Van Halen

Van Halen let everybody know what they were about from the get-go, and this album is a tight 35 minute roller coaster. The sounds from this record took everything rock and roll was about in the 70’s and turned it up to 11. It’s just flat out an album with personality. Eddie’s Frankenstrat guitar creates a wicked, heavy sound that has become iconic in rock. David Lee Roth’s power and swagger as a frontman can be FELT in these songs. Alex’s drumming is legendary, technical and has it’s own unique “closed” sound. Michael Anthony’s background singing is so “chimey” and in-line, and his bass just drives an already high energy tone. We got one of the greatest guitar solos of all time in Eruption, and a slew of hits that have stood the test of time in musicianship. While it may feel a little dated in terms of lyrics and taste, there’s no denying this absolutely an essential album in music history. Songs I Already Knew: All of them Favorite Song: Feel Your Love Tonight Least Favorite: Ice Cream Man (it’s fun, but can be a little cringe and just doesn’t have the power of the other songs)

Guys, it's the first Van Halen album.

“I am a victim of the science age.” What a line! This is another one that feels kind of silly to rate. I don’t generally envy people older than me, but I do wish I had been 13 or so when this album came out in order to have that pure experience of hearing Eddie at a time when no one else on the entire planet sounded like him. I can’t really fathom what that must have been like for young guitar nerds. Anywho, it’s astounding how many singles are on this record. Just astounding. Shout out to the Running with the Dweezil podcast, which I’ve only heard snippets of but is pretty fascinating.

I don't know why I expected a much harder rock/metal sound, but this was fantastic! One of the best albums I've listened to from this. I went back and listened through a lot more Van Halen after this.

Here's the thing about Van Halen: they're really talented people who haven't made anything I've ever liked. This album is no different. Most of the songs I've heard from them are on this album so I knew I wouldn't feel any different after listening. People go gaga over Eruption but it's simply disjointed, incoherent soloing that isn't well put together. He's just doing a bunch of admittedly cool things like he wanted to show someone all the possible tricks he has. If he had made it mesh together it would've been way more impressive. I get why people like Van Halen, there's just way more acts who have a better use for their talent.

N'ayant pas trouvé d'angle à donner à ma critique du jour, je me suis rendu sur la page Wikipedia du groupe qui nous intéresse. Et quelle ne fut pas ma surprise de constater que ladite page ne contenait pas la moindre rubrique dédiée à d'hypothétiques polémiques. Rien du tout. Pinuts. Une lueur d'espoir fit scintiller mon œil lorsque je vis que le mot "scandal" apparaissait une fois. À ma grande déception, il s'agissait en réalité du nom d'un autre groupe duquel faisait partie une certaine Patty Smyth qui, dixit, ne devait pas être confondue avec [la punkàch] Patti Smith (?!) Non mais on se fout de ma gueule en plus ! Évidemment qu'on va les confondre c'est exactement le même nom t'as juste mis des Y pour pas que ça s'écrive pareil !! Ils se prononcent comme des i les Y !! Pour en revenir à Van Halen, c'est donc du rock lisse, sans scandale, sans polémique. C'est du Kids United en fait. Sauf que non, erreur, les Kids United ils en ont des polémiques ! Eux ont osé crier "tout le monde debout" à un public exclusivement composé d'handicapés en fauteuils, ça c'est Rock'n'Roll.

Amazing musicians but lacking in memorable lines and choruses. Great guitar playing but too many riffs are the same and at 100 mph and played for the sake of it

I might not recall all the details, but here goes. I was about 10 years old when Van Halen's Diver Down was released in 1982. I heard their cover of Pretty Woman and thought it was pretty cool. For reasons lost to time, I didn't buy Diver Down but rather this album. Therefore I don't recall how Van Halen I came into my possession, but what I do remember—crystal clear—is the absolute joy it brought me. As the needle dropped and the record spun at 33 1/3 RPM in my little suburban New Jersey bedroom, a whole new world of sound exploded upon my ears. Up until that moment, my musical landscape had been shaped by my parents' oldies and Sesame Street. But this? This was something else entirely. This was testosterone-fueled rock, raw and electrifying. It coursed through my body, transforming me. Hair sprouted where none had been before. I felt stronger. A fire was ignited in my loins, and suddenly, female lust became my new obsession. I was no longer a child.

What a classic album. Their first, legendary. Eruption is a true form guitar solo turned song.

