06. Van Halen Van Halen II 1979 (Warner Bros.)
Heavy Metal
Humour, histrionics and a real swagger when needed!
Overview
Whenever a blockbuster debut hits the charts like the Van Halen debut did, there is always the pressure for a band to follow-up with a likeminded sophomore set. Quite often though a band can’t match the strength of that debut and tend to fall short, whereas others can of course match that debut album in both terms of impact and quality. Van Halen on their second album were surprisingly in both camps in this respect and where the album lacked in matching the debut album for stand-out tracks and impact, it scored its points with its consistent overall feel especially on its b-side and its feeling of being lean where it mattered. The album features one cover song less than the debut, one song less and is trimmed by around three minutes and its compactness would be its key. Like a lot of sophomore sets a number of the songs had existed even before the debut had been recorded and some even date back to 1976, two years before their debut album. Also once again all the original songs are complete group efforts as well. The success of this debut album was certainly vital for the then development of American heavy metal which was now taking on a much more glamorous aspect than its British counterpart, which of course still focused on the darker matter of the genre. Highly commercial producer Ted Templeman would be on-board again to give us another polished performance and the album would go onto to be a multi-platinum seller. The album would reach the lofty postion of number.6 on the US Billboard chart and contain the singles “Dance the Night Away” and “Beautiful Girls” of which the former would be a hit single for the band. This was certainly an achievement by a relatively new metal band around this time, especially since they were competing with other genres that were more popular commercially at the time, meaning that they would get more exposure on the radio than a lot of metal would. But then again their success was not overly surprising given the visual appeal that they provided and their grasping of the ‘pop metal’ denominator in their music.
David Lee Roth- Vocals
Eddie Van Halen- Guitar
Michael Anthony- Bass
Alex Van Halen- Drums
Production- Ted Templeman
Album
You’re No Good- The album starts off with its only cover on the album and this is a song that was originally written by songwriter Clint Ballad.Jr. The song is a slow plodding effort and is highlighted by the guitar work of Eddie Van Halen.
Dance the Night Away- Pop meets metal here (well its pop mostly) and a song surely written for chart success. The song has normally been a permanent fixture in the DLR fronted Van Halen over the years and its poppy approach captures the lighter side of the band.
Somebody Get Me a Doctor- After the previous song, we’re back into heavier territory here and we have more vocal antics by DLR once again.
Bottoms Up!- Similar to the previous efforts in feel, but this time we have a much faster track in its overall execution to contend with.
Outta Love Again- A lot of Van Halen’s material started off with atmospheric intros, using Eddie Van Halen’s guitar to provide the actual intro (synths would used on later albums for this) and this is one of numerous songs on this album to have this approach.
Light Up the Sky- One of the many songs that carries the typical Van Halen template, which would reach its climax on the future
1984 album.
Spanish Fly- Here the band substitute the electrifying instrumental “Eruption” from their debut, with an acoustic Spanish flavoured shorty.
D.O.A- Dominated by its heavy guitar work and David Lee Roth’s swaggering vocal style and the song speeds up nicely to its finale. It’s also the longest song on the album at just over 3 minutes!
Women in Love…- At just over 4 minutes, this is one of the better constructed tracks on the whole album and further strengthens why the b-side of the album is better overall.
Beautiful Girls- The second single returns us again to the light-hearted side of the band and of course the band’s obsession with pussy!
Verdict
The band’s heavy credentials are laid down from the word go with the plodding cover of “You’re No Good” and this heaviness is then combined with humour on “Somebody Get Me a Doctor” and in turn this humour is then combined with speed on “Bottoms Up!”. These three songs alone capture the true spirit of the album, where the band were looking to tie in all the aspects of their light humour, varying track speeds and overall heaviness in certain places, and all this comes together to varying degrees on these three songs. The pop hooks don’t get any stronger than on the album’s singles “Dance the Night Away” and the rockier “Beautiful Girls” which despite having that softly softly approach to metal, earmarked the band for chart success and this would be a style that they would fully exploit a few years later on the
Diver Down album. As the album goes on, the music tends to get less light-hearted and songs like “Light Up the Sky” and the slightly more serious sounding “D.O.A” both demonstrate this. In fact they’re two of the best songs on the album, making the b-side of the album its stronger side. Van Halen as a band were never the most gifted of songwriters, as often nearly every song seems to stem from the same root with just varing degrees of variation in its execution, but kudos to them in knowing how to execute their material with all the excess fat trimmed away. Also having a guitar maestro full of histrionics in Eddie Van Halen and a vocalist like David Lee Roth boosted their street credibility through the roof anyway! But then again this is a matter of opinion regarding David Lee Roth, whose vocal antics and sloppy vocal style may not appeal to everybody. On listening to Van Halen’s material here, probably the most important thing that comes to mind, was their ability to promote a brand of heavy metal that didn’t take itself anywhere as seriously compared to its British counterparts and in fact the band push their more humorous side even more so here than on their debut. Despite this the band were also ultra-professional in their arrangements, attitude and their ability to live and breath metal, a fact which saw them as the most important American metal band to date. The template that the band had set up on their debut, wouldn’t be expanded on here, but it would be further solidified to help shape a large chunk of commercial American metal throughout the 1980s.