Following the tour to support that album, the writing for the next album began soon after, with both Eddie and Sammy already inundated with ideas to progress with. Prior to the album being released, there was a lot of speculation as to how the band would progress musically on their second album with this line-up. DLR’s second solo album “Skyscraper” was released at the start of 1988, the episode of which you can find in this season of Music from a Lifetime, and it had shown a slight change in style from his first. And many wondered just where Van Halen would go with their new album, and whether Sammy Hagar would be an influence in its direction musically, or whether the musical direction that Eddie had taken over the previous two albums would continue to evolve in the same way. Long time fans of the band were looking for a return to a more guitar oriented theme much like their early work, where Eddie’s guitar dominated, rather than where the synths of the 1980’s did so. Prior to its release, this album was surrounded by theories and speculation, much of which perhaps ended up being problematic for the fans when the album finally saw the light of day.
“Mine All Mine” opens the album perfectly, a rocking Van Halen song at the right tempo, slotted with keyboards that dominate in a way they had for the band’s past two albums, and vocals that, at times, I often mistake for David Lee Roth at the beginning of the song, before it becomes obvious that it is still Sammy Hagar at the helm. Eddie’s solo here also revives the better attributes of the band as well.
In many ways, personally at least, I think “When It’s Love” is a poor choice as the follow up song. It’s the epitome of the Van Hagar rock ballad, and of course it did great business on the charts when released, but for me it stops the album in its tracks at the first hurdle. And, in many ways, it never really recovers. Of course, all of those millions of fans out there who love the song would disagree.
The middle trilogy of “AFU (Naturally Wired)”, “Cabo Wabo” and “Source of Infection” have a much sound about them, Eddie’s guitar and Sammy’s wailing with that great hard rock rhythm of Alex Van Halen and Michael Anthony. “Cabo Wabo” has a slower groove than the other two but fits in nicely. “Source of Infection” again could have been DLR singing such is the way the track is sung and creates the backing vocals the way the band used to.
Three songs released as singles follow this into the back half of the album, and as a result the real energy of the album gets misplaced. “Feels So Good” has almost church-organ keyboards throughout, only building with Eddie’s solo by the end of the song. “Finish What Ya Started” is a semi-acoustic tome that for many fans is a bonafide great song, but for me pretty much just stalls the album again, while “Black and Blue” is the more energetic of the three tracks.
“Sucker in a 3 Piece” is the concluding track on the album, unless you have the CD (which I guess would be the majority of album owners out there) which has a cover of the blues track “A Apolitical Blues” which, really, does nothing for me. It’s a strange one to have included to be honest, but along with some of the decision making on this album, perhaps it actually fits alongside that.
I never jumped out and bought this album. There was a lot of other albums at the time that were dominating my listening (and the severe lack of cash meant I couldn’t just buy every album I wanted in those uni days), and so for some time I only had the singles released from the album as my guide, which can sometimes be good and other times be average. It would be fair to say that in this case the singles coloured my feelings of the album. Once I started to listen to the album it was those songs that I heard the most, and for me it probably harmed the way I felt about the album.
Over the years, I wouldn’t say that my opinion of the album has changed much. And like I mentioned in the intro, for me this was a real line in the sand album. There is stuff I like enough here, and on the albums that followed, but none of them for me ever compared to those that came pre-1987. And that was never a nostalgia thing either, it was just that the band turned the dial away from the style of music they had always done to this point, and found the next station on the dial. None of it felt like a reaction to what was happening in music at the time, it honestly just felt that it was the direction this group of four was looking to diverge into. For me, I wasn’t completely invested in that direction.
I’ve spent the past two to three weeks listening to the album again in preparation for this episode, and my feelings on the album remain the same as they have for 35 years. I’ve put it on, and it almost immediately went into the background for me as I did whatever else I was doing at the time. At no time did it dominate, or demand that I sing along or stop what I was doing because it was awesome. An average album, without the hooks necessary to truly become a big hitter in my music collection.
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