Honestly going into this I was expecting something far lamer, but honestly it caught me off guard with just how hard the band could get with some of these tracks (I LOVE how crunchy the guitar is). Really put into perspective why this style of rock became popular, and how shitty its imitators actually were! I'd definitely say that the album loses some steam in the second half, but I appreciate how lean the it is which alleviates the effect a lot. All killer no filler, which is quite frankly the platonic ideal for a hard rock album. Highlights are Runnin' With The Devil, Eruption, Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love and Jamie's Cryin'.

Ok well Edie Van Halen is a very talented guitarist and David Lee Roth a charismatic front man, but unfortunately stylistically with their guitar wizardry and rock star wailing I am left cold. All style no substance. Not surprisingly the best sing for me by far is Ain"t Talkin' 'Bout Love, where both of these indulgences are reigned in. 2.5 🌟

Pure magic. This is a candidate for albums I wish I could hear again for the first time. When Edward starts tapping in Eruption you realize he was better than everyone else. By a lot. This album is absolutely perfect. In my top 10 from this whole list. Pure magic. If you give this less than 5 stars you're only semi good looking.

I knew more songs on this album than I thought!

La verdad nunca me llamó la atención Van Halen y le entré a este disco con muchas reservas. No pensé que me fuera a gustar tanto y sí quiero escuchar lo demás que han hecho. Grata, grata sorpresa. Songs: Ain't Talking' Bout Love, Little Dreamer

The musicianship is pretty good, not going to deny that. But I definitely didn't enjoy this one. Being the precursor to the whole annoying bleh glam rock / hair metal / pop-hard rock scene makes them more original than the plethora of copycats of a thoroughly unoriginal style, but it doesn't make them any less annoying. I did enjoy the short guitar instrumental at the beginning and I liked Little Dreamer as well - a solid highlight on an otherwise lame album. Ice Cream Man started annoying, but turned into the only actually interesting track. The rest of the album was a slog, boring and galling. Luckily it was quite short.

Poodle rock

Not a debut, a declaration: an album so atomic that its fallout fundamentally rewrote rock’s laws of physics.

Great Rorschach test of a record: if you hate it, there's something wrong with you. Hopefully it's a temporary condition. I'm not much of a "cock rock" fan but this is a great record that transcends genre. It also lays out the blueprint VH would perfect with albums like Diver Down and 1984. They perfected it, but not necessarily improved it, if I may say that. By "blueprint" I mean that this album truly hits all the key points you want from a most satisfying VH record (in no order): Skull-crushing guitar solo (Eruption) Diamond Dave (Ice Cream Man) Pensive Dave (Little Dreamer) Mean Mistreater (Jamie's Cryin') Mister Mischief (Runnin' With The Devil) Kinks Kover (You Really Got Me) Hot for ___ (I'm The One) They throw off a really unusual mix of talents and vibes but that's what made them better than KISS and everyone else on the scene before and after. Maybe AC/DC is the only other cock rock band in the same league. What makes this particular album stand out from the rest of their work is that it sounds like they are playing live in the studio with maybe only some vocal overdubs. There are maybe two songs I don't like that much but otherwise this is lights out.

Très belle performance de Van Halen by Van Halen, mais sachez que le combat face a rob se fait de plus en plus pressant. En effet, hier soir, j'eu la surprise de recevoir un message de mon petit frère, me demandant si je connaissais un certain robbelvedere. Je lui repondais que oh oui, je connais un certain robbelvedere, je le connais même très bien, lui et ses opinions musicales de merde. Il se trouve que rob a fait irruption dans la troupe de théâtre de mon petit frère, et a commencé, en pleine représentation, à substituer au cd diffusant la bande son de la pièce un album de Frank Zappa, sous le regard médusé de mon petit frère, en pleine représentation d'un morceau de bravoure. Cet acte terroriste ne restera pas impuni, rob ne vas pas s'en sortir comme ça. Je vous tiendrai au courant de l'avancée de cette affaire

Great stuff

It's only 35 minutes long There were different songs on this album?

Ludicrously overblown, sterile, soulless, awful. Dave Lee Roth's vocals are like Mariah Carey's - fabulously technical and gifted, but emotionally dead.Like a pantomime dame. Van Halen's guitar wizardry also leaves me cold - I hate shredding. Play it slowly but with feeling please.

