Van Halen- Fair Warning@45- Eddie & Alex Van Halen

The upside/downside comparison of Van Halen’s April 1981 album Fair Warning  can probably explain why it is easily the band’s most overlooked effort in the original David Lee Roth era. Pro: Fair Warning  is the most Eddie Van Halen-dominated album until the mega-hit 1984.  Con: as AllMusic.com‘s Stephen Thomas Erlewine nails it, “Fair Warning  was the first Van Halen album that doesn’t feel like a party.” Pro: three of the best rockers the band ever did are on Fair Warning, “Unchained”, “Hear About It Later”, and the woulda-coulda-shoulda been big “So This is Love?”. Con: those are the only three songs most people can recall from the album. Pro: Fair Warning  sold over two million copies, a feat any band today would kill for. Con: at only a little more than two million sold, Fair Warning  by comparison was Van Halen’s slowest seller from the original foursome.

Even my guest with Eddie, drummer Alex Van Halen, says regretfully, “I watched while Eddie suffered relentlessy through making that album”, as apparently the pace and Guinness Book-level hedonism of those first four albums and tours were leaving the song tank near empty. Eddie and Alex both weigh in on Fair Warning‘s forty-fifth anniversary. –Redbeard