Van Halen II [Original recording remastered, Original recording reissued]

In the late seventies, Van Halen entered the growing rock and roll scene. And only about a year after releasing their self-titled debut album, they released their sophomore effort, appropriately entitled Van Halen II. It seemed that Gene Simmons of KISS was right about these guys - they had serious rock potential. How do Dave, Eddie, Alex, and Mike measure up on their second album? Read on for my review of Van Halen II.

Van Halen's second album doesn't have nearly as many hits as their debut does, which isn't surprising assuming their debut is one of the most popular rock albums of all time. But still, this album manages to serve up its share of hits as well. The melodic rocker Dance The Night Away and the rock classic Beautiful Girls both originated on this album. These two tracks were the only singles released from this album, but they were far from being the only excellent tracks to emerge from it. As they proved on their debut, the band was excellent at covering tunes. Only one cover song can be found on Van Halen II, and it's a cover of the Linda Rondstat classic, You're No Good. When I heard that the band had covered this song, I had serious doubts about how well they would be able to execute it - but their recording that kicks off this album shattered those doubts. This is even better than the original version! And, of course, we have the underrated compositions that the band put together for this album. The hard and heavy Somebody Get Me A Doctor is one of Van Halen's finest songs ever recorded, and it's a shame this one never got more popular. The acoustic instrumental Spanish Fly is also excellent. The first album's Eruption showed us that Eddie was an electric guitar mastermind, and this track proves that he is equally talented with acoustics. Another excellent hard and heavy rocker is D.O.A. (which, in this case, stands for Dead Or Alive.) From start to finish, Van Halen II provides rock and roll excellence that most bands fail to deliver.

The Warner Remasters rerelease of this album improves the sound quality, but I really thing that Warner could have done more with these reissues. Expanded liner notes/interviews/etc. would have made for a good extra, as would bonus tracks. The Madonna reissues in the Warner Remasters series had bonus tracks, so why can't the Van Halen reissues? Or better yet, they could have combined multiple albums onto single discs (one disc could have been Van Halen/Van Halen II, one could be Women And Children First/Fair Warning, and one could have been Diver Down/1984.) That would have been more convenient to fans, but I guess record companies care more about profits than convenience. Oh, well. This doesn't change the way I feel about the album itself.

Van Halen II was an excellent sophomore album for an emerging band. Admittingly, this album is not as good as their debut, but I'm not complaining. More often than not a band's sophomore album fails to top the debut, so this really didn't surprise me. Oh, well. To put it simply, if you liked the debut, you'll also like this album.