I don't understand this. These people are obviously very skilled at their instruments. And I have no doubt that they are sincere in what they are doing. But. I don't know what they are actually doing. For me the question being asked here is "What makes music "music"? Is it in the experience of the listener? Is it in the intentions of the player(s)? In the conversation space created between the two? If music is in this in-between space, this is a record in which I cannot enter. And I may actually not want to. Sounds are created here, they are put together, and I remain utterly unmoved. If anything, I get irritated. My attention has nowhere to hang on, everything shifts so fast. I cannot see one idea I can get interested and curious about. It feels like being talked at, and I have nothing to say or contribute. It makes me want to be somewhere else, doing something else. The final straw is their cover of the Kinks. It makes me sad that they somehow had to get roped into that mess.

If you ever want to torture me just play continuous guitar solos with zero backing instruments. The Kinks cover was bad. I really do not like this album.

p412. 1978. 1 star. Soulless, spandex-clad, big haired cock rock. Lots of sheen and not a shred of emotion. Yes, you can play the guitar fast, but if you don't put any passion into it then it turns into pomp rock wankage realllll fast. Jeff Beck gets more feeling in 3 minutes than this lot have managed in a career.

Just because you can play guitar doesn’t mean that you should. Everything about this made me feel miserable. Even the ‘humour’ of calling a minute and a half of guitar w*nk ‘Eruption’ could not lift the mood. I’m just glad that The Kinks are all still alive, otherwise they would be spinning in their graves. Dreadful.

A timeless document of what happens when Jewish-American showmanship meets Dutch-American guitar wizardry. There is nothing like this debut. The Sunset Strip, baby!

Turns out Van Halen and Motley Crue are not interchangeable

Day336 - van halen had some all time great albums maybe none better than this one

The absolute best parts of rock and roll excess bottled up into one killer debut record. You know every song on the album, and every song is worth knowing.

Bang, out of the gate comes Van Halen with this cocksure and confident album that changed the sound of hard rock/heavy metal forever. Pyrotechnic, rockin', and above all fun, this album does not take itself too seriously, which is a major blessing compared to most heavy rock bands, who are generally po-faced in the extreme. Eddie's guitar style completely rewrote the book of heavy guitar playing, using the technological innovations of guitar and amplification to reinvent what technique could be. When I was teenager in the 80s, I was heavily into Jimi Hendrix, but a friend made the case that Eddie Van Halen's playing was more influential. And I reluctantly have to agree. When this album came out, it seems like every guitar player had to decide whether to adapt to the new techniques or sound old fashioned. Often imitated but rarely equaled, the Van Halen guitar sound really dominated hard rock/heavy metal for over a decade until grunge started knocking the edges off mainstream playing over a decade later. Some of the songs are relatively weak, especially in the back half of the album, but a record with Runnin' with the Devil, Eruption, and Ain't Talking About Love and their cover of You Really Got Me as the first four tracks is always going to seem weaker in the home straight. David Lee Roth is not the world's best singer, but his confidence, chutzpah and sense of fun leads the band in its party-hard strut. It was such a breath of fresh air for a heavy band to not take themselves too seriously. You just know you're going to have a great time with this album. A dead-set classic.

A nice treat--this is one of my favorite Van Halen albums, and even though I know they're not to everyone's taste I always feel like this album is worth a listen (and not just for the greatest solo track of all time, although "Eruption" *is* a masterpiece). It's tough to pick out favorites from this mighty album, so I'll just note that my least favorite tracks are probably "Atomic punk" (it always makes me think of a couple of Police tracks on their earlier albums where they try to show their punk-like roots, and fail) and "Little dreamer", although "Ice cream man" probably should be there, but it seems like such a quintessential David Lee Roth (cover) song it's hard not to smile (and think of brown M&Ms). And I have to say their cover of the Kinks' "You really got me" is inspired genius. I think what I love about this album, and the band, at least in the David Lee Roth era, is that they did one thing, they didn't pretend to be more complex than they were, and they did it with style and confidence, and they were entertainers par excellence.

Ice Cream Man is one of the best songs ever.

Había escuchado todas las canciones del álbum, pero no sabía que todas esas buenísima canciones eran del mismo álbum. El que más me a gustado hasta ahora.

C’mon now. This is solid gold.

A capital work in the evolution of rock. A milestone in hard rock history. A pleasure to listen every fkn time

AMAZING ALBUM. ALREADY LOVE IT

J'adore cette album de Van Halen, vraiment un classique. C'est l'album que j'ai le plus écouté d'eux a part 1984, plus pop. Mérite quand même pas plus bas qu'un 4.9, donc 5 ;)

Probably one of the best rock albums ever created, I don't think i need to say much else.

