is the graphic missing for the sleeve of Van Halen II Holes? Or is it just my PC?

Van Halen? I bought the first two albums back in junior high school. I sold them during my first semester at college for a bus ticket home to catch The Cramps. As the eighties progressed I felt free to openly listen to lots of albums that I made sure stayed hidden when friends came over. By '85 I was playing Ted Nugent, Aerosmith, Skynard and Kiss once again. But Van Halen never made it into my rotation again. But who am I to talk? Right now I'm really getting into Rush, even their eighties hits like "Spirit of The Radio".

So, how many people here have actually heard the albums in question then? I'd like to know honest opinions, nothing tongue in cheek implied. From the review (if you read it) I didn't get any impressions Julian's championing anything other than the first four albums (he makes it clear in the review: avoid the collision). ALL I have heard here is that Van Halen suck (everyone knows they do) BUT maybe the first four albums are worth listening to. And I mean listening to - simple. It's like those people who missed the point after all that Krautrock was championed by buying everything to do with old gits Kraftwerk!
Oh and Judas Priest? when? where?
As for Kiss, I don't think he has ever championed anything other than Hotter Than Hell and the Kiss Alives. Julian is not keen on the rest of the Kiss albums.
Oh by the way, Fleetwood Mac? I have no problems liking the first albums at all (Peter Green's) and despising the rest which has Nowt to do with the rest of their production.

What's so strange about this?

XXX
GP

As anyone who has seen a recent interview with EVH will attest, the man is a spiteful prick.However, for better or worse, he was the most influential guitarist since Hendrix and managed to forge a unique, instantly identifiable sound which most of his slavish imitators never even approached. Roth's Borscht-belt schtick kept things from getting too serious-anyone lumping them in with Maiden/Priest et al has clearly never heard the band.It's called a sense of humor and it's often sorely missing from rock'n'roll.Sexist? I don't think so. That's DAVE in bondage on the WACF poster, not some bleach-blonde band-aid(He's done a twist!) Did Dave like pussy? Probably just as much as any red-blooded male in his twenties(ok, maybe a little bit more). If anyone wants to cite a Van Halen lyric that is demeaning to women I'm all ears-oh yeah, I forgot, you've never heard them.
Anyway, I found Julian's recasting of VH as shamanic
fucking hilarious. Lighten up, Heads!

Am I fuck.
Perhaps I wasn't too clear in my anger and I apologise for this.

So I shall put it like this instead.
Mr Cope went at lengths, with nice pictures to boot ,and a fair amount of effort to write about a Van Halen bootleg with extra information and some florid words about rock and roll. It's there, that's all it is.

As I undstand it, and please correct me if I'm wrong, no one is legally obliged to read it or indeed act upon it. The immediate response from Murray & Stray was scorn along the "go to hell" lines. How charming.

The scorn was derived from Cope posting about a band and genre they do not like. How dare he?! For all their moaning so far about how some of us are apparently getting at THEM for not liking Van Halen (And for the record I really X 10 couldn't give a gibbon's spunk whether you do or not), it seems to have passed them by that they threw the first stone. Cope reviewed something we dont like ;"GO TO HELL!"
What next! Is he gonna review something else I don't like?!! WHAT you mean they ACTUALLY SOLD SOME RECORDS?! CAPITALIST DOGS OF THE WEST!!

I dont care whether Cope posted it, you did, I did or The Right Revrend Jasper BumGrapes did and I dont care whether it was about some obscure Krautrock artifact or S Club 7; you both attacked and went off one one cos its the review wasnt in your remit.

I wonder if say Murray had posted an review on Unsung and had recieved a "go to Hell" for his efforts how he would have felt? Would not the matter of plain rudeness crossed his mind? Recommending something on Usung isn't a gun to the head, it's presenting an option. The door is open, you dont have to walk thru it.

Oh and you know Stray...being told to fuck off by you isn't upsetting....it's an HH rites of passage and the sound of inevitability.
Between telling everyone to usually "sort it out" cos Stray is the Way....well good for you but no thanx.

