Van Halen

Fair Warning (1981)

1. Mean Streets
2. Dirty Movies
3. Sinners Swing!
4. Hear it About it Later
5. Unchained
6. Push Comes To Shove
7. So This is Love?
8. Sunday Afternoon in the Park
9. One Foot Out the Door

In the early 1980s, the golden age of arena rock, Van Halen were the one band you simply had to see when they rolled into town. And if you missed them? No problem — they’d be back the next year, and for the price of a modest ticket you could still witness what was arguably the best rock and roll spectacle money could buy. Those were the days. With Van Halen, the quality of the latest record was almost beside the point; a new album meant a new tour, and that’s what truly mattered.

So when their fourth album appeared — the fourth in as many years — it didn’t exactly dominate the headlines. That might have been a shame had it been another quintessential Van Halen masterpiece, but, unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. For reasons known only to them, the band attempted a more “serious” approach. History would show, on more than one occasion, that Van Halen and “serious” were rarely a winning combination.

The tonal shift is apparent from the very first track, Mean Street. Yes, the familiar trademarks of the David Lee Roth era are still there, but the sound is darker, leaner, more intent. The next two cuts — Dirty Movies and Sinner’s Swing! — may sport playful titles, and Roth does his best to inject a party atmosphere, but the mood never quite lifts. It feels as if Eddie, or perhaps the whole band, simply didn’t want to take that ride this time.

There are those who claim this is one of their finest efforts. Everyone’s entitled to an opinion, but I’ve never been convinced. By the midpoint, with Push Comes to Shove, I’m already drifting off — something that should never happen with a Van Halen record. They achieve what they set out to do, perhaps, but the result feels uncharacteristic enough to dampen the enjoyment.

The record closes in curious fashion. Both of the final tracks clock in under two minutes, and one of them — the oddly titled Sunday Afternoon in the Park — is nothing but eerie synthesizers conjuring images best left unnamed. Let’s just say the mood doesn’t match the title, though perhaps that was the intent. The other, while brief, does little to restore the album’s energy.

Still, none of it mattered much. Out on the road, Van Halen remained untouchable, delivering concerts that more than made up for any shortcomings on vinyl. And for most fans, that was all that counted.