Van Halen - HDCD Remasters 2000's (6xCD 1978-1984) RE-UPPED

Digitally remastered series of the Hard Rock quartet's legendary albums with David Lee Roth on vocals. In addition, some of the packaging returns the albums to its original artwork and graphics. HDCD remastered - Warner Bros. Records' reissue series 2000.

With their 1978 eponymous debut, Van Halen simultaneously rewrote the rules of rock guitar and hard rock in general. Guitarist Eddie Van Halen redefined what electric guitar could do, developing a blindingly fast technique with a variety of self-taught two-handed tapping, hammer-ons, pull-offs, and effects that mimicked the sounds of machines and animals. It was wildly inventive and over the top, equaled only by vocalist David Lee Roth, who brought the role of a metal singer to near-performance art standards. Roth wasn't blessed with great technique, unlike Eddie, but he had a flair for showmanship that was derived as much from lounge performers as Robert Plant. Together, they made Van Halen into the most popular American rock & roll band of the late '70s and early '80s, and in the process set the template for hard rock and heavy metal for the '80s.

– Stephen Thomas Erlewine, allmusic.com

Recorded in 1977, Van Halen's selftitled debut was sold over 10 million copies in the US alone, becoming one of the most successful debuts by a hard rock band. Along with 1984, it gives Van Halen two original albums with Diamond status in sales.

Among revolutionary rock albums, Van Halen's debut often gets short shrift. Although it altered perceptions of what the guitar could do, it is not spoken of in the same reverential tones as Are You Experienced? and although it set the template for how rock & roll sounded for the next decade or more, it isn't seen as an epochal generational shift, like Led Zeppelin, The Ramones, The Rolling Stones, or Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols, which was released just the year before. But make no mistake, Van Halen is as monumental, as seismic as those records, but part of the reason it's never given the same due is that there's no pretension, nothing self-conscious about it. In the best sense, it is an artless record, in the sense that it doesn't seem contrived, but it's also a great work of art because it's an effortless, guileless expression of what the band is all about, and what it would continue to be over the years. The band did get better, tighter, over the years – peaking with their sleek masterpiece 1984, where there was no fat, nothing untidy – but everything was in place here, from the robotic pulse of Michael Anthony and Alex Van Halen, to the gonzo shtick of David Lee Roth to the astonishing guitar of Eddie Van Halen. There may have been antecedents to this sound – perhaps you could trace Diamond Dave's shuck-n-jive to Black Oak Arkansas' Jim Dandy, the slippery blues-less riffs hearken back to Aerosmith – but Van Halen, to this day, sounds utterly unprecedented, as if it was a dispatch from a distant star. Some of the history behind the record has become rock lore: Eddie may have slowed down Cream records to a crawl to learn how Clapton played "Crossroads" – the very stuff legends are made of – but it's hard to hear Clapton here. It's hard to hear anybody else really, even with the traces of their influences, or the cover of "You Really Got Me," which doesn't seem as if it were chosen because of any great love of the Kinks, but rather because that riff got the crowd going. And that's true of all 11 songs here: they're songs designed to get a rise out of the audience, designed to get them to have a good time, and the album still crackles with energy because of it.

– Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, allmusic.com

Tracklist:

01. Runnin' With The Devil
02. Eruption
03. You Really Got Me
04. Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love
05. I'm The One
06. Jamie's Cryin'
07. Atomic Punk
08. Feel Your Love Tonight
09. Little Dreamer
10. Ice Cream Man
11. On Fire



Van Halen II is the second album by American hard rock band Van Halen, released in 1979. The actual recording of the album took place less than a year after the release of their eponymous debut album. Many of the songs on this album have been known to exist prior to the release of the first album, and are present (in various forms) on the demos recorded in 1976 by Gene Simmons and 1977 by Ted Templeman, including an early version of "Beautiful Girls" (then known as "Bring on the Girls") and "Somebody Get Me a Doctor".

