Listening Post: Van Halen - Diver Down

When I was about 15 or 16 my best friend in the summer vacation town of Bar Harbor was a guy named Pete. I met him while we were both prep cooks at the town's greasy spoon. Pete was a metal guy all the way. Used to listen to Pantera before anyone knew who they were. He took me to see Ozzy at the Blizzard of Oz tour stop at the Bangor State Fair, (Randy Rhodes was 5 feet from me and a little band named Def Leppard was the opener). Pete also had a pair of pants tailor painted with white stripes to emulate Eddie Van Halen's guitar. While I was immersing myself in Queen, Pete was learning to shred. I never even gave the Pasadena boys a chance.
Let's remedy that now, shall we?



Van Halen - Diver Down - 1982 (Buy it)

"Where have all the good times gone?" the band asks on the opening track and I feel the same way after listening to this entry in their catalog.
Diver Down was sort of where I come in during VH's history. Because, well, who didn't love Pretty Woman? I bought the 45, the b-side of which was another cover, the goody a cappella "Happy Trails".
Now, here I am, 26 years removed from the days when I would hum those tunes in Mrs. Sprinkle's english class and I am finally diving in (pun intended) and what do I find?
This is the least inspired album in the band's oeuvre. Obviously they were burned by testing experimental waters on Fair Warning.
There is still the Eddie solo masturbation excercise (cathedral) which is a signature of the group but the rest of this is a sleepy, slunky exercise in retread.
The damned thing is chock full of covers which I would have expected from the band on maybe their first couple of entries but they are seasoned vets here. It's sort of inexcusable. And yet, it worked. At the time, this album was huge.
But it's as boring as can be.
Whatever fire was ignited on VH, whatever cocksuredness was put forth on II and W&C1st and whatever branching out that was achieved on Fair Warning is put to rest here.
There are no surprises.
In short, you don't need this album. You don't even really need the singles. Although Pretty Woman IS one of the best covers ever and The Full Bug is a blues number that is a harbinger of things to come.

Grade C
A Side: Pretty Woman
BlindSide: Big Bad Bill is Sweet William Now (Pulling a Queen here with the dixie-swing/white man blues) & The Full Bug
Downside: Secrets