I just went and bought this for the first time. IP, these threads of yours cost me a lot of money.

Sorry!
You'll save money on the Menudo thread!

So far, Smiff is immune to the Bay City Rollers thread.

So far.

Ha ha ha...my wallet is safe.

Women And Children First (1980)

All songs by Eddie Van Halen, Michael Anthony, David Lee Roth and Alex Van Halen.

1."And the Cradle Will Rock..." – 3:31
2."Everybody Wants Some!!" – 5:05
3."Fools" – 5:55
4."Romeo Delight" – 4:19
5."Tora! Tora!" – 0:57
6."Loss of Control" – 2:36
7."Take Your Whiskey Home" – 3:09
8."Could This Be Magic?" – 3:08
9."In a Simple Rhyme" – 4:33
"Growth" (hidden track, begins at 4:19)

US #6

singles:
And The Cradle Will Rock... #55

Loved this album and played the hell out of it in the day. Back then I was 20 and in college so this got played often with my friends in my car.
Always liked the last song "In A Simple Rhyme" especially.

Such a cool album cover, and such a cool album.
This is where things took a bit more heavier, slightly more serious tone, and it worked very well.
"And The Cradle Will Rock..." became another hit anthem and was the first tune to feature EVH on keyboards (you'll hear electric piano and the intro is actually a distorted Wurlitzer-I did not know that!). It was also in the film Over The Edge.
"Everybody Wants Some!!" with it's tribal pounding beats and weird guitar effects was a major radio hit and "Take Your Whiskey Home" also got airplay and features some wicked EVH soloing.
My absolute #1, FAVORITE VH tune is on this album in "Romeo Delight" a song which has the balls of an elephant (I assume they have large nuts). Shit, does this song rule and rock hard and wild!
"In A Simple Rhyme" is a gorgeous melodic song with all kinds of twists and turns and killer vocal harmonies. (It also has the strange, heavy instrumental segment known as "Growth" which was supposed to start the next album).
"Fools" is a surprising VH epic, clocking in at almost 6 minutes and has a very loose feel and an EVH solo in the intro that is nasty.
A great album!

Its on my iPhone! and my iPod Touch.

What's interesting about that is that on the original LP, "Growth" fades out, but on CD, it comes to an abrupt stop.

I like this album a lot -- a darker side of VH was manifesting itself and yet it was still fun.

This is where I entered the world of VH. It was released a few months before my 14th birthday. I got it the week it came out and I thought it was great, although I tended to like side 1 more than side 2 back then. To me the drums sounded monstrous, yet I've heard that Alex hated the drum sound (especially on "Everybody Wants Some"). I listened to all of the DLR-era albums about 6 months ago for the first time in years (I mean, many MANY years), and I liked side 2 more than I used to. I agree with IP that "Romeo Delight" is the highlight of the album.

Did anyone else hang the poster of a shirtless DLR on his/her wall? I did...for about 2 days, and then I realized there was something a little "off" about having a pouting shirtless man chained to a fence on my wall. Have any of the CD reissues included a reproduction of the poster? I still have the original Warner Bros. CD pressing from the '80s, and it's pretty bare-bones.

Rich:
Hell no, I did not hang that poster up!
And yes, it is in the 2000 Warner remaster. I highly recommend the 2000 remasters which are HDCDs. They sound so amazing. Easily among my favorite remasters. And they can all be found very cheap. No bonus cuts, but that's just fine.
I only wish the Sammy albums got the same treatment, but more on that later.
I also forgot to mention "Loss Of Control", a pretty chaotic headbanger (although it's never quite grabbed me) and the instrumental nuttiness of "Tora Tora" (a song that gave a Hair Metal band their name later on).
I never liked "Could This Be Magic" but I do like the acoustic steel work.

Is the sound on the remasters a significant improvement over the original 80s CDs? Also, how's the packaging? Anything extra, like lyrics or liner notes? I don't listen to VH that often, so if I'm going to upgrade the collection it would need to be a significant upgrade.

Rich:
They're very nice and I think the sound is much better, but I don't think the old CDs sounded bad either. No liner notes or lyrics-these are a faithful reproduction of the original artwork and packaging.

Fair Warning (1981)

All songs by Eddie Van Halen, Michael Anthony, David Lee Roth and Alex Van Halen.
1."Mean Street" – 5:00
2."Dirty Movies" – 4:08
3."Sinner's Swing!" – 3:09
4."Hear About It Later" – 4:35
5."Unchained" – 3:29
6."Push Comes To Shove" – 3:49
7."So This Is Love?" – 3:06
8."Sunday Afternoon in the Park" (Instrumental) – 1:59
9."One Foot Out the Door" – 1:58

US #6 UK #49

hit singles:
So This Is Love? #110
radio hits:
So This Is Love? #15
Mean Street #12
Unchained #13
Push Comes To Shove #29