It's called Van Halen II not just because it's the band's second album but because it's virtually a carbon copy of their 1978 debut, right down to how the band showcases their prowess via covers and how Eddie Van Halen gets a brief, shining moment to showcase his guitar genius. This time, he does his thing on acoustic guitars on the remarkable "Spanish Fly," but that temporary shift from electrics to acoustics is the only true notable difference in attack here; in every other way, Van Halen II feels like its predecessor, even if there are subtle differences. First, there's only one cover this time around – Betty Everett's "You're No Good," surely learned from Linda Ronstadt – and this feels both heavier and lighter than the debut. Heavier in that this sounds big and powerful, driven by mastodon riffs that aim straight of the gut. Lighter in that there's a nimbleness to the attack, in that there are pop hooks to the best songs, in that the group sounds emboldened by their success so they're swaggering with a confidence that's alluring. If the classic ratio is slightly lighter than on the debut, there are no bad songs and the best moments here – two bona fide party anthems in "Dance the Night Away" and "Beautiful Girls," songs that embody everything the band was about – are lighter, funnier than anything on the debut, showcases for both Diamond Dave's knowing shuck and jive and Eddie's phenomenal gift, so natural it seems to just flow out of him. At this point, it's hard not to marvel at these two frontmen, and hard not to be sucked into the vortex of some of the grandest hard rock ever made.

– Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, allmusic.com

Tracklist:

01. You're No Good
02. Dance The Night Away
03. Somebody Get Me A Doctor
04. Bottoms Up!
05. Outta Love Again
06. Light Up The Sky
07. Spanish Fly
08. D.O.A.
09. Women In Love…..
10. Beautiful Girls



Women and Children First is the third studio album by American hard rock band Van Halen, released in 1980. This is the first Van Halen album to feature all original band compositions. Kerrang! magazine listed the album at No. 30 among the "100 Greatest Heavy Metal Albums of All Time".

The album was recorded live in studio with one take, no overdubs, except slight alterations on "And the Cradle Will Rock…". A few live mistakes can be heard on the song "Everybody Wants Some!!". There were chorus errors, and Dave was cutoff by Eddie's guitar on the Dave talk rap break with "I like". Which was for "I like the way the line runs on the back of your stocking"

"Could This Be Magic?" contains the only female backing vocal ever recorded for a Van Halen song; Nicolette Larson sings during some of the choruses. The rain sound in the background is not an effect. It was raining outside, and they decided to record the sound in stereo using two Neuman KM84 microphones, and add it to the track.

Only one single was released from the album, the keyboard driven "And the Cradle Will Rock…" Although the single was not a success like previous singles "Dance the Night Away" or the cover of "You Really Got Me," the album itself was well received and further entrenched the band as a popular concert draw. The album contains a hidden track at the end of "In a Simple Rhyme," a brief instrumental piece entitled "Growth." A longer version of "Growth" was supposed to start the band's next album, Fair Warning, but this did not occur. "Growth" was a staple of the band's live shows with Roth and often used as the start of their encores. Several outtakes from these sessions exist, including an unreleased instrumental titled often referred to as "Act Like It Hurts," which was the title Eddie originally wanted for "Tora! Tora!" "Act Like It Hurts" is also provided a riff for "House of Pain," released on 1984.

After two pure party albums, the inevitable had to happen: it was time for Van Halen to mature, or at least get a little serious. And so, Women and Children First, a record where the group started to get heavier, both sonically and, to a lesser extent, thematically, changing the feel of the band ever so slightly. Where the first two records were nothing but nonstop parties, there's a bit of a dark heart beating on this record, most evident on the breakneck metal of "Romeo Delight," but also the pair of opening party anthems, "And the Cradle Will Rock" and "Everybody Wants Some!!," which don't fly quite as high as "Dance the Night Away" or "Runnin' with the Devil" because of the tense, roiling undercurrents in Eddie's riffs, especially the thudding, circular keyboard riff propelling "And the Cradle Will Rock." The very fact that a keyboard drives this song, not a guitar, is a signal of Eddie's burgeoning ambition (which would soon become inseparable from his desire for respectability), and there are already some conflicts between this somber musicality and David Lee Roth's irrepressible hunger for fun. Where that tension would eventually tear the band apart, here it just makes for compelling music, adding richness and depth to this half-hour blast of rock & roll. This is the first Van Halen album to consist entirely of original material and there's some significant growth here to the writing, evident in the winding, cynical neo-boogie "Fools" and also in the manic "Loss of Control," which gallops by with the ferocity of hardcore punk. These, along with all previously mentioned songs, are the heaviest music Van Halen has made (or would ever make), but as the album rushes toward the end Diamond Dave pulls them toward his country-blues jive fixation with "Take Your Whiskey Home" and the all-acoustic "Could This Be Magic?" giving the album a dose of levity that is welcome if not necessarily needed. Then, before the album comes a close, the band unleashes its first stab at a power ballad with "In a Simple Rhyme," where the group's attempts at melodic grace are undercut by their compulsion to rock. This may not make for a full-fledged power ballad, but this tension between the two extremes – by their increasing songcraft and their unhinged rock & roll – makes for dynamic music, and captures all the contrasting glories of the album in one song.

– Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, allmusic.com

Tracklist:

01. And The Cradle Will Rock…
02. Everybody Wants Some!!
03. Fools
04. Romeo Delight
05. Tora! Tora!
06. Loss Of Control
07. Take Your Whiskey Home
08. Could This Be Magic
09. In A Simple Rhyme



Fair Warning is the fourth studio album by American hard rock band Van Halen. Released in 1981, it sold more than two million copies, but was still the band's slowest-selling album of the David Lee Roth era. Despite the album's commercially disappointing sales, Fair Warning was met with mostly positive reviews from critics.

Fair Warning was one of the first albums to reflect the rift in the Van Halen power structure; David Lee Roth wished to emphasize the pop influence that emerged on the previous two albums (which brought the band increased attention and a wider appeal), while guitarist Eddie Van Halen preferred to explore darker, longer and generally more complex song-structures that emphasized his innovative guitar work. Eddie clearly prevailed, as the album in fact featured longer, darker, more aggressive guitar-oriented material. Fair Warning also ushered in the first appearance of synthesized keyboards on a Van Halen record, played by Eddie. Despite the synthesizers, Fair Warning contained no radio hits (although "So This Is Love?" charted briefly) and included one instrumental, the synth-heavy "Sunday Afternoon in the Park".

Of all the early Van Halen records, Fair Warning often gets overlooked – partially because it's a dark, strange beast, partially because it lacks any song as purely fun as the hits from the first three records. Because of that, there were no hits from Fair Warning that turned into radio anthems; only "Unchained" and, to a lesser extent, the grinding opener, "Mean Street," rank among the group's best-known songs, and they're not as monumental as "And the Cradle Will Rock," from the preceding album, Women and Children First. There's a reason for that: this album ain't a whole lotta fun. Fair Warning is the first Van Halen album that doesn't feel like a party. This may be a reflection of the band's relentless work schedule, it may be a reflection of the increasing tension between Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth – the cause isn't important, because whatever the reason, Fair Warning winds up as a dark, dirty, nasty piece of work. Gloomy it may be, but dull it is not and Fair Warning contains some of the fiercest, hardest music that Van Halen ever made. There's little question that Eddie Van Halen won whatever internal skirmishes they had, since his guitar dominates this record, even with the lack of a single dedicated instrumental showcase (the first time he lacked one on a VH album). Eddie sounds restless here, pushing and pulling the group toward different rhythms and textures, from the disco beat that pulsates on "Push Comes to Shove" to the swinging rhythms on "So This Is Love?" and, especially, the murky synths that comprise the instrumental "Sunday Afternoon in the Park" and the grimy, gunky closing rocker, "One Foot Out the Door." Either inspired or spurred on by the gloomy rock Eddie cranked out, David Lee Roth casts his net far wider than his usual litany of girls and good times. He spits and swears, swaggering without his usual joie de vivre, with even his sex songs feeling weary and nasty. Whatever spawned it, that nastiness is the defining characteristic of Fair Warning, which certainly doesn't make it bunches of fun, but it showcases the coiled power of Van Halen better than any other album, which makes it worth visiting on occasion.

– Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, allmusic.com

Tracklist:

01. Mean Street
02. 'Dirty Movies'
03. Sinner's Swing!
04. Hear About It Later
05. Unchained
06. Push Comes To Shove
07. So This Is Love
08. Sunday Afternoon In The Park
09. One Foot Out The Door



Diver Down is the fifth studio album by American hard rock band Van Halen, released in 1982. It spent 65 weeks on the US album charts and had, by 1998, sold four million copies in the US.

