It’s a polarizing band. People either like or absolutely hate Van Halen. Note that I said “like,” and not “love.” It’s hard to love Van Halen, as—to me anyway—the band’s music lives in the moment you’re listening to it. Van Halen’s music is a roller-coaster ride that’s all about the immediate experience. It’s bolt-of-lightning, shot-out-of-a-cannon music. There’s no subtlety here. Add in a whole bunch of misogynistic banter that’s straight out of a high-school boys’ locker room, and it’s no wonder the band is polarizing.
Back in April of last year, I wrote about my unadulterated excitement for the Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs reissue of Van Halen’s first record (LP, Mobile Fidelity UD1S-032). That watershed album, produced by Ted Templeton and released in 1978, changed the direction of rock music and most definitely opened up the possibilities of what could be done with an electric guitar.
The MoFi reissue of Van Halen has become one of my demonstration records. While I was visiting Boutique Audio Gallery, a retailer and distributor located just north of Toronto, Canada, I had the pleasure of spending some time with Michael Plessmann, the owner of speaker-manufacturer SoundSpace Systems. We sat and listened to music for a solid hour, and after hearing some of my choices, Plessmann remarked, “You like dense, complicated music.”
Why yes, I do: Mr. Bungle; John Zorn; Tom Waits; Rush; Coltrane, when he loses his shit. Van Halen’s self-titled debut fits right in. When a system can pull it off and keep a tight grip on the disparate instruments, when everything is right, just so, a complex piece of music played at high volume can highlight the tangible wonders of hi-fi. And so it is with Van Halen, which has occupied a prominent position in my unfiled, frequent-listen record pile.
I recently received the next two albums in MoFi’s UltraDisc One‑Step 180g Van Halen reissue series—Van Halen II (Mobile Fidelity UD1S‑033) and Women and Children First (Mobile Fidelity UD1S‑034)—and with their arrival, the first album got yoinked and filed in the Vs.
Back from the world tour supporting that incendiary first album, the band—electric with ideas—recorded Van Halen II in just one week. With Templeton continuing as producer, the sound of this follow-up album retains much of the crackling energy that so startled the world. But wait! This is a hard-rock album with—gasp—radio-friendly hits! VH certainly has its lighthearted moments—for instance, the playful “Ice Cream Man”—and there’s plenty of humor buried under the album’s misogynistic lyrics (we’ll get to that later). But at its heart, VH is a straight-ahead rocker.
The second track on VHII, the bouncy “Dance the Night Away,” sounds like it was purpose-made for classic-rock radio, for sunset beach parties with slightly larger-than-recommended bonfires and coolers full of Coors Light cans. “Dance the Night Away” peaked at 15 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, which wasn’t bad for a record by four rockers. Things return to form one song later, though, with “Somebody Get Me a Doctor” sounding like the aural embodiment of the world’s largest Marshall stack.
There’s variety on VHII, with plenty of slashing solos, sure, but songs like “Light Up the Sky” blend interesting bridges and vocal choruses with Eddie’s fireworks. “Spanish Fly” spotlights Eddie’s versatility, as he plays a solo on a nylon-strung classical guitar—the most boring instrument imaginable, and the polar opposite of his electrified artillery.
VHII sports a solid clinker. “Women in Love . . .” sounds like it was written by a focus group spinning up an ad for a cruise line. All is forgiven, though, with the next track; the album closes with “Beautiful Girls,” which has the rhythmic bounce that makes much of Van Halen’s early music so infectious.
Women and Children First is a tighter, darker, heavier album—the chaps sound angrier here. There’s more crunch, more of a sense of control over the start and stop of the beat. It took Van Halen two weeks to record WaCF, compared to the one week for VHII, so the lads were slowing down a touch. It doesn’t sound like it, though. The end result is a more complete, cohesive album than VHII.
