Diver Down Sound

[78/84 guy]

Oh wait, the album was TOO FUCKING SHORT, AGAIN!!

All the six pack was ! Fair Warning for sure. It kind of fizzels out for me with Sunday Afternoon & One Foot Out The Door. I think it could have ended better. I have my own versions of the 6 pack. Added demos to them. Like the original version of House Of Pain to VH I. It should have been on there along side Devil with the car horn. I never liked the 1984 version that much. I put the 1996 songs at the end of that one. Give it a try.

[Zing!]

I'm going to completely disagree. I LOVE the sound on DD. The tone on 'Hang 'em High' and 'Little Guitars' is incredible. The drums sound natural and big.. I think that album has a wonderful, warm 'brown' sound to it. It's simple - like how a band sounds when they're playing in front of you in a small room.
I'll go so far as to say its better sounding than WACF - and I LOVE that album.

Yes - I for one like the sound on DD better than VH II or WACF. The bottom line is, all the albums sonically sound a little different. I have to adjust the bass and treble accordingly when I listen to each one. For me, the first album, FW, 1984, and ADKOT have the best sound.

[Yount]

I get what you are saying about the come down from Fair Warning. Fair enough!
Diver Down is almost an EP rather than LP; just a few covers, instrumentals and a couple of original ideas slapped together. I look at it that way. It's a nice little disc in between FW and 1984.
I'm not a wiz-bang-guitar-head, but besides the differing tone of this album, what do you people think of the actual guitar playing and solos compared to FW and 1984? Were you really impressed by Eddie's stuff on DD, or was he just treading water?

Where did they go wrong? Production? Songwriting (riffs, solos, vocs)? Song selection?

[lesfunk]

I remember waiting and waiting.... then rushing to the store the first day it was released; tearing the plastic off the cover and throwing my vinyl on my turntable....Then feeling ripped off

[Zing!]

I remember waiting and waiting.... then rushing to the store the first day it was released; tearing the plastic off the cover and throwing my vinyl on my turntable....Then feeling ripped off

I call that the "5150 Effect."

[78/84 guy]

Little Guitars and Secrets are great songs but mellow. Hang Em is a old song. To me they just didn't but alot of effort into it. Sure they had to run through the covers to get an idea of how to do them. But overall it works. Its fun. Thats why VH II is my favorite album by them. Fun songs. But still has meaner stuff like Doctor and Light Up The Sky. Ed's playing on D.D. is very good. But D.D. to me is almost a Dave solo album. Fun but not Van Halen. They got back on track with 1984. Like I said I think Ed was right. He wanted to use his own stuff. At least thats what he has said in newer interviews.

[Yount]

So maybe there was heaps of new stuff to work with but the two could not work together or agree where to take that stuff! Covers might have stopped them killing each other!

[78/84 guy]

Who knows. 1984 couldn't have been any better really. They didn't kill each other doing that one. But they still had to work the covers out. But than again Dave probably didn't need to be around for the band to do that. He just need to fiqure out how to do the vocal parts. I don't know. Sounds like they were still having some fun together. Happy Trails is funny. And Big Bad Bill.

[78/84 guy]

I remember Ed was pissed he had too use the Moog sound or whatever it was for Dancing In The Streets. He wanted it for his own song. Then Dave & Ted said use it for Streets.

[chefcraig]

I'm going to completely disagree. I LOVE the sound on DD. The tone on 'Hang 'em High' and 'Little Guitars' is incredible. The drums sound natural and big.. I think that album has a wonderful, warm 'brown' sound to it. It's simple - like how a band sounds when they're playing in front of you in a small room.
I'll go so far as to say its better sounding than WACF - and I LOVE that album.

Absolutely on the money. The weird opening riff in "Little Guitars", along with the amazing crispness of the snare and cymbals pretty much serve as a blueprint for the entire concept of the brown sound.

[78/84 guy]

I think the VH Dancing in the streets is way cooler than the Bowie-Jagger cut!

Watching my car rust is better than watching that fucking piece of shit ! God is it sad.

[Yount]

Who knows. 1984 couldn't have been any better really. They didn't kill each other doing that one.

I heard it was painfully difficult to make, enough to make Dave jump from the greatest band in the world, (or tell the greatest band in the world to jump.)

"Be sure you're hurting long before you fly, because you've got me.
Catch as catch, catch as catch.
Anybody in their right mind could see, you and me."

If I were Ed, Little Guitars would have been pretty tough to listen to after the fallout.

[DLR Bridge]

I love the sound of Diver Down much in the way VAiN described it. My only problem with it, really, is the volume. There's nothing more annoying than listening to your I Pod on shuffle mode and going from a present day tune like As Is into Little Guitars. With all of today's technology, you'd think Apple or someone would have figured out a way to instantly auto-balance the volume levels. Somebody get on that.

[chefcraig]

With all of today's technology, you'd think Apple or someone would have figured out a way to instantly auto-balance the volume levels. Somebody get on that.

Of all people, Neil Young is on the case (believe it or not). See the LINK below...

Neil Young Begins His Long Quest Towards True Audio Fidelity With Pono, A New Music Service And Device

[DLR Bridge]

Go Neil!! Sounds like he's making a valiant effort in the uphill battle that is keeping music from sounding like shit due to excessive amounts of technology.