Van Halen - Fair Warning
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Free Music Notes for Fair Warning
Free Music Review: Short with a powerful punch! Van Halen's best!
Hit: 5 Stars
Dark, dreery, seedy, gritty. Van Halen, the Beach Boys of metal, put aside their crotch rock tendencies to make an album about the underbelly of society (if you'll pardon the cliche.) Eddie Van Halen's guitar work is nothing short of mindblowing and fits the feel of stories David Lee Roth spins (of porn actresses, adulterous paramours, sinners in general.)
Legend has it that Eddie was miserable and considering quitting the group when Fair Warning was recorded. In true blues master fashion, he channeled all his angst into the music and it sounds the way one would imagine he probably felt.
Fair Warning is great. Even at just a shade over half an hour, it's loaded with a lot of guts and feel. No incarnation of Van Halen ever recorded a better album. It's a hard rock mammoth, one of the best albums in its genre ever released.
Free Music Review: VH's most underrated but possibly best album
Hit: 5 Stars
Love this album! I had it on 8 track when it came out. It is probably my favorite VH album. I loved them with both Dave and Sammy, but this album was just solid. Good variety, some heavy songs. Just a classic rock album. Free Music Review: Get ready!!
Hit: 5 Stars
This is one of my favorite albums,love the concept and their production
was justed out of this world.Looking forward to this renunion.Can't wait!
Free Music Review: Nothing really does stay the same...a brilliant, dark masterpiece
Hit: 5 Stars
Van Halen is the type of band that can satisfy somebody with high expectations. The interesting thing about them is that while they certainly have a sound of their own, it seems like experimenting is a high priority for them. Between the hair-metal of "1984", the half-moody, half-good time "Van Halen 2" and the unstoppable monster of their debut album, "Van Halen", (all of which had their share of popular tunes), it's easy to see how something less commercial or experimental would tend to go unnoticed.
Unfortunately, that's the case with "Fair Warning". A brilliant album, yes, but the truth of thematter is that it wasn't remembered for high-on-the-chart singles such as "Jump" or "Panama". However, what it lacks for in commercial success it more than makes up for in clever songwriting and an overall dark tone. On a positive note, it's probably one of their overall greatest albums.
"Fair Warning" is the type of album where each song can flow pretty well into the following, even if the styles are a bit different. In addition, "Fair Warning" overall paints an easy-to-see picture. You can almost imagine a movie being made in the scenery that's painted by the rebelliousness of "Unchained" or the third-world neighborhood of "Mean Street". It's a land of murky tales and strange situations that's just so interesting and quite dark that you are brought in without hardly knowing. The imagery on the album covers, front and back, hint at what such a place might be like; twisted days where people go wild, uncertain events pop up out of nowhere, and all is portrayed by the soundtrack, a hard-rocking, moody masterpiece that is "Fair Warning".
All right, so more to the point, the music on this album is quite unique and interesting. Even in all the murky emotions, the sing-a-long choruses and anthemic displays of power show you that while this album may prove to be a change of pace, Van Halen is basically the same. Eddie Van Halen displays more exciting stunts on his guitar, while David Lee Roth erupts like a volcano with his comments and amusingly entertaining performances. Michael Anthony's basswork is quite present on this album, too, and Alex Van Halen's "what kind of drums is that man playing on?" drumming is top-notch, too. Overall, this album is yet another display of Van Halen's both incredible talent and catchy songwriting.
"Mean Street": The first, thirty seconds are Eddie Van Halen's progressive dual-handed tapping, a technique so unusual that when my guitar teacher showed me a long, long time ago, I was drawn in and bought this album. The main riff is so awesome it makes you wanna turn the power all the way up. The closing solo is very impressive as well, and basically, everybody is at the top of their game here. An instant classic.
" 'Dirty Movies' ": Wow, in just four minutes, Van Halen plays one of the most unpredictable songs I've ever heard, in a GOOD way. There are a lot of changes in this song, and random things occuring, such as David Lee Roth's spoken word, "Hey, you remember when that girl was prooom queen? Oh, wow.", and "Take it off! Take it all off!!!", and the cheering, this is a great song full of surprises.
