Disco de Van Halen: “Diver Down [Remaster]”

The title of the review says it all. Diver Down is the great overlooked Van Halen album. In my opinion it's one of their best albums but for some reason it's just overlooked by everyone. It was a great followup to an even greater album, Fair Warning. Diver Down for the most part is half cover songs and half originals with some instrumentals thrown in. I'll review the cover songs first. The first cover on the album is of the Kinks' classic Where Have All the Good Times Gone?, the Mighty Van Halen's version blows the original away. The only hit from this album was the cover of Roy Orbison's (OH)Pretty Woman, they did a great version of this song also. They also cover the classic song Dancing in the Streets, a lot of people say this is their worst song but I thin they did an excellent job on the song, David Lee Roth sounds great. The last two covers on the album are strange ones indeed, the first one is called Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)it is a very slow ragtime sounding song, it features Jan Van Halen (Eddie and Aelx's father) on clarinet, then the song that closes the album is Happy Trails, the VH boys do a great song on this song also, the background vocals are great and Dave's voice fits the song. So that's the story on the cover songs, now the first original is called Hang em High. This song is typical early Van Halen and it's amazing. Great guitar riff and eccentric drumming by Alex. Cathedral is a short Eddie instrumental, then it goes into Secrets. It is a good song, very underrated. Little Guitars is without a doubt the best song on the album, and no doubt one of Van Halen's best. The song is very catchy and poppy. The last original on the album is The Full Bug, this is also one of the best Van Halen songs ever. There is a short acoustic intro before kicking into a great rocker. Everything about this album is great, any fan of great music should pick this up, don't listen to what everybody says, and don't overlook this masterpiece

DIVER DOWN is Van Halen's most artistically bankrupt album. Cited by both Van Halen brothers as their least favorite album, DIVER DOWN marks a vast departure from its predecessor, FAIR WARNING, returning the band to their party hearty image. Roth was behind the drastic changes behind the record. This album is not only Van Halen's weakest album, but overall one of the most puzzling records in all of rock. DIVER DOWN is very reactionary. The album points to Roth trying to reclaim the audience they lost with FAIR WARNING, as DIVER DOWN is the polar opposite of that album. Like all Roth Van Halen albums, the album is very brief, being only 31 minutes long, which has always irritated me.

The album sounds like it has a personality crisis. David wanted to do a covers record to move product, while Eddie wanted to maintain some shreds of artistic credibility, and the quality album is a causality of this tension between the two dominant personalities of the band. The sound and atmosphere is a total retreat from the darkness of FAIR WARNING, and the only reason for the retreat is Van Halen selling out. This selling out indicates lack of integrity and total artistic bankruptcy.

For fans of bands, I always recommend listening to the albums in chronological order. It gives a sense of history. When you get to DIVER DOWN, you realize that the band is simply running on empty, they're looking to reinvent themselves after the hideous darkness of FAIR WARNING, and they're simply running out of ideas.

Let's look at a little history. In 1982, when Van Halen released DIVER DOWN, they had just come off a major tour in support of FAIR WARNING. FAIR WARNING met with a rather chilly reception. That record was a very dark, mean spirited album, brimming with anger, immorality, and rough lifestyles. By the time FAIR WARNING had come out, the band was known for their party, over the top lifestyle, and Eddie's guitar heroics. While the guitar work certainly stayed amazing, FAIR WARNING simply did not sell well, and is still even to this day Van Halen's least commercially successful album due to its dark intensity.

When the time came to record FAIR WARNING's followup, Roth wanted to change directions. He and the record company began operating on the philosophy that if you start out with a hit song, you're half-way to a commercially successful recording. While the rest of the band disagreed with this ideology, they acquiesced to Roth.

Another issue contributing to DIVER DOWN's overall weakness is the band had been touring nonstop since 1977, and they were exhausted. The band were going on vacation, but recorded a single which went became successful enough that Warner Brothers wanted an album to go with the single.

Originally, the album's initial sessions began when the band tried recording their next single. They started out with Martha Reeves and The Vandellas hit song, "Dancing in the Streets." Eddie expressed difficulty recording the song, as he simply could not get a real handle. They then proceeded to record "Pretty Woman" at Eddie's suggestion. The intro, "Intruder", which Dave claims to have written, was composed specifically to take up time on the controversial video that MTV banned, as the song was about two minutes too short for the film they shot on the video. Rather than edit down the film further, they just wrote an extended intro.

