Listening Post: Van Halen - 5150

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?



David Lee quits the band because he's the money maker and the rest of the band has been shorting him on royalties. Okie dokie.
So, what to do? How to replace the Joel Grey MC of Rock?
While getting his lamborghini cleaned Eddie meets, befriends and decides to work with one Sammy Hagar. Oooooookay....
Flashback to my friend Pete. We're in a record store in Maine and he's STILL waiting for his Eddie Van Halen pants to be painted and he pulls out a record. It's by Sammy Hagar. Apparently this guy can't drive 55 or something. And Pete thinks the guy is brilliant.
I guess, looking back, the marriage of Van Hagar makes sense.
I was actually kind of tickled by preparing to listening to this version of VH because while he was with Montrose, Hagar wrote one of the best pop songs ever. Of course, his version is nearly impossible to listen to but Rick Springfield's cover of "I've Done Everything for You" is brill, baby!
How is 5150, then?
It's....not bad. It kicks pretty hard at the open with "Good Enough" and really doesn't let up for a while. When it does, it's for the quintessentially 80s synth sounding Dreams. Even that song, however, has more teeth than the average Jon Parr song (which it sort of sounds like). I don't even mind the stupid ballad, Love Walks In, in fact I kind of like it.
This is a bigger band than before. It's not Van Halen. It's something else. It's like Asia with shreddability.

Grade A
A Side: Why Can't This Be Love? & Good Enough
BlindSide: 5150 & Inside & Love Walks In
Downside: Summer Nights is the qeakest track on a very solid album.