Van Halen: Women & Children First [WARNER BROS.]

Why you'll love it

This pressing is remastered from the original analogue tapes and cut on 180g vinyl. The album went platinum within a year, and Rolling Stone placed it at No. 36 among the 100 greatest metal albums of all time.

This edition

• Remastered from the original analogue tapes
• 180g vinyl

About the album

Van Halen's first two albums sounded like parties. On the third, they let the lights go down a little. Ted Templeman produced again and Donn Landee engineered, in Hollywood and in about two weeks, and for the first time every song on a Van Halen record was their own.

"And the Cradle Will Rock..." opens on what sounds like a guitar but is actually Eddie Van Halen's Wurlitzer electric piano, phased and pushed through his Marshall. "Romeo Delight" and "Loss of Control" go full throttle, "Fools" was in their live set as early as 1975, and "In a Simple Rhyme" and "Take Your Whiskey Home" date back six years, to before Michael Anthony joined. "Everybody Wants Some!!" stayed in the set right through the 1984 tour.

Rolling Stone's David Fricke called the songs works of high-volume art. And the rain on "Could This Be Magic?" is real: it was pouring outside, so the band set up two microphones and recorded it in stereo. Most of us just close the window.

Also at Kops: more Van Halen on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Warner Bros. (cat# RR1 3415), a reissue of the 1980 album.