out of the radio the same way "Feels like the First Time" and "More than a Feeling" did amid all the candyass singer/songwriters and Shaun Cassidy-ass twits.

Van Halen's secret is not doing anything that's original while having the hormones to do it better than all those bands who have become fat and self-indulgent and disgusting. Edward Van Halen has mastered the art of lead/rhythm guitar in the tradition of Jimmy Page and Joe Walsh; several riffs on this record beat anything Aerosmith has come up with in years. Vocalist Dave Lee Roth manages the rare hard-rock feat of infusing the largely forgettable lyrics with energy and not sounding like a castrato at the same time. Drummer Alex Van Halen and bassist Michael Anthony are competent and properly unobtrusive.

These guys also have the good sense not to cut their hair or sing about destroying a hopelessly corrupt society on their first album. That way, hopelessly corrupt radio programmers will play their music.

Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band with the Rootettes, on the other hand, are already fat and self-indulgent and disgusting. This is a good thing because, in bypassing artistic maturity for immediate decadence, they have the distinction of being the first rock band in history to complain that their trusses are slipping ("My Wig Fell Off"). Oddly enough, they are also a good rock band. You would expect they'd be just clowns with a repertoire like "Heartbreak of Psoriasis" and "Too Sick to Reggae," but this outfit can play blues-based rock with anybody. Gary Katz, of Steely Dan fame, has produced a clean and eminently listenable instrumental sound while retaining the uniqueness of the Root's voice, which resonates like an emphysema victim vomiting inside the Goodyear blimp (check out "Boogie 'til You Puke").

All in their thirties, Root Boy and the rest can hardly be defined as New Wave. They are, however, part of the general movement of lunacy and satire that is shaking up the music industry. A lot of people thought the Sex Pistols were going to blaze the trail into the Top Ten, but the real breakthrough was Randy Newman's "Short People." Parliament/Funkadelic is having a similar psychological effect in black music. Like these two acts and unlike the punks, Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band are both humorously and musically accessible. Their stance as over-the-hill wimps is just unthreatening enough that hopelessly corrupt radio programmers might play their music. I hope so.



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[FORD]

If he had said "in eight years" instead of "in three years", it would have been an accurate enough statement.

[SunisinuS]

And here is Rolling Stone's original review of Van Halen 1 back in the day.

By Charles M. Young
May 4, 1978


Mark my words: in three years, Van Halen is going to be fat and self-indulgent and disgusting, and they'll follow Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin right into the toilet. In the meantime, they are likely to be a big deal. Their cover of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me" does everything right, and they have three or four other cuts capable of jumping out of the radio the same way "Feels like the First Time" and "More than a Feeling" did amid all the candyass singer/songwriters and Shaun Cassidy-ass twits.

Van Halen's secret is not doing anything that's original while having the hormones to do it better than all those bands who have become fat and self-indulgent and disgusting. Edward Van Halen has mastered the art of lead/rhythm guitar in the tradition of Jimmy Page and Joe Walsh; several riffs on this record beat anything Aerosmith has come up with in years. Vocalist Dave Lee Roth manages the rare hard-rock feat of infusing the largely forgettable lyrics with energy and not sounding like a castrato at the same time. Drummer Alex Van Halen and bassist Michael Anthony are competent and properly unobtrusive.

These guys also have the good sense not to cut their hair or sing about destroying a hopelessly corrupt society on their first album. That way, hopelessly corrupt radio programmers will play their music.

Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band with the Rootettes, on the other hand, are already fat and self-indulgent and disgusting. This is a good thing because, in bypassing artistic maturity for immediate decadence, they have the distinction of being the first rock band in history to complain that their trusses are slipping ("My Wig Fell Off"). Oddly enough, they are also a good rock band. You would expect they'd be just clowns with a repertoire like "Heartbreak of Psoriasis" and "Too Sick to Reggae," but this outfit can play blues-based rock with anybody. Gary Katz, of Steely Dan fame, has produced a clean and eminently listenable instrumental sound while retaining the uniqueness of the Root's voice, which resonates like an emphysema victim vomiting inside the Goodyear blimp (check out "Boogie 'til You Puke").

All in their thirties, Root Boy and the rest can hardly be defined as New Wave. They are, however, part of the general movement of lunacy and satire that is shaking up the music industry. A lot of people thought the Sex Pistols were going to blaze the trail into the Top Ten, but the real breakthrough was Randy Newman's "Short People." Parliament/Funkadelic is having a similar psychological effect in black music. Like these two acts and unlike the punks, Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band are both humorously and musically accessible. Their stance as over-the-hill wimps is just unthreatening enough that hopelessly corrupt radio programmers might play their music. I hope so.



Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/al...#ixzz2fl6NZGQT
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

So much for the Kreskin (sp) above:

[VHscraps]

Charles M. Young wrote one of the best - and longest - feature articles on Van Halen ever. For the now defunct Musician magazine, in 1984.

By then he was pretty damn close to calling VH the greatest band there was ... I still have the issue. 'Tis this one ...

[sadaist]

particularly on "Eruption," the solo that launched a thousand dudes messing around at Guitar Center.

Ermm......there was more than 1,000 dudes trying it just in San Diego. O_o

[Zing!]

... I still have the issue. 'Tis this one ...]

Godamnit! I used to have that very issue! Just another piece of CVH arcana that disappeared into the void. A great read as I remember, and one that made me first start to seriously wonder, even as a numbskull teen, that there were cracks in the VH foundation...

[DLR Bridge]

I still have that one. Always loved that cover.

[VHscraps]

I still have that one. Always loved that cover.

... and when you think about it, there never was that many photos of just the two of them together offstage.

[Kristy]

Too bad that article on The Smiths was ruined by Ed and Dave being on the cover. Shame.

[BumBahDeeDah]

Scans? Links? I really don't remember reading that one. Until I read it and say, "Oh, I remember this one!!"

Thanks.

[78/84 guy]

Too bad that article on The Smiths was ruined by Ed and Dave being on the cover. Shame.

God you bore me. Why are you still allowed on here ? I don't even look on here as much as I used too just because skipping over your bullshit in every fucking thread isn't worth the time ! Go piss people off at A Zeppelin website will ya!

[VHscraps]

Too bad that article on The Smiths was ruined by Ed and Dave being on the cover. Shame.

I read a Q&A with The Smiths' Johnny Marr quite recently (well, maybe a couple of years ago now seeing as how time flies) in a UK magazine called Uncut, and it was one of those things where other well-known musicians ask questions of whoever the guest respondent is for any particular month.

In this issue Roddy Frame - whose band Aztec Camera covered VH's 'Jump' - asked Marr a question about Van Halen. It was something along the lines of, "how did you enjoy the Van Halen show in 1984 at MSG" - I think Frame had said that they had to go and see Van Halen - and Marr replied that he and the rest of The Smiths went to the show and they all thought it was ... brilliant ...

True. I've still got the thing in a pile of magazines somewhere ...

[Kristy]

To be quite fair Johnny Marr smoked a lot of dope back in 1984. I'm sure when he was sober he recanted those words.

[VHscraps]

Ah - maybe it was '85. No mention of Sam Hagar though.

1/2