What?: Van Halen's sixth album, the last with David Lee Roth on vocals.
Why?: I believe I saw this album is a list of "must haves", probably in Classic Rock magazine. I saw it for cheap on Amazon and decided to take a punt. I liked "Jump" and knew Eddie Van Halen was a great guitarist.
Tell me more!:
I listened to this once when I bought it and hated it.
On this relisten I was all ready to yell about how much I still hated it. And after the first listen I did still hate it.
Numerous listens later I've at least begun to appreciate Eddie Van Halen's bizarrely interesting riffing. The guitar is all-over-the-place on "Top Jimmy", and I love that, but the song style, like most of the guitar driven tracks on the album, is mostly that 80's metal-fast-strummy-country that was so popular at the time. I friggin' hate it.
The album is at its best when they let the keyboards shine, on the singles "Jump" and "I'll Wait", but then you don't get to hear as much Eddie.
I missed out on this big-hair-MTV era of music, gaining my love for music from the good GnR songs and Nirvana, and my love of metal grew from Metallica and Pantera. By the time I was buying music magazines they'd dropped the double-page dude-with-his-shirt-off spread. Listening to "1984" I don't think I really missed anything.
2/10
