J.D. Wright
Daily Egyptian
Get it Eddie!
Edward Lodewijk Van Halen that is. Born in Nijmegen, Holland, Eddie and his drummer brother Alex Arthur Van Halen went on a quest to make the most bitchin' band ever!
In L.A., they found bass guitarist Michael Anthony Sobolewski and, of course, "Diamond" David Lee Roth as their lead singer.
Together they are unstoppable, together they are Mammoth.
Mammoth was their original band name until the diamond one himself informed the rest of the band that there was already a band named that.
So, with out further ado, ladies and gentlemen, Van Halen.
"1984," made in the year of its name, is one of many Van Halen albums possessing mega hits.
Even the cover is totally radical, with a baby James Dean angel smoking a pack of cigarettes.
In the words of David Lee Roth "If you put a Van Halen album up in your collection, it will melt your other albums."
The album "1984" starts off with a smooth synthesizer playing an instrumental ballad called "1984". When the dream song is over, the song "Jump" hits the listener in the chest. For some reason, the song is incredibly catchy.
After "Jump," a song called "Panama" follows. With Eddie-style
playing, "Panama" should get anyone playing the air guitar in a matter of minutes. "Top Jimmy" follows that one, and after that comes "Drop Dead Legs."
But everything comes to a screeching halt when drums that sound like a big-ass Harley start playing. Then out of nowhere, when Eddie breaks out his "get fiddle" and rocks out to "Hot for Teacher," it makes everyone think of all the education that they had missed and that none of their homework was never quite like this.
May be one day, they will make a music video for "Hot for Teacher" on that killer MTV channel.
"I'll Wait" comes next, the gnarly sound of the keyboard injects the souls of the listeners with Diamond Dave's lyrical masterpiece.
When "I'll Wait" is over, a sexual tune called "Girls Gone Bad" pops up, then comes the hard-core sound of "House of Pain."
Typically, the album defines this whole decade so far. But the true test for all albums in the '80s is that if it is possible to make a whole sentence/story, in the order where the songs were placed out of the titles of the songs, then the album is sound as a pound.
Let's try it.
Well, in 1984 I had to Jump a flight to Panama to Top Jimmy over some Drop Dead Legs, but I was Hot For Teacher when I got to the airport, but then again I'll wait until Girls Gone Bad over at the House of Pain.
The album's sweeter than a Miami Vice mullet! It is in stores now. But don't worry folks, this band will never ever break up, That is, if Diamond Dave does not get LSD, aka Lead Singer Disease. Don't worry about Eddie and Valerie, they're probably going to be together forever.
JD Wright can be reached at jwright@dailyegyptian.com.
Published on 11/17/05; 12:24:44 PM