Taking the hit song philosophy to its utmost, Van Halen recorded no less than five cover songs, almost half the album. Of these five songs, one is a Kinks song (the band was hoping to replicate the success of the "You Really Got Me" cover on their first album), the second is "Pretty Woman," the third is the totally incompatible "Dancing in the Streets", the absolutely bizaare "Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)", and the fifth is the joke recording "Happy Trails." While the Kinks cover doesn't sound that out of place on a Van Halen album, both "Pretty Woman" and "Dancing in the Street" are obviously signs of a band selling out and just looking for a hit. Eddie has cited the "Dancing" cover as the worst Van Halen commercial recording, and for good reason. It's a good song, but totally out of sync with Van Halen's overall image and sound. "Happy Trails" sounds little more than a drunken joke recorded to allievate otherwise boring and monotonous sessions. "Big Bad Bill" has a nice vaudeville feeling to it, but again, this is Van Halen. You don't listen to Van Halen for vaudeville, and is probably the most ridiculous thing they ever recorded. The song is notable for featuring Jan Van Halen (the brothers' father) playing clarinet.

With the five covers discussed, that leaves only seven original tracks. Three of those are short instrumental tracks. "Cathedral" is one of Eddie's most enthralling guitar instrumentals, primarily because when you listen to it you think it's an organ and you wonder how did he get that music on a guitar. "Intruder" is filler written because the video ran longer than the song, although by segue-waying right into "Pretty Woman" it does give "Pretty Woman" a rather ominous tone not present in the original song. "Little Guitar" is a totally unnecessary intro. If they wanted to make it include it as part of the main body of the "Little Guitar" song , there was no reason to make it a separate track.

With the covers and the instrumentals dispensed with, that leaves a paltry four major Van Halen originals. "Hang `Em High" is a decent enough track. "Secrets" never did anything for me. "Little Guitars" has a strange Mexican flavour too it, and while nothing particularly wrong with it, there's nothing real memorable about it either. The song was improvised and recorded live.

That leaves only one song left. "The Full Bug." This track has sizzling guitar work, great vocals, and just a fantastic song to rock out too. This is the only time on the entire album where the entire band just clicks. This is vintage Van Halen right here, and easily on level with anything on the first four albums and 1984. Unfortunately, one song cannot carry an album. (Take note, American Idol winners).

Eddie Van Halen despises this album. As Eddie says, he'd rather have a flop with his own songs (which he did flop, and flop hard, with VAN HALEN III) than have hits with other peoples' songs. And he's right.

DIVER DOWN has too much filler, has too many covers, doesn't have enough originals, and of the originals, only one really rises to former Van Halen standards. It has a very cold, calculating feel to it, like the record execs and the band were more interested in restoring the band to their commercial zenith and forget anything about making good music.

Overall, DIVER DOWN solidified Eddie's opposition to recording music solely to sell. After DIVER DOWN, Eddie formed his own studio where he would have complete artistic control over Van Halen's music. Likewise, Van Halen never recorded covers again (the sole exception being OU812's closing song "Apolitical Blues.")

Ultimately, DIVER DOWN is Van Halen's most dispensable album. While I've been pretty damning about the whole album, I will say it's a very, easy listen, and is very uncharactestic of the band. But while it's light and fun, it's also fluff. Nothing really to return to once the album finishes, and it's only a mere 31 minutes long. It's like cotton candy. No real substance.

Ah, Diver Down. Nestled between the controversy are 4 fantastic heavy-rock

songs from the band that took the torch from Zep. The only songs

I have a problem with on the album are the too-silly "Happy Trails" and the mediocre "Pretty Woman".

"Big Bad Bill" is a funny and swinging change of pace and "The Full Bug" is a

raunchy, underrated gem. And yes, the band themselves aren't crazy

about this album. And it is short. But, oh man, those 4 songs! Songs from a band that is mostly overshadowed

by their guitarist .....a band that has the funk born of great timing and musicianship and love for

what they do....

