1. You're No Good 2. Dance The Night Away 3. Somebody Get Me A Doctor 4. Bottoms Up! 5. Outta Love Again 6. Light Up The Sky 7. Spanish Fly 8. D.O.A. 9. Women In Love10. Beautiful Girls
With all of the discussion this past week about the possibility of new
music from Van Halen in 2011, I thought we would discuss their second
album. Van Halen II was released in 1979. While I agree with most fans
that the debut is possibly one of the best albums of all time, this one
is very close to even with it in my book. As a matter of fact, it was
the first LP I ever bought with my own money. The album had two
singles, one (Dance The Night Away) being a relative hit (#15 Billboard
Hot 100) and the other one (Beautiful Girls) not doing so well.
The album opens with a cover, You're No Good. It was written by Clint
Ballard Jr., but I remember it at some point being a hit for Linda
Ronstadt. I like VH's cover version. I really like David Lee Roth's
vocals. His screams back then should have been trademarked. It's
really funny to listen to someone singing along to a VH album as they
try to emulate his vocals. Everybody does it, at least I do. Anyway,
back to the album. Next up is Dance The Night Away. What a classic.
How does Eddie Van Halen get that tone? I have a feeling this would be a
very hard song to cover, just listen to Santana's cover version of it
and see what I mean. I always thought Somebody Get Me A Doctor was a
pretty heavy VH song at that point in their career. It's got a great
riff and Michael Anthony's backing vocals are awesome. Bottoms Up!
follows that as another pretty heavy song, despite the laid back intro.
And closing out side one would be Outta Love Again, another fairly
heavy tune.
My favorite VH song starts off side two. That would be Light Up The
Sky. I can't listen to this song without being transported back in time
to the very early 80's when my cousins and I would spend every summer
evening outside, thinking about chicks and listening to Van Halen. Alex
Van Halen lays down an awesome drum track here. How in the hell could
Eddie follow up one of the best (if not the best) electric guitar solos
of all time? He throws down a nearly equally incredible acoustic
track. Spanish Fly definitely cemented Eddie in as an all time great
guitarist. Another cool riff drives D.O.A. The guitar intro to Women
In Love is so awesome. "Honey if you need a woman just as bad as me/
you outta be goin'" pretty much gives away the songs subject matter. Of
course, I didn't get that way back then, I just thought it was another
cool song. Beautiful Girls closes the album out in grand fashion. It
features a neat guitar and bass intro and those typical Anthony backing
vocals. That is the last of 10 fantastic songs on VH II.
So, as you can tell, I really like this album. The cover art is a
little plain, but it does feature the Van Halen logo, which makes up for
it. It's easy to find on Amazon and relatively cheap. Eight bucks for
the remastered disc. For a price like that, you should definitely get
it. But everybody reading this already has it, right?
Hidden Gem Award: Light Up The Sky
***Click the following link to hear the album: Van Halen II