Van Halen's 1984

Time for another installment of Eric's record reviews, although again, not like anybody pays attention to what I say here, which is cool with me!

I have been listening to Van Halen's 1984 a lot recently. Somehow the cd found its way into my garage, and my daily routine usually consists of:

1. Letting the dog out in the backyard

2. Drinking a Great Lakes Lake Erie Monster Imperial Pale Ale (that stuff is fantastic)

3. Playing whatever cd happens to be in the cd player on my workbench (Van Halen's 1984)

I love every song on this record. Jump and Panama both had music videos during the infancy of MTV. So did Hot for Teacher, which is an amazing song. The drums in the beginning of the song always sounded to me like a drag racer idling its engines, followed by a typical Eddie Van Halen guitar solo (typical for EVH leaves you wondering how on earth anybody could possibly play something like that). The video was classic for this one too: the nerdy kid Waldo (voice provided by Phil Hartman), and the teenage members of Van Halen who got sentenced to detention.

Top Jimmy was actually a real person, the frontman for a late 70's/early 80's L.A. band called Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs. I also love the song Drop Dead Legs, and when they played it on Family Guy as Meg's theme music in the alternate universe, it was a very fitting tribute.

The cover art is great on this one too, a winged cherub smoking cigarettes.

The cd is probably the perfect length for me to wind down on my patio while the dog chases the ball in the yard. It gives me just enough time to blast the stereo and raise a little hell before "mom" comes home!

On a more personal note, I can remember listening to this tape when I was 8 years old (1985) with a friend. I got hit in the head with a rock and received 29 stitches (would probably explain a lot), I can remember listening to this tape on his couch while he made me laugh so hard my stitches started to pull. I begged him to stop making me laugh because my stitches hurt. To this day I don't think I have ever laughed so hard as I used to when I was 7 or 8 and playing with that kid.