Van Halen’s ‘A Different Kind of Truth' At 10: A Track-by-Track Guide

[Terry]

1. Tattoo - Seemed like a bit of a middling-rocker instrumentally to have been the lead single off the album. Was pretty ho-hum about it as a demo from decades back to begin with. Not terrible by any means.

2. She's The Woman - That reworked demo sounds more along the lines of the type of CVH I enjoy than Tattoo does. Good stuff.

3. You And Your Blues - Didn't care for this one. Never did much for me.

4. China Town - Now THIS is the stuff!!

5. Blood And Fire - Great reworking of that Ripley track. Great stuff.

6. Bullethead - Another solid reworking of an old CVH demo.

7. As Is - one of the newer/non-old demo tracks (along with China Town) that I enjoyed.

8. Honeybabysweetiedoll - meh...there are a few instrumental moments/riffs I liked, but overall this isn't really what I'd want from a Van Halen track.

9. The Trouble With Never - disposable...sounds like a lesser track on a Roth solo album.

10. Outta Space - another good reworking of an old demo.

11. Stay Frosty - me likes it! "Blah, blah, blah...it's just an homage to Ice Cream Man...blah, blah, blah" What-fucking-ever: it brings a smile to my face.

12. Big River - I gotta say...I think this is my favorite track on the album. Fantastic reworking of another old demo track.

13. Beats Workin' - another solid updating of an old demo track.


Overall? For the most part, it was the revamped 1970s demo tunes that held my interest the strongest. A couple/few duds, but 10 out of the 13 tracks I either liked or really liked.

[Nitro Express]

The shit song always becomes the single. Jump was shit. Tattoo is shit as well. Apparently the general public likes shit and only the highly intelligent minority want the really good stuff.

[Nitro Express]

Love this lp...hate the mix...sounds like shit..Live from Tokyo sounds better..til Roth starts singing

They should have mixed on a good ol Neve console. My dog could mix on one and it would sound good.

[nick500]

1. Tattoo - Seemed like a bit of a middling-rocker instrumentally to have been the lead single off the album. Was pretty ho-hum about it as a demo from decades back to begin with. Not terrible by any means.

2. She's The Woman - That reworked demo sounds more along the lines of the type of CVH I enjoy than Tattoo does. Good stuff.

3. You And Your Blues - Didn't care for this one. Never did much for me.

4. China Town - Now THIS is the stuff!!

5. Blood And Fire - Great reworking of that Ripley track. Great stuff.

6. Bullethead - Another solid reworking of an old CVH demo.

7. As Is - one of the newer/non-old demo tracks (along with China Town) that I enjoyed.

8. Honeybabysweetiedoll - meh...there are a few instrumental moments/riffs I liked, but overall this isn't really what I'd want from a Van Halen track.

9. The Trouble With Never - disposable...sounds like a lesser track on a Roth solo album.

10. Outta Space - another good reworking of an old demo.

11. Stay Frosty - me likes it! "Blah, blah, blah...it's just an homage to Ice Cream Man...blah, blah, blah" What-fucking-ever: it brings a smile to my face.

12. Big River - I gotta say...I think this is my favorite track on the album. Fantastic reworking of another old demo track.

13. Beats Workin' - another solid updating of an old demo track.


Overall? For the most part, it was the revamped 1970s demo tunes that held my interest the strongest. A couple/few duds, but 10 out of the 13 tracks I either liked or really liked.

The weird thing about Tattoo: it was a big hit in Japan all the way to #14.
It did crack the Hot 100 as well in the USA.
I wish they had done Big River live, it has a great hook and was an obvious third radio single.
Why they went with Stay Frosty, I don't know.
I think ADKOT is way under appreciated. It was a return to form for Ed.
The record has a lot of energy, that was not there at all during the dark ages of Hagar.

[Fairwrning]

Anybody tried to find a vinyl copy on ebay?..yikes

https://www.ebay.com/itm/313859316819?hash=item4913791c53:g:Z-QAAOSw93Ncrits

[Fairwrning]

[Terry]

The shit song always becomes the single. Jump was shit. Tattoo is shit as well. Apparently the general public likes shit and only the highly intelligent minority want the really good stuff.

I was never all that fond of Jump, even back when it first came out.

I'm not particularly fond of Tattoo, either. It just kind of plods along to no real effect for me.

