Van Halen - "Diver Down" (LP Review)

Eddie Van Halen died just over a week ago.  Without exaggeration, he's one of the greatest rock guitarists to ever live, if not the best.  I realize there were others before him, and it's hard to compare different generations, and anyone starting out in the 70s would have the benefit of Clapton, Hendrix, Iommi, Blackmore, and other seminal guitarists.  Having acknowledged all of that, my opinion is that Eddie was indeed the best rock guitarist to have ever lived.  

Of course, I have to admit my own bias: Van Halen was probably the first band that for which I made a conscious decision to call myself a "fan".  By that I mean not just liking some songs that you heard on the radio or saw on MTV, but recognizing and identifying with the unique sound and image of the band and their entire canon.  At that time I could not have told you why Eddie Van Halen was special; the best I could do is say that he made the guitar "laugh" and it sounded like no other guitarist I had heard.

So why would I mark Eddie's passing with "Diver Down", probably the least regarded LP of the "classic era"?  If my memory serves me correctly, this is the first LP of theirs that I bought, probably at the K-Mart in Denbigh (see also: "Flirtin' With Disaster").  In 1982, the price of an LP represented quite an investment for a middle schooler, and I remember playing this LP to death: in part because I was a budding fan, and in part because my personal collection consisted of only a few LPs.  I loved it at the time, but later in life came to recognize its shortcomings.  The others?

• Van Halen - this was the first and probably their best, sounding nothing like what other bands were putting out ca. 1978
• Van Halen II - is a solid sophomore effort, but probably the one that I played the least at the time, in part because I never warmed to the opening song, their cover of "You're No Good"
• Women and Children First - while I can't say this is better than their debut LP, I can say this is my favorite of theirs now; if I were going to play a VH right now, this is the one I would reach for
• Fair Warning - undoubtedly their darkest and heaviest LP, with no party songs, TIC blues covers, or general screwing around; this would probably be the second one that I reached for now
• 1984 - while their most commercially successful LP, it is without a doubt my least favorite LP of this era; while there are some decent songs on 1984, the unnecessary keyboards and a Michael McDonald co-writing credit are just too much for me to swallow 

I'm not going to try to convince you that Diver Down is a great LP, but I can better contextualize it.  Apparently the original plan was to release "(Oh) Pretty Woman" as a non-LP single, but based on its success their label wanted an LP.  The result was a short (31minutes), 12 song LP that featured five covers,  three instrumentals, and one song adapted from their 1977 demos.   Clearly this was a stop-gap LP, released mainly to satisfy Warner Brothers.  

Still, there are some really good songs on this LP.  "Where Have All The Good Times Gone?" is a great cover (I've written elsewhere that all bands should cover songs by The Kinks), "Hang 'Em High" has a great riff, "(Oh) Pretty Woman" is a perfect song for David Lee Roth, and "Little Guitars" is a fun song.  

So this isn't the best LP from their classic era, but in my book it's still 10X better than 1984.  Diver Down means less to me in 2020, but it was very important to me in 1982, and so for nostalgia reasons I'm marking Eddie's passing with "Diver Down".  

Standout songs: "Where Have All The Good Times Gone?", "Hang 'Em High", "Intruder / (Oh) Pretty Woman", "Little Guitars (intro) / Little Guitars", "Happy Trails"

Skip' em songs: "Dancing in the Street" (not because it's a bad cover, but I detest all versions of this song)

Final score: 7/10

Random liner notes fact: Jan Van Halen, father of Eddie and Alex and an accomplished musician in his own right, plays clarinet on "Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)".  In the liner notes he's listed just as "Jan Van Halen", and knowing nothing about Dutch names in 1982 I just assumed "Jan" was Eddie and Alex's sister.  It was later in life that I learned the truth.