Van Halen's debut pulled the rug out from underneath heavy metal (which had, up to 1978, been defined by the likes of Sabbath, Deep Purple and Zeppelin), in a couple of ways: The first, and most obvious, would be Eddie Van Halen's astounding virtuosity; nobody since Hendrix had offered such a dramatic re-imagining of how the electric guitar could be approached. Eddie's innovative finger tapping style was plainly evident throughout the record, but was, of course, best showcased on "Eruption." The second would be the band's whimsical Southern California style, best exemplified by frontman David Lee Roth's hedonistic screeching and physical undulations; Roth took the glam posturings of Bowie, Gary Glitter and David Johannsen to an utterly ridiculous extreme that only a coked-out martial artist/rock climber could even dream of pulling off... Match all of this to one of the most solid rhythm sections in rock & roll history and you have a recipe for, well... Van fuckin' Halen!
And, of course, Spicoli hired 'em to play his birthday party... That ain't for nothin, right?
Some other thoughts:
#414, James Brown's 20 All Time Greatest Hits: The man had soul, and he was super-bad... What else can you say? Aside from the fact that he had the tightest band in all of R&B, and a couple of secret weapons by the names of Bootsie Collins and Maceo Parker... With props like that, what's a little unlicensed gun charge? Or an attack on an Electric Company repairman? Or repeated domestic violence arrests? C'mon, now...
#413, The Go-Gos' Beauty and the Beat: I'm a little surprised this one placed as high as it did. Apart from singles "Our Lips Are Sealed" and "We Got the Beat," the record doesn't carry a whole lot of water. That said, these gals do have something of a pedigree with respect to the early '80s SoCal punk scene... Singer Belinda Carlisle was the Germs' second drummer. See 'em here in all of their youthful glory...
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