Fair Warning was such a dark, intense record that Van Halen almost had no choice but to lighten up on their next album, and 1982's Diver Down is indeed much lighter than its predecessor. In many ways, it's a return to the early albums, heavy on covers and party anthems, but where those records were rough and exuberant – they felt like the work of the world's best bar band just made good, which is, of course, kind of what they were – this is undoubtedly the work of a finely honed band who has only grown tighter and heavier since their debut. As a band, they might be tight, but Diver Down is anything but tight. It's a downright mess, barely clocking in at 31 minutes, cobbled together out of five covers, two minute-long instrumentals, and five new songs. By most measures, this should be the kind of slop that's difficult to muddle through, but it's not: it's one of Van Halen's best records, one that's just pure joy to hear. Like the debut, it's a great showcase for all the group's strengths, from Eddie Van Halen's always thrilling guitar to the bedrock foundation of Alex Van Halen and Michael Anthony's throbbing pulse to, of course, David Lee Roth's strut. Each member gets places to shine and, in a way, covers showcase their skills in a way none of the originals does, since they get to twist "Oh, Pretty Woman," "Dancing in the Street," and "Where Have All the Good Times Gone" inside out, all the better to make them their own. But this isn't complacent; Van Halen is stretching out in different ways, funneling the menace of Fair Warning into the ominous instrumental "Intruder," playing with the whiplash fury of a punk band on "Hang 'Em High," and honing their pop skills on the bright, new wavey rock of "Little Guitars" and the sweet "Secrets," which displays the lightest touch they've ever had on record. Combine that with the full-throttle attack on the covers, along with Dave's vaudevillian song and dance on "Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)" – a shtick that's electrified on the equally fun "The Full Bug" – and the result is a record that's nothing but fun, the polar opposite of its predecessor.

– Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, allmusic.com

Tracklist:

01. Where Have All The Good Times Gone!
02. Hang 'Em High
03. Cathedral
04. Secrets
05. Intruder
06. (Oh) Pretty Woman
07. Dancing In The Street
08. Little Guitars (Intro)
09. Little Guitars
10. Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)
11. The Full Bug
12. Happy Trails



1984 (written as MCMLXXXIV on the front cover) is the sixth album by American hard rock band Van Halen. One of the band's more popular albums, 1984 is the final album featuring singer David Lee Roth before he left the band in the spring of the following year.

At the time of its release, much of the fuss surrounding 1984 involved Van Halen's adoption of synthesizers on this, their sixth album – a hoopla that was a bit of a red herring since the band had been layering in synths since their third album, Women and Children First. Those synths were either buried beneath guitars or used as texture, even on instrumentals where they were the main instrument, but here they were pushed to the forefront on "Jump," the album's first single and one of the chief reasons this became a blockbuster, crossing over to pop audiences Van Halen had flirted with before but had never quite won over. Of course, the mere addition of a synth wasn't enough to rope in fair-weather fans – they needed pop hooks and pop songs, which 1984 had, most gloriously on the exuberant, timeless "Jump." There, the synths played a circular riff that wouldn't have sounded as overpowering on guitar, but the band didn't dispense with their signature monolithic, pulsating rock. Alex Van Halen and Michael Anthony grounded the song, keeping it from floating to pop, and David Lee Roth simply exploded with boundless energy, making this seem rock & roll no matter how close it got to pop. And "Jump" was about as close as 1984 got to pop, as the other seven songs – with the exception of "I'll Wait," which rides along on a synth riff as chilly as "Jump" is warm – are heavy rock, capturing the same fiery band that's been performing with a brutal intensity since Women and Children First. But where those albums placed an emphasis on the band's attack, this places an emphasis on the songs, and they're uniformly terrific, the best set of original tunes Van Halen ever had. Surely, the anthems "Panama" and "Hot for Teacher" grab center stage – how could they not, when the former is the band's signature sound elevated to performance art, with the latter being as lean and giddy, their one anthem that could be credibly covered by garage rockers? – but "Top Jimmy," "Drop Dead Legs," and the dense yet funky closer, "House of Pain," are full-fledged songs, with great riffs and hooks in the guitars and vocals. It's the best showcase of Van Halen's instrumental prowess as a band, the best showcase for Diamond Dave's glorious shtick, the best showcase for their songwriting, just their flat-out best album overall. It's a shame that Roth left after this album, but maybe it's for the best, since there's no way Van Halen could have bettered this album with Dave around (and they didn't better it once Sammy joined, either).

– Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, allmusic.com

Tracklist:

01. 1984
02. Jump
03. Panama
04. Top Jimmy
05. Drop Dead Legs
06. Hot For Teacher
07. I'll Wait
08. Girl Gone Bad
09. House Of Pain


All Albums were Originally Produced by Ted Templeman.
Remastered by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman's and Robbes.
All thanks goes to Ginger Devil!