Over the past six months, I’d gravitated to the first side of MoFi’s Van Halen. “Runnin’ with the Devil” and “Eruption” had captured my attention and ended up on near-constant repeat. While I really, really like VHII, WaCF just leaped out at me, immediately replacing the band’s first album in my hard-rock arsenal. I giggled right through the first side, with “And the Cradle Will Rock . . .” and “Everybody Wants Some!!” quite literally, actually, honestly, raising goosebumps on my arms. These are two of the tightest rock tracks ever, from my viewpoint: right up there with Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” Further, for all you audiophiles with brandy snifters upraised, I dare you to pick up this record, in this pressing, and listen to “Everybody Wants Some!!” at a high volume level. The introductory drums, and the spoken-word portion with that reverb-drenched guitar will give your system a true workout.
I just noticed that I haven’t mentioned anything about the actual records themselves. The Ultradisc series is beautifully packaged and wonderfully pressed. Both albums are cut at 45 rpm to two LPs and pressed on MoFi’s translucent SuperVinyl. All four records in my copies of the albums were perfectly flat and dead silent. There was absolutely zero groove noise, and I didn’t note a single tick or pop across all eight sides.
Each record is housed in one of the company’s rice-paper sleeves and further supported by a stiff cardboard liner. The record and liner are held in a dedicated slipcover, which in turn slides into the outer box. Slipcover and box are both made from a luxurious, matte-black cardboard that’s embossed with slinky gold writing. Extras are few: a full-sized reproduction of the cover art and—in the case of WaCF—a poster-sized photo of David Lee Roth, chained to a fence and wearing leather, with his hair gelled up so stiff you could put your eye out. While the poster is suitable for framing, I will be leaving it in the box.
As I’ve already intimated, the sound quality across both albums is excellent. There’s tons of depth where it’s warranted, with the more spacious tracks jumping out past the speakers and doing honest-to-God audiophile tricks. Much of the music on these two records gets so loud it’s probably compressed to 11, but it doesn’t feel like it on my system. Alex Van Halen’s drums feel snappy and dynamic, and Michael Anthony’s bass has the weight it always should have had.
Listening to any of these tracks via Qobuz, or off my server, is a pale imitation of the experience I get with the MoFi reissues. MoFi makes much of its “master tape” access, and I have no doubt that the company has used the best-quality masters available. That’s what it sounds like—the expansiveness of the presentation across the soundstage is audiophile quality, even if the music is rooted in adolescent fury and hormonal upsurge. Via the MoFi discs, there’s a tactile quality to Eddie’s dirty guitar sound that I can taste, I can feel on my skin. This quality is totally missing from the streamed versions.
My wife leaves the room whenever I throw on one of these records. Marcia doesn’t actually hate the music, but she views the band, its appearance, and its attitude toward women with active disdain. Me, I’m stuck in the moment, back in 1979 when I was 17. I listen to the songs and sing along with the lyrics without giving much—if any—thought to their actual meaning. I vacillate between sheer exuberance at the experience of listening to this fist-in-the-air music and vague, low-level shame at how little the misogynistic lyrics bother me.
I asked Marcia to elaborate on why Van Halen makes her roll her eyes: “‘Everybody Wants Some!!’ takes me back to the cheeky tales of my grade-10 male friends on overnight class trips while eating breakfast in the mess hall. One of them ribbing the other about masturbating openly to Jane Fonda’s 20-minute workout. What made the boys snicker made the girls vaguely sick. The crass manner in which women’s bodies are there to be exploited, regardless of the context.”
I’m horrified to say that I probably would have laughed, too. I’m going to rationalize that my love for this music is rooted in the soundtrack of my youth as an encapsulated moment in history—I still love Ezra Pound’s poetry even though it turns out he was a fascist and a massive dick, so it’s OK to still listen to Van Halen, right? I’m on thin ice here, but these wonderful records have helped me make my peace with the contradiction.
. . . Jason Thorpe
jasont@soundstagenetwork.com
