The Van Halen album Eddie Van Halen was never happy with: “We were just plain rushed”
No Van Halen material would see the light of day without the approval of Eddie Van Halen. Apart from being the revered guitar maestro whose style countless musicians seek to emulate today, Eddie also took on the role of producer for the band as they transitioned from studio recording to a stadium rock act, a role he maintained until his passing. Throughout his career, Eddie acknowledged a few missteps, particularly those that emerged upon the band’s second attempts, reflecting on lessons learned and areas for improvement.
If a band releases an album as good as Van Halen’s debut, though, anything is going to be seen as a letdown in retrospect. Coming out of nowhere in the middle of California, Van Halen was the kind of hard rock record that made the genre actually seem fun, with Eddie teaching millions of aspiring guitarists the ways of tapping.
That kind of magic can only come from someone who isn’t thinking too hard about what their legacy is going to be. Since the expectations weren’t through the roof, the band figured that they would record most of the songs that occupied their live set and whistle them out in a few days in between their various shows.
Given how rock and roll changed overnight, there was only one possible way to get the lightning to strike twice: do the exact same thing over again. Going back into the studio directly after their first major tour of the US, Van Halen II was practically a rinse-and-repeat version of what the band did on their first record, even including a token classic rock cover of Linda Ronstadt’s ‘You’re No Good’… you know, just like they did with The Kinks’ ‘You Really Got Me’.
When talking about going into the studio to cut everything else, Eddie said that he would have gladly taken more time on it if he could have, telling Guitar World, “We weren’t allowed any input on the mix. But ultimately, we were just plain rushed. That’s why you hear that little riff fade out at the end of the album – Al and I didn’t want to stop. [laughs] We weren’t done, but we had a deadline.”
Despite making half of the album on the fly, many of the pieces feel like the natural progression the band should have made following their debut. Outside of the hard-edged tunes on the last project, tracks like ‘Dance the Night Away’ were proto-glam metal, taking the kind of forceful sounds that they were known for and putting them into an upbeat pop song that could compete with the incoming MTV stars.
Eddie did at least find a way to shake it up when it came to his guitar acrobatics. Since everyone and their mother had their suspicions about whether his technique was all flash, ‘Spanish Fly’ was his way of shutting everyone up, demonstrating his fantastic tapping technique on an acoustic guitar with a bit of a flamenco twist.
Still, what Van Halen was capable of wouldn’t be realised until a few years later, letting Eddie have free reign of the studio on Women and Children First. The songs may have sounded a bit similar on Van Halen II, but if there was ever an album that earned the title of ‘Don’t fuck with the formula’, it would probably be this one.