[Terry]

The weird thing about Tattoo: it was a big hit in Japan all the way to #14.
It did crack the Hot 100 as well in the USA.
I wish they had done Big River live, it has a great hook and was an obvious third radio single.
Why they went with Stay Frosty, I don't know.
I think ADKOT is way under appreciated. It was a return to form for Ed.
The record has a lot of energy, that was not there at all during the dark ages of Hagar.

When I saw them on that tour, they did...what the fuck DID they do off that album?

They did The Trouble With Never, which was my least favorite track on the album.

I think they did Tattoo as well as Chinatown.

I would have LOVED to have heard them play Big River live.

I'd agree that eventually - pretty much with the ADKOT album and tour - Ed got back to form in terms of playing up to par with what he was doing back in the CVH days. It was pretty much Ed going back and playing that CVH stuff for the 2007 tour as well as relearning the old CVH demos for ADKOT that got him back in full-on CVH mode...especially after Van Halen III folded...that whole period between 2000 and 2007...I mean, you listen to his playing on the 2004 tour, and he was off form (at least with the Van Halen III tour, Ed could still play the CVH stuff well live) and that was also true to a degree for the 2007 tour.

[Terry]

Anybody tried to find a vinyl copy on ebay?..yikes

https://www.ebay.com/itm/31385931681...QAAOSw93Ncrits

Upwards of $700?

Jesus.

[Terry]

Love this lp...hate the mix...sounds like shit..Live from Tokyo sounds better..til Roth starts singing

That's definitely a drawback for ADKOT: be it either playing it through speakers or through headphones, when you crank it up it distorts to shit. It does have a dry digital sound even at lower volumes. Contrast that with the Fair Warning album, where you can crank that fucker right up and everything is still clear in the mix.

[Nitro Express]

I was never all that fond of Jump, even back when it first came out.

I'm not particularly fond of Tattoo, either. It just kind of plods along to no real effect for me.

Both songs are boring as hell. They just demonstrate how dumb the general public is. They like quaint circus music.

[Nitro Express]

The record companies and radio stations hated sophisticated music. It was over the heads of the majority of the listening audience. So we get Jump this, Jump that and everybody wang chung tonight. Ed writes a dumb song on a keyboard and it’s his big hit song. Forget Top Jimmy or Panama. We want the circus song.

[Nitro Express]

That's definitely a drawback for ADKOT: be it either playing it through speakers or through headphones, when you crank it up it distorts to shit. It does have a dry digital sound even at lower volumes. Contrast that with the Fair Warning album, where you can crank that fucker right up and everything is still clear in the mix.

Yup. It’s why studios are hanging onto their old analog Neve mixing consoles. They are very forgiving and you don’t get the brittle sound you get from a digital console. A Neve can make up for the engineer’s sin where a digital console can bite your ass.

I actually run ADKOT through a very good multichannel EQ and through a McIntosh tube amplifier to bring some color and depth into it.

[Nitro Express]

I think Sunset Sound had analog Universal Audio consoles when Fair Warning was mixed. But you also had Donn Landee as the engineer. People still talk about what a genius that guy was and there were a lot of good engineers in LA.

[Terry]

Both songs are boring as hell. They just demonstrate how dumb the general public is. They like quaint circus music.

I remember when Jump came out, and the kids in my high school who had previously thought Van Halen was dumb rock for burnouts were all of a sudden saying how great Jump was, and I was puzzled at the time because Jump and I'll Wait were the tracks on 1984 I liked the least.

When Hagar joined the band a couple years later, those same "I like Van Halen: they did Jump!" high school kids - which were pretty much all either jocks, cheerleaders or class president types - REALLY started liking the band. They loved those synth tunes...they actually thought the band got better when Roth left.

Yeesh.

I started seeing this high school girl in my class in 1987. We'd go to her house after school, because both her parents worked, and we'd go upstairs to her bedroom and fuck around. She insisted we listen to either the 5150 album or Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet while we were fucking around. Subsequently, I heard both of those albums dozens of times that year.

About 30 years later, I looked her up on facebook. She put on (more than) a bit of weight. Sad. Made me wistful, because she had the greatest tasting pussy. That teen twat circa 1980s, back when many girls even in their mid to late teens hadn't had ten million dicks in them already.