⮞ Listen now: “Runnin' with the Devil”

Hey rock-music lovers! Welcome to our weekly series where each Monday, we take a look back at some of rock’s most important albums ever conceived—albums that have changed history, society, and/ or are viewed as historically, culturally, and aesthetically important, as well as being critically acclaimed. This Monday (or Wednesday), we’ll go back in time to the post ‘70s soft-rock eruption of Van Halen.

If you want to be a rock star or just be famous, then run down the street naked, you’ll make the news or something. But if you want music to be your livelihood, then play, play, play and play! And eventually you’ll get to where you want to be.

—Eddie Van Halen

History

The 1970s was full of soft-rock music, coming out of the folk era in the ‘60s, with bands like The Doobie Brothers, Seals & Crofts, and Air Supply. However, later into the decade, Van Halen completely changed that direction with their debut self-titled album. Combining David Lee Roth’s raw and reckless vocals alongside Eddie Van Halen’s revolutionary guitar skills created a sound like no other: 1980s hair/glam metal. In the late '70s, Van Halen was attempting to make a name for themselves in Los Angeles, California—though they didn’t originate from there—and were quite successful at it. Retrospectively, Los Angeles was a hotspot for arising rock acts and Van Halen was the perfect fit. Even the front cover artwork of Van Halen was shot in the popular live rock music club Whisky A Go Go. Interestingly enough, this live music venue was precisely the location where Van Halen auditioned and signed their first record deal with Warner Bros.. The lead singer of Van Halen briefly touched on their background in California in an interview for Countdown Australia:

We were all going to different schools and living in generally the same area of California. None of us are from California, that’s why we don’t sound like The Eagles. We just wanted to get discovered and LA is a good place to do it. There’s a lot of music, a lot of rock bands, a lot of everything going on in Los Angeles.

The recording process of Van Halen was actually quite straightforward. The band and their producer Ted Templeton all gathered together in Sunset Sound Recorders of Hollywood to start recording the project. They simply garnered all their best songs (and a cover or two) and just played the music through and through. It ended up taking roughly three weeks to entirely record. One distinctive observation to point out on this record is how raw and “lively” it sounds. Van Halen was recorded mostly live and wasn’t heavily produced making the sonics sound as if you were facing the stage of an early Van Halen concert.

We try to make something very spontaneous and sincere…we don’t go for massive overdubbing in the recording process. We had one of the greatest producers around and it could’ve easily gone into magic and studio wizardry and whatnot, and what we chose—which is our concept—is that if you can’t play it just get up and play it and maybe you don’t really have it. We have guitars and drums and that’s about the basics; no keyboards, no chicks in the background going ‘la, la, la’. We play big rock, that’s the way we present our music.

—David Lee Roth speaking on the process of making Van Halen in an 1978 interview in England at a Black Sabbath concert they were opening for.

In January of 1978, a month before the album release, Van Halen dropped their first-ever lead single making their own version of The Kinks' “You Really Got Me.” Following the album release, they proceeded to highlight “Runnin' with the Devil” as their second lead single which became a hit. From bluesy tunes like “Ice Cream Man” to anthems about sexual desires in “Feel Your Love Tonight,” music listeners on February 10, 1978 were about to be mind-blown and captivated.

Scoring & Legacy

It’s no secret that Van Halen is one of the most iconic rock albums of all time and there’s only a continuation of that with scoring. The majority of the track-list consistently held radio traction and soared on the Billboard 200. Listeners and primarily guitarists were shocked by Eddie Van Halen’s jaw-dropping performance of “Eruption”. Fans were flooding in and a whole new style of rock music was about to take place.

Van Halen had major impact on other bands at the time, and even some 1990s punk-rock bands. Professional musicians were mesmerized by Eddie Van Halen’s groundbreaking tapping techniques on the guitar and the variety of sounds he was able to get out of the instrument. David Lee Roth even referenced Van Halen as his favorite record they have ever released. Nowadays, the legacy of Van Halen lives on through their past tours and the recent honoring of Eddie Van Halen’s musical contributions since his passing a year ago. And their debut was only the beginning of the greatness their discography would encompass in years to come.

⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ – AllMusic
⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ – Loudersound

If you wanna get a taste of how purely awesome this album was—especially in the ‘70s—watch Eddie Van Halen’s live performance of “Eruption.” “Atomic Punk” is probably my favorite highlight on the album because of its static-like guitar riffs and David’s signature and almost electric-sounding screams. What do you all think of this “classic” album? If you’ve listened to it, what stood out to you throughout all the hit tracks? Let’s discuss it below.

also: my apologies for this being uploaded a bit late! unfortunately, technical difficulties were underway when making the thread…

@rock-genius @music @genius-editorial-board

Not to be a stickler for detail, but isn’t this volume 2?

@evergreensherbert I believe Hole’s Live Through This was the last one in Vol. 2. The volumes are 11 albums long.
@charityspicer Excellent write-up, I’ll let you know when I listen to it (I’ve already heard a lot of the songs, so this’ll be putting it in order and filling in the holes).

@AntimonyOrchid You haven’t heard Van Halen I??? Such a masterpiece…

@kingkillmonger Like I said, I’ve heard most of it.

Ok, now I’ve heard all of it. Every aspect is near perfect, Eddie gets all the attention but their bass and drums are fittingly superb. I’ll do a song by song breakdown because I can.

• “Runnin' With the Devil”: one of the best hard rock songs of the late 70’s, period. I"ve listened to this one for a long time and it hasn’t gotten old yet, which is high praise.

• “Eruption”: first listened to this when it was mentioned in the appendix of Guitar for Dummies as one of the greatest guitar songs ever. Blew my 11 year-old mind. I’m still trying to recreate that thrill.

• “You Really Got Me”: starts with one of my favorite segues ever. One of those cover songs where I can’t choose between it and the original.

• “Ain’t Talkin' ‘Bout Love”: some of David’s best vocal work on the album. Immortal for a reason.

• “I’m the One”: new to me. Worthy of inclusion with these legendary songs.

• “Jamie’s Cryin'”: I’ve never been crazy about this one but it’s interesting because it has a gentler, more sentimental edge that is refreshing after all the strutting and screaming.

• “Atomic Punk”: another first listen. Punkier than they usually go, with really dirty, funky guitar that I found interesting.

• “Feel Your Love Tonight”: ditto. The spiritual predecessor to the innuendo-laden bridge of “Panama”. So that’s fun.

• “Little Dreamer”: ditto. Somewhat like “Jamie’s Cryin'” in that it’s a reprieve.

• “Ice Cream Man”: ditto. Love the sleazy take on oldies. They nicked the melody at 1:15 from “Long Tall Sally” but everyone has at some point, LOL.

• “On Fire”: ditto. More macho boasting. Spinal Tap didn’t get it from nowhere.

This album is one of the best examples I’ve seen of libido in music. I mean that in the psychological sense. It’s self-assured, strong, and creative, with a bit of good-natured peacocking. Thumbs up, this is why people like Van Halen.

@AntimonyOrchid

“I’m the One” is kinda like a predecessor of “Hot for Teacher” with the swingin' double bass and gnarly guitar scales, etc. I remember that was the one that I really laboured to learn on drums back in the day.

Btw, I’m also working on a cover of “Little Dreamer” 😴

I confess to not knowing “Hot For Teacher” well. I tried to recall the riff and what popped into mind was “La Grange”.