"Sinner's Swing!": A fast-paced rocker that contains a very explicit lyric, especially for a VH song, but this is an awesome three-minute hard-rock blast.
"Hear About It Later": OK, a little time-travel here. Remember VH's debut? A song on there, "Feel Your Love Tonight"? I CANNOT TELL YOU how much this track sounds like a murky, love-gone-bad version of that song. Even so, it's still original with an anthemic sing-a-long chorus and some interesting, opening guitar work.
"Unchained": Alongside "Mean Street", this is probably my favorite song on the album. It opens with a huge, loud, crunchy guitar riff, the fast, fade-in drums, and DLR's, "ALL RIGHT!", shout. Great soloing and another funny DLR performance inside.("One break, commmming uppp!".)
"Push Comes To Shove": A very unusual VH song focused around a funky bassline and more basic drumwork. This song makes me thing about walking along the suburban streets of New York City, bundled up in the autumn, thinking about everything that's going on in your life. With such lyrics as, "Seems like forty days and forty nights since somebody's called me by my first name/ Including you", this is an introspective song that's an absolute delight, served up Van Halen style.
"So This Is Love?": The complete opposite of "Push Comes To Shove", this song has the swing and groove of an early Black Sabbath tune (one of Tony Iommi's guitar heroes was jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt). Along with an original VH sound and for some reason, a Red Hot Chili Peppers vibe, this is yet another great rocker.
"Sunday Afternoon In The Park": A slow, sludgy, two-minute instrumental with some of the wildest guitar playing I can recall hearing from Eddie. The riff starts and stops with some slow but cool drum fills of his brother Alex, and then, fading in is a hot, nasty guitar riff that leads into the closer...
"One Foot Out The Door": The killer riff continues here with Alex Van Halen's trademark, fade-in drumming, and DLR and Michael Anthony both kick in. The song and album close with yet another blazing guitar solo, and thus ends it all.
There you go, the dark, underrated masterpiece that is "Fair Warning". Although not the most commercially successful release, it's among Van Halen's very best. So if you want an album with massive talent but still packs the anthemic immortality that Van Halen displays so well, "Fair Warning" can almost undoubtedly get that taken care of. If you like this and want to explore more VH, I'd strongly recommend checking out, at least, "Van Halen (1)" and "1984", which both show these guys at the top of their game. Have a good time with this one, and until next time, peace!
Free Music Review: Rocked my little 11 year old world!!!
Hit: 5 Stars
I believe I was in 5th grade, a big AC/DC fan. These were the days of LPs; big album covers and sleeves you could hold and admire, a little bit of crackle before the first notes hit, 2-sided albums where you took a quick intermission to turn to the second half. This was the early 80s where things had not become so cheesy.
I remember listening to it the first time with my best friend who was the yin to my yang; me the AC/DC fan, my friend, the Van Halen fan. I had enjoyed Halen very much - how could you not? VH I, II and Women and Children were all wonderful albums and in the good old days radio had an array of tasty singles to choose from. I miss early 1980s radio - good times...
But back to the first listen; the cover was a bit intimidating and as Eddie's intro to "Mean Streets" crept up on me, it was a surreal experience. Not nice but irresistible. After the punch in the face of "Mean Street", Dirty Movies is the perfect follow up - again probably more than I could understand at my age at the time, but that probably made it more fascinating. This was probably the first or second album that had a mysticism to it, along with amazing songs. This and Pink Floyd's "The Wall" were both albums I could not get enough of. Albums we would listen to over and over and discuss to no end.
This would be a long review if I talk about every song. I love them all - but "Push Comes To Shove", "Mean Street", "Dirty Movies", "Sinner's Swing", and "Unchained" are my favorites. I'm still amazed at 11-year's old I was listening to this kind of music but I did have older siblings so I did get introduced to quite a bit.
My only complaint is there aren't enough songs on "Fair Warning". Obviously VH was MAJORLY inspired in the studio for this one. There's an angst in the performances and the lyrics - but not some sort of rocker/punky angst. This Eddie Van Halen exploring his playing without much thought to commercialism and it really adds to the mood of the album. Same thing for Dave Lee Roth. I'm very sad they didn't squeak out several more songs - actually a double album would be preferred.