1) Where have all the Good Times Gone? - Eddie makes the indestructible Kinks riff his own.

You just want it to go on forever. Alex displays Bonzo-style taste and restraint.

Dave was never more charismatic. They made it look easy.

2) Hang Em' High - Mike, Alex & Eddie. Three musicians locked airtight

from constant touring. A mindboggling tour-de-force.

3) Secrets - Gentle....swinging. A nice display of songwriting chops. There are so many good things

going on in here that can only be appreciated through headphones. Great lyrics and another good

example of everybody having fun together.

4) Little Guitars - A Monster. A brilliant acoustic intro....then silence...then that great stomping electric

"second" intro. It's a classic right down the line from Dave's comical trouble-across-the-border lyric (that would sound

... without that self-deprecating edge he has that makes so many of the songs work) to the

tightness of Eddie, Mike & Alex, to Eddie's wierd fingerpicking riff to those brown,

majestic powerchords towards the end. I'd take this one to a desert island with me any day.

I remember hearing VH's Diver Down back in 82 when it first came out. For some reason, I associate it with Summer, because I guess my friend was playing it that summer. You either love it, or hate it, and their are alot of people who have a love/hate thing for Diver Down. Me personally, I love it. Sure, it is almost half cover songs, but they are good cover songs. Where Have All The Good Times Gone, Dancing in the Streets, and the best one Pretty Woman. Yes, these are cover songs, but VH took them, ran with them, and made them their own for the album. They Van Halenized them so to speak. Ed's playing is awesome on Diver Down. Its got a real good feel to it, a little more mellow, less raw or aggessive then the previous albums before it. It aint no Fair Warning I tell you, but what is? I think it was a breath of fresh air when it came out. You can hate it talk bad about it, say its not this or that, thats your opinion, and you are entitled to it, but, its not the best VH album and its not the worse, it is what it is, a feel good, party, good time, light album by a once great classic hard rock band. Where have all the good times gone, can you tell me?

Eddie Van Halen once referred to DIVER DOWN as his "least favorite album." Pointing to the profusion of cover songs and the fact that the mini-Moog riff that opens "Dancing In The Streets" was meant for an original VH tune he was writing, EVH noted, "I'd rather bomb with my own stuff than score with somebody else's." In that vein, I once read a review of this LP that said, "This is the product of an exhausted, bored band at a creative lowpoint."

True, true. Yet DIVER DOWN is not a terrible or even a bad album. It is merely mediocre by the standards of the Old (1979 - 1985) Van Halen. And considering that band gave us ridiculously brilliant albums like VAN HALEN I and 1984, that's a sliding scale.

First of all, the three main cover tunes ("Dancing", "Where Have All The Good Times Gone?" and "Pretty Woman") are well done, although "Pretty Woman" is technically way off, the result of the band playing it in the studio from memory rather than actually doing their homework (just like high school, Dave!). In fact, I like all of these songs better than their originals - VH truly made them their own. In keeping with old VH traditions, there are also two gag-reel songs, "Big Bad Bill" and "Happy Trails", which are as ridiculous as you'd expect them to be.

On the softer, more AOR-radio friendly side, we've got "Secrets" and "Little Guitars", two underrated and understated tunes you will never - ever - hear on contemporary radio. And the good old VH trademark of an instrumental song ("Cathedral") marks the first real foray by Ed into keyboards and is really a beautiful and evocative track. His next outing was the key-solo on "Jump", and we all know how that one ended up.

DIVER DOWN has a vaguely spaghetti-Western type of theme (I guess Dave was watching a lot of Sergio Leone in 1982?), most particularly on the oddly compelling song "Hang `em High", which is arguably the best track on the record. In addition, "The Full Bug" features an exuberant harmonica solo. This song rocks full-bore and will get you a speeding ticket if you listen to it while driving.

All in all, DIVER DOWN is decent three-star album from a great band playing with one hand occupied by beer, or possibly a groupie's bra. It has most of the things you'd associate with DLR-era Van Halen, the main difference being the lighthearted, almost disposable nature of the songs, which lack the hard, gritty resonance of earlier albums or of side 2 of "1984." It' a quirky, very distinctive, upbeat type of Big Rock with just enough edge to prevent it from straying into sugar-pop-rock territory.