“You never know what to expect”: Eddie Van Halen’s five favourite albums of all time
Having become one of the eminent guitar heroes of the 1980s, Eddie Van Halen always pushed himself to be the best and brightest guitarist around.
With his band, Van Halen, the guitarist would dominate the airwaves and see children fighting tooth and nail over who was the greatest player of all time, Van Halen or Jimi Hendrix. Such prowess within the music industry rarely happens by accident, and Van Halen spent many years meticulously practising his craft, listening and re-listening to records, and finding inspiration and influence to make his own life-changing tunes.
It means the late, great axman was just like the rest of us when you put the needle to the record: a music lover. Over the years with Van Halen, comparisons to previous rock outfits were almost continuously made and, to his credit, Eddie was seemingly happy to recognise all of them. However, there are some artists and albums that he cherished most of all; below, we have a selection of those records.
With Van Halen’s enigmatic debut album in 1978, the group announced themselves as the brand new rock and rollers to be feared. The gang of musical miscreants met every snort of derision with proof of their impending dominance. As punk was sizzling under pressure, Van Halen set their course for universal appeal and classic rock infamy. But the real moment the ruling legends of the rock music game began to quiver was when Eddie Van Halen‘s guitar was plugged in. The guitarist was like a blast from the past, a true impresario for the new generation. But the future, is always gilded by the past, and Van Halen’s influences were everywhere to be seen.
Like many of the greatest players, Eddie’s relationship with music went far beyond simply mastering his instrument. He absorbed ideas from every record he loved, paying attention not just to guitar technique but to how songs were structured, how bands interacted and how different players carved out their own sonic identity. Those lessons would quietly shape the explosive style that eventually made him a generational talent.
At the same time, Van Halen never treated his influences as something to imitate outright. Instead, they served as a jumping-off point, encouraging him to experiment with tone, rhythm and melody in ways that felt completely fresh. By the time his own band arrived at the end of the 1970s, those influences had been transformed into something unmistakably his own.
They can also be seen in this rundown of the guitarist’s favourite albums of all time. Compiled by Rock and Roll Garage, we can see the variety and vivaciousness of Van Halen’s picks, and he tracks down some of his favourite guitarists and always ensures their records infiltrate his thinking. One such player is Jeff Beck and his album Blow by Blow, a record that turned Van Halen on to the guitarist’s work: “I didn’t get into him until Blow By Blow. Just the instrumental-ness of it. And Wired, interesting stuff in there. So I guess it was just the experimentation in there that I liked. Jeff Beck is definitely a standalone. You never know what the hell he’s gonna do. My brother and I were in France 20 years ago, and Jeff Beck was playing. He was doing a rockabilly thing. And we were like, ‘What the hell is this?’ So you never know what to expect with him.”
Van Halen has also never been shy about another Yardbirds alumni, Eric Clapton. In this list, we have two entries from Clapton’s supergroup, Cream. The band, which featured Ginger Baker on drums and Jack Bruce on bass, is regarded as one of the primary stones of success for rock and roll in the 20th century. “My favourite stuff was when he was in Cream,” Van Halen told Rolling Stone in 2011. “Which was only a couple, three years. It wasn’t a very long run. But what I really liked was their live stuff, like Wheels of Fire and Goodbye. Cream and stuff like that, because then you could really hear the three guys playing in their live element.”
While Van Halen, perhaps typically, also shared his affection for the Who’s mammoth live album Live At Leeds, about which he said: “Pete Townshend was an influence as a rhythm guitarist. So it was just the power and intensity, and again, simplicity,” he held perhaps the most affection for another more unusual artist.
Eddie’s son, Wolfgang, revealed to Classic Rock that aside from the riotous rock his father adored, he also held a special place in his heart for former Genesis singer Peter Gabriel and his album So. “This is one of my favourite albums because it was one of my father’s favourite albums of all time. So I’ll never forget him coming up to me one night with these huge headphones and going, ‘Wolf, put these on.’ Then he put the headphones on my head and cranked the first song, ‘Red Rain’. It’s very hard to listen to now my father is gone. But that album front to back is Peter Gabriel at his finest.”
Like any real music lover, there is a good chance that if you asked Eddie Van Halen for a list of his favourite albums at any point in the day, you may get a different list than this one. But there can be no denying that these records influenced the legend that Van Halen would become.
Five of Eddie Van Halen’s favourite albums of all time:
- Live at Leeds – The Who
- So – Peter Gabriel
- Wheels of Fire – Cream
- Cream Goodbye – Cream
- Blow by Blow – Jeff Beck