For whatever specific genre of hard rock or metal this is, it’s a 5

Classic 80s glam rock. Still awesome

Just legendary. This album will make me go back and adjust other albums downward as they do not rise to the same level as this 5-star record.

Great classic rock!

Classic record

Stunning. Brilliant. Obviously.

RIP to one of the GOATs

Come on.

Must admit, this got an eye-roll when it showed up yesterday. Silly me - it's really good, fresh, sharp and accomplished. Van Halen's quite the guitarist, eh? On the 3/4 edge - tipped over by reports from various people who saw them when a high school band in Pasadena, apparently they were fantastic.

Some great stuff on here even it's showing its age. The B side doesn't quite have the energy of the first 5 or 6 songs but it's easy to see how it could be so big at the time.

This album is just kinda dumb. The over-the-top singing is kinda dumb, the unnecessarily show-offy guitar playing is kinda dumb, the lyrics are kinda dumb and most of all the Kinks cover is kinda dumb. But oh boy if this isn't some fun dumb music.

A noun that Todd Trainer attached to Melt-Banana works for Van Halen: fireworks. With little exception (maybe just Ain’t Talkin’ About Love), songs are an afterthought, mostly stitched-together prêt-à-porter hard rock riffs overlaid with multi-tracked “wheeeee-I’m-on-a-rollercoaster” vocals. It’s all about guitar spectacle, and that’s fun. I’m glad it exists, I like Bill and Ted and, unlike Melt-Banana, I probably won’t listen to this again.

Nr. 149/1001 Runnin' with the Devil 4/5 Eruption 2/5 You Really Got Me 4/5 Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love 4/5 I'm the One 3/5 Jamie's Cryin' 4/5 Atomic Punk 2/5 Feel Your Love Tonight 4/5 Little Dreamer 4/5 Ice Cream Man 4/5 On Fire 3/5 Average: 3,45 Hard hitting no punches held debut album.

Lacks character, but the tunes are strong and never feel too caught in the late 70 hair metal image which I despise.

Notable tracks Ain’t Talkin’ About Love, You Really Got Me, Runnin’ With The Devil

i mean its alright i guess not driving me crazy or anything 3.2/5

2/14/24. Happy Van Halen Valentine's Day! You can't deny Eddie's talent and insane guitar playing, but this style of music doesn't do it for me. There's always 2 or 3 tracks I can keep coming back to however. Maybe it's because this is an album that seemed to kick off the 80s hair metal blitz.

its not even awful but theres just something about this i find appalling

Technical flourishes aside, this is not what I expected. A boring rock album.

Not terrible for a debut honestly. I’m just not really a fan of the singer’s voice. Some of the songs also have a gross vibe to them idk. Excellent guitar playing though, I know this popularized the tapping style we hear a lot today.

boring and repetitive

Can only listen to 1 or 2 Van Halen songs and then I’m done.

This and ACDC are the kinds of bands that give rock and roll a bad name. Absolutely pointless juvenile crap. Took a great Kinks song and maimed it.

This debut is blistering. Every single track is jammin. Classic

Excellent!

Unstoppable seamless flow of pure hard rock

Very clear that the guitar work and drumming are second to none. I hadn't listened to this all the way through before. Mostly just "Runnin' with the Devil", "Eruption", and "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love", which are great. New tracks to add to my rotation are "I'm the One" and "Jamie's Cryin'" Solid album from start to finish, and a great taste of what was to come from them.

Classic, no filler. What a debut!

Did Van Halen perfect guitar rock started in the 60s and 70s, and infuse it with amazing pop hooks and catchy song structures? Perhaps that's a bit too over the top, but it could be a fun discussion. What a fun album.

RUNNIN WITH THE DEVIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

What a palate cleanser after 5 straight days of 0 vocals. A classic.

A fantastic debut from a band that seemed fully cooked at inception. Eddie is already doing wild shit. Dave is already hamming it up. Anthony and Alex. There is a reason that bands wanted to sound like these guys for the next ten years, even though no one did.

Fico imaginando o impacto dessa guitarra quando ela apareceu pela primeira vez. Uma banda que impressiona logo no primeiro álbum não é qualquer banda!

Excellent album

Perfectly encapsulates what this band is and why Eddie will go down as the greatest rock guitarist of all time. The balls to have a 1:42 guitar solo as track 2 of your debut album….