This has to be my favorite, nudging out Van Halen II. I always loved this album to death, even when in high school, I was told I was nuts for picking this one-the Dark Album!
I guess it is a bit dark, weird and artsy for a VH record.
But damn, there are some serious rockers here like "So This Is Love?", "Unchained", "Sinners Swing!" and the odd, quick-paced and painfully short "One Foot Out The Door".
I love Eddie's tones on this album and Mikey's bass playing is outstanding. His grooves on cuts like "So This Is Love?", "Mean Street", "Hear About It Later" (especially the breakdown segment), Push Comes To Shove (fat, funky lines) and "Dirty Movies" (some really nice harmonics he lays down) are very nice. Such an underrated player it's not even funny.
Alex is in fine form for sure and DLR has all of his swagger and charisma.
"Mean Street" is a true work of art-EVH displaying his mastercraft and yeah, the lyrics are pretty dark I suppose (also where the album title comes from). The opening finger-tapping exhibition is still jaw-dropping as is the solo in the song.
"Push Comes To Shove" is an odd, and funky cut and also feels a touch dark and there's also "Dirty Movies"-a damn cool tune musically and a tale of prom queen turned porn queen. Heavy stuff.
The bizarre freak-out instrumental "Sunday Afternoon In The Park" is also anything but light and what the hell is it all about? Strange sounds galore as well.
"Hear About It Later" is so quintessential VH-the amazing solo, riffs, backing vocals and personality. When it gets to the solo segment I love it!
I always looked as this one as an odd piece of art, but a true masterpiece on Eddie's canvas.It sold over 2 million copies-which actually was the lowest of the DLR era. Cool painting on the cover too.

Van Halen was in a kind of dark place for this album, but it worked. This album brims with attitude and the band is truly on fire here, pun firmly intended. I believe part of this was due to the fact that Eddie was unhappy and wanted to do a solo album.

Legend has it he would sneak back into the studio with Donn Landee and recut his guitar parts late at night.

Whatever the case may be, this is a great album and it really kicks ass.

It's also a rare opportunity to hear Michael Anthony's bass in the mix.

yep, great album. VH never sounded as tough and mean after this. Particularly love the last 2 songs on the album (Sunday into One Foot Out The Door)....just fantastic sound unlike anything else in rock.

Fair Warning is probably tied with the debut for my favorite VH album. To me the key song is "Push Comes To Shove," which has possibly my favorite Eddie guitar solo. I was just getting into jazz-fusion at the time, including Allan Holdsworth, and it seemed pretty obvious that Eddie was listening to him as well. Also, that funky groove was unlike anything they had done before. Like the debut, there's not a bad track in the bunch, and at least 4-5 of the songs are among their best. The production is also amazing. For me they would never reach these heights again.

What with vacation and diseases, I've fallen behind on this thread, so excuse me while I play catch up...

VHII...

An unfairly overlooked album, but in retrospect, that's understandable given what preceded it. "You're No Good" seemed an odd choice for an album opener, especially given how similar the pumping bass was to "Runnin' With The Devil" (and it doesn't measure up to that), but as a cover, it works. "Dance The Night Away", I think, was looked upon as the commercial pinnacle for the band before 1984 came along.

"Women In Love..." and "D.O.A." are tracks that deserve more respect than they get, but they get pushed behind the more party-like "Bottoms Up" and "Beautiful Girls". And "Spanish Fly" remains, all these years later, a song I'd like to be able to play competently.

For me, this and VHI occasionally wrestle for the #2 slot in my list.

Alan

Women And Children First...

This is the first tour I saw VH on, as I recall, and I'd see the remainder of the tours under the first Roth administration.

But this album? Something about it never quite grabbed me fully. I don't know why - there are some great songs here. "Everybody Wants Some", "Romeo Delight", "Take Your Whiskey Home", and the pair that highlight the album for me, "Could This Be Magic?" and "In A Simple Rhyme".

I do like "And The Cradle Will Rock...", but "Loss Of Control" never grabbed me.

Alan

And finally catching up to the rest of the group, Fair Warning...

This is my favorite VH album. It's another that I think gets overlooked in favor of VHI in a lot of people's books, and admittedly, I might be hard-pressed to line up the two albums track-by-track and say the FW track is better than the VHI track. That said, this album is just awesome. So much good material here, although a couple production choices that maybe should have hinted all was not well in VH-land.

"Mean Street" is just classic. I love how the Eddie solo piece works into the song itself - I'm not sure the song would sound right without it. And I've heard Eddie play parts of the intro in his spotlight solo, and it seems incomplete w/o the song.

"So This Is Love?" is another standout from me, although this has the glaring production choice that bugs me - you can hear the bass get cranked down at the beginning. That has always bugged me, much as Ringo going from the ride cymbal to the hi-hat on one of the bridges in "Revolution" has - it just sounds wrong. This track is terribly overlooked - in a just world, this would get much more acclaim. And I absolutely love the beginning of Eddie's solo on this.

"Unchained" - wow. Just wow. I can't believe that "Panama" gets more respect that this song seems to. For some reason, they're always linked in my mind, with this getting less acclaim.

"Dirty Movies", "Sinner's Swing" and "Hear About It Later" are all great tracks, and would have been absolute standouts on other albums, but the strength of this album always seems to make me think of them second (although "Dirty Movies" does occasionally eclipse "Unchained" in my mind).

"Push Comes To Shove" is a tough track for fans of the first three albums to take because it's not the partying, hard-rocking thing they'd come to expect.

And "Sunday Afternoon In The Park" and "One Foot Out The Door" - this kind of strikes me now as VH's answer to the Allmans' "One Way Out", but at the time I didn't know the first song, so...

This was, for me, the peak that VH would never reach again. Which is not a bad thing. There are a lot of bands whose best work doesn't begin to measure up to this album.

Alan

You and me both -- Dee just cost me over a hundred bucks at CDJapan with that post about the 2005 Hagar-era remasters!