We've just looked at Hendrix's Are you experienced, which we decided was a landmark in rock guitar. Now I thought we'd turn to another landmark album, the first Van Halen one.

Van Halen often get a bad press, and lots of modern bands associate them (incorrectly) with 80's hair metal. The truth is, Van Halen 1 came out in the late 70's, and their hair wasnt any worse than most 70's bands.

The music however was groundbreaking. Eddie's tone on that album is still (in my opinion) one of the greatest in rock (if not THE greatest). The songwriting was quality, the showmanship was perfect (thanks DLR), and Eddie's playing stunning.

Yes, this is the first album to feature serious use of tapping, but Eddie had everything from great legato, big stretches, perfect string bending and most importantly TASTE.

Overlooked however, was Eddie's rhythm playing- the crunching tone combined with tight playing helped give his inventive use of chord inversions real force. Just listen to Aint Talking about Love, or I'm the One.

Importantly, in my opinion, Eddie refrained from traditional blues imitation, (at the same time as Jeff Beck was moving towards Jazz, interestingly). Instead we had supercharged rock replacing tired old
blues licks (sorry blues fans, but blues is just too overdone). Sonic shapes and crazy scale choices were eddies thing, check out the 'Jump' solo from 1984.

So if fun, inventive and irresistable rock is what you want, or you want to hear a true master guitarist, give it some Van Halen!



My score, 9/10.

What do others think?

This is a great album Van Halen 1.

Guitar Playing was getting over hendrixfied per say then Eddie came along made it all fresh again.

One this album you will hear percussion tapping, tremolo picking,dive bombs,tap harmonics, piano style counterpoint and more........ Yeap he was the god father of late 70's 80's guitar playing.

This album better be in your collection or you missed the boat.

Don't learn aftermarket Eddie licks from someone like CC Deville from Poisen get the real deal. Come on it's been out since 1978.

This is a great album.
I was a youngster when this was released.
At the time I was learning songs such as , " Happiness Is A Warm Gun ", " All Along The Watch Tower" , ect.,ect.,.
When I heard the intro to 'You Really Got Me"...the classic "ERUPTION", I thought ,Man!!!! How is he doing this stuff...It opened my eyes to a entire new world of guitar playing...from that moment on I knew it would take dedication and hours of practice to really understand the guitar....

The opening guitar riff to "Ain't talkin' 'bout love" (man, that title has a lot of apostrophes) never fails to give me the chills.

I like the intro to aint talkin bout love...Im always surprised how Eddy can make something so simple sound so different then anyone else...

Eddie Van Halen is on the top of my list! When the first album hit i was just starting to play guitar and i was mesmorized by his ability, it was also very intimidating for a newbie!He no doubt paved the way and set a whole new standard for "guitar rock god"..I was thrilled when sammy hagar came on board to allow eddie more freedom to do other things without having to carry the whole song, and i think 5150 was equal if not better in terms of showcasing eddies playing, but the first album was and still is an amazing thing.....

As much as I like Van Halen 1 my Favorite album of thiers is 5150...It took a while to grow on me however I think the lead guitar has more direction and melody...which is better than just playing lead fast just for the sake of being fast...Unfortunalty this was the last album I liked of Van Halen...OU812 was cool guitar wise however the songs were not that great and his guitar was sounding to mechanical for me...When its love and finish what you started are ok...enough with" love" in the song titles already...