The only Van Halen album you need to hear. Roth and Halen are at peak rock performance.

Great debut. Not a weak spot on the album.

The first half of this album is pretty much perfect rock n roll, though I think Eruption is overrated. The second half is still solid but not on the level of the first half. Favorites: Ain't Talkin' Bout Love, You Really Got Me, Jaime's Cryin', Little Dreamer Least Favorite: I'm the One

This is an album I know well. Love it. This is quintessential Van Halen, before the addition of synthesizers. Just straight ahead guitar rock with EVH at his best. Running with the Devil, into Eruption, and then into You Really Got Me. Doesn't get better than that. Definitely 5/5.

Een soort vroege tech demo van wat je allemaal kunt met een gitaar. En dan wel op zo'n manier waarbij het nog wél leuk is om naar te luisteren. De hele esthetiek met leren broeken en blote harige mannenborsten is aan mij niet helemaal besteed en ook in de muziek schemert af en toe wel een klein stukje glam-kitch door (die typische glam-schreeuw waar ik wel eens een klein werkstuk over heb geschreven), maar dit is toch wel enorm lekker. Heel dik gitaarwerk, maar ook de basgitaar en drummer leggen een goeie wedstrijd op de mat en de zang is prima. Slechts 35 minuten en de eerste vier tracks zijn stuk voor stuk Top 2000 waardig, dus dan ga je al gauw richting de vijf sterren. En het is een debuutalbum hè. Bizar. Dus ik heb ergens wel wat kleine kanttekeningen, maar die staan de perfecte score niet in de weg. Ik ben hier niet eens mee opgegroeid, maar toch is dit ook voor mij automatisch een soort van klassieker. Dijk van een plaat. Makkelijke 5. Ik ga de eerste vier tracks meteen nog een keer aanzetten.

The worst song on this album is Ice Cream Man.

Wow, this was a DEBUT album!?! Van Halen could have been one-and-done with this album and they still would have cemented themselves as one of the greatest rock acts, with one of the most talented guitarists. But we're fortunate enough that they weren't. It's a no-skip album, where Eddie holds nothing back, track after track. What's most surprising to me, is that "I'm the One" is hardly talked about, but it has since become one of my favorites on the album. When they recorded themselves doing a little do-wop skat, followed by an electrifying guitar solo, they had to have looked at each other and went "Yeah, we're about to be the baddest thing in Rock."

One of the first albums I fell in love with as a kid, every song is flawless

One of the greatest debut albums ever

OMG. That's what I can say about this album as a whole. If only youtube reaction videos were around back in 1978!! Seriously. I would pay a lot of money to watch some of the best musicians at the time react to listening to this album the first time. It would be absolutely epic. What people need to realize is that when this album came out in 1978 NOBODY and I mean NOBODY sounded like this. To this day I have NEVER heard a guitar tone as perfect as the tone that Eddie (sorry...Edward) managed to get on this album. He was completely against pedals and effects (other than an occasional phaser or something to get a particular added funky sound for a song - like atomic punk intro), he did it entirely by hacking his guitars and amps to get them to sound this good by just plugging in with nothing. His overdrive/distortion/feedback sounds were completely natural. I absolutely love the flow of this album. Starting with Runnin with the Devil gets everyone curious like wtf is this...then to absolutely melt your face to hear something like eruption that literally NOBODY had even come close to as far as sound/technique and then to a cover you really got me with insane fill-ins/solos was like holy shit, what is this. Then you look at at the "bop baddup shooby doo wahs" in I'm the One and the funny Ice Cream Man you realize these guys did not give a flying fuck about doing what anyone else was doing and did what they wanted. They were completely in uncharted territory. They put together one of the rawest and in your face albums I have ever heard in my life. Highlights: Eruption (obviously), I'm the One solos (insane), Ice Cream Man solos (insane) and I love the rawness and the crunch of Show Your Love. End to End I listen to this album with a smile on my face. No skipping needed. Every song has its place. It is one of the best initial releases ever from a rock band. Ever. Period. It absolutely threw out every single concept you had of a guitar and the thought that everyone had pretty much done what you can do on a guitar. This was 1978. Jesus. NOBODY did this shit. Nobody sounded like this. Eddie was an absolute gift and changed guitar forever as we know it. Within 10 years everyone was tapping and doing shit like this and trying to replicate it, but NOBODY managed to pull it off like him. From a rock guitar perspective I don't think anything changed reality more than EVH. Loved listening to this start to finish on the way to work. What an absolute masterpiece.

Sorry for the delay in this review. I had to recover from the absolute MELTING of my face from the guitars on this album. Unfortunately I didn’t have insurance for this type of incident. This was an amazing album that makes me wish I could’ve experienced when it first came out. I can see my scrawny self right now standing in line waiting to go see them in concert. But honestly this album was amazing and their sound is exactly what I think of when I think of that 70’s rock sound. It’s like they put lightning bugs in a bottle, shook it up and all the light from those bugs decided to just turn into the electricity you feel from this beautiful production. Heard Before: You Really Get Me Favorite: Feel Your Love Tonight Least Favorite: Ice Cream man (although I respect the attempt) Sleeper: Eruption (The guitar spoke all it needed to) or Little Dreamer

Hell yeah brother. This album has too much rock for one hand 🤘🏻🤘🏻 Guitar has awesome tone, voice is classic classic rock, great riffs. Haven’t listened to a full album from VH before but this kicked some ass… except for ice cream man wtf was that? Heard Before: Runnin with the Devil, You Really Got Me and Jamie’s Crying Favorite: Little Dreams Least Favorite: Ice cream man 💩 Sleeper: atomic punk

Starts out with one of the best opening tracks for an album of all time, Running With The Devil and finishes with On Fire, which sums this album up perfectly. On Fire!!! In between we have an amazing guitar solo that Eddie used to do to warm up, Eruption. A cover of the classic Kings song You Really Got Me, and then classic Van Halen hits. One of the best debut albums of all time, and a standard. Van Halen followed up this album with solid work, and maybe 1984 was the only one that came close to how good this album is. 5/5

Impossible to understand historical impact of Eddie’s playing, one of the great debut albums of all time

One really cannot underestimate the impact this record had on ressurecting the hard rock genre at the end of the 1970s. The absolute swagger, self-confidence and sheer commerciality of Running with the Devil is often overlooked as, what follows with 'Eruption', is quite simply a new definition of the standards on how to play the electric guitar. Covering Kinks songs will become a feature of Van Halen with DLR on vocals but this record is just a tour de force of something very new and original. It jsut makes hard rock fun and colourful.

Familiar with the album and nice to listen to it after so long. It still holds up!

This band fucking rocks, one of the greats for a reason, legendary.

This album is fucking awesome. What more could you ask? Changed the whole game when it came out. Eddie is nuts on guitar, Alex compliments it perfectly, Michael has great little bass parts beneath Eddie's monsterous guitar parts, and David just oozes charisma every step of the way. This is rock n roll! 🤘

Their best record. Everything else is downhill.

Van Halen's self titled debut is one of the defining albums of modern metal. Led by David Lee Roth's swagger, and Eddie Van Halen's stunning technique, Van Halen brought edgy, guitar driven metal to popular music. The album includes some of the band's early hits, like "You Really Got Me" and "Running with the Devil," which showcase Roth's vocals, impressive harmonies, and a strong band. The most significant element, without question, is Eddie's remarkable talent, which raised the bar for metal guitarists.

Kind of on the fence between 4 & 5. I'm going to round up just because I guess.

Awesome album! Insane guitar solos! All maybe too cohesive - felt like one huge track, but a damn good one :D

An iconic classic.

I’ve been waiting for this one! Iconic from start to finish, and definitely helped remind me why Van Halen is such a huge deal. Classic songs all around and just insanely talented all throughout.

There may be debut albums that are as captivating as this one but there's never been a better or perhaps unique one - more like a declaration of revolution than a debut. This is the greatest party around and everyone on earth and beyond are invited. If you're in a good mood, this drug amplifies it. If you're in a bad mood, it's hard to not say goddammit while a smile emerges and you're soon nodding your head and air-guitaring finger-taps. Also the minor point of introducing the greatest guitar player in history. Some have said that this was the beginning of the so-called "hair metal" era but these guys were completely on their own - a unicorn of a band. They were an (the?) outlier and an entity unto themselves in the hard rock realm. It's not their fault what spawned after them as the similarities were only in guitar flash - not in songwriting, camp, sense of humour, and overall musicianship. Absolute rock perfection in every way and one of the greatest albums - period. It's 10/10s all the way down. 5 massive stars.

Absolute banger of an album. Insane guitar from EVH, DLR has incredible vocals. Incredible album that set up a 5+ year run for epic releases for VH. Changed the way guitarists thought about playing the guitar.