And what have I ever contributed to a debate? Yeah you're right...so tata

You know, the first Montrose LP was AOTM back in January 2001 CE. Did anyone make a big fuss over that? Same thing really.
All together now:
'YOU'RE ROCK CANDY BAYBEE-HARD, SWEET AND STICKAAYYYY!'

I haven’t checked the Unsung forums much in the last couple of years due to losing interest; I love mostly music with a raw edge, be it ultra-famous (eg Black Sabbath or Robert Wyatt) or not so famous (eg GAM 76 – one of the best albums ever). Although all the AOTMs are different, they are connected in their epic intent to freak the One with the Roman Attitude and to be used as tools on a Personal Search. Most of these albums will not do the trick while you are doing the washing up, they need careful Inner Exploration, and the Reviews do indeed lead you near there. Some of those albums will not work until one day you wake up and find out that they do.

Though I consider early Van Halen (1978-80) full of crass stupid choruses (and I think this is made quite clear in the review), there is something in the energy and intricacies of the music that does appeal to me and far outweighs the ridiculous-ness (more than, say, early Kiss (1974-77) who have the crap choruses/lyrics AND often lack the edge in the music). Still, if Van Halen had used his ideas to make more radical music the world would have been a much happier place. An album-load of Eruption would be the perfect companion to LAMF. Another example is the powerful way Unchained begins in and then evolves until it reaches the silly chorus. But once you get over this, it’s fun.

I have always been disappointed that no-one pays much attention to the AOTMs (or rest of reviews for that matter). Only those famous albums that people know will be either praised or slagged off (often without hearing the album in question!!!) and I am sad that people are just not interested in the Exploring of the Rest. Too much hard work? To me, this work is part of the fun. Then again, there will always be a plank who will say I am a snob for wanting to explore what they do not know or have never bothered to explore. Oh, and Montrose in the past produced a similar kind of reaction as Van Halen. In the same way, one cannot deny the saw-guitar works in a similar way. Mind you, if VH’s 1984 had been reviewed we should have started to get worried.

Criticising the AOTMs is perfectly fine by me BUT ONLY as long as it’s based on a proper argument or AFTER hearing the album in question; I gather that criticism in most cases is based on personal appreciation *without* hearing the album first. What I’ve seen lately, also, is too much of a bad attitude which, here I agree with a23, was not part of HH in the past (it rather belongs to forums for inane artists like, say, the Paul Weller or the Beck website). Wake up people. This place has always been different. Newcomers have always praised the good attitude of its people in opposition to the rest of the web which is full of lazy sexual expletives. This said, I will sod off.

This is further proof ( after that fucking awful glastonbury performance ) that julian cope is a clueless monkey fuk.

The site is going down the shitter too.

TpS

i'm a bit late here I know and maybe it's all a bit stale but i saw cope doing a brilliant talk about five years ago when reposessed had just come out and one of the most interesting things he said was about Van Halen - indeed it kind of one of the crux points of what he was talking about.

he had a news clipping of a recent discovery of a really old hat that had been found near some standing stones or something - a few thousands of years old (apologies for my archaeological sketchiness) - it was a tall multi-coloured hat like a witches or something but Cope used it to illustrate the point that these folks had leisure time - and that their leisure time was used to dress up and be flamboyant and that these people were imaginative and spiritual in a way that he envied and in a way that our society has forgotten about. I think he must have just read 'Crazy from the Heat' at this point but he had got the same kind of thing from DLR's idiosyncratic and humorous memories of Van Halen - ie the product of leisure time spent indulging in fantasy play and ridiculousness but also for the sake of the audience and with a commitment towards their wellbeing (illustrated in the floor polishing story Cope mentions in the AOTM feature) unlike most of the metal genre.

I can see how Dave Lee Roth represents someone who is a showman in an age of featureless and joyless culture and I think Cope is right to champion these kinds of inspirations because they're valuable and also because they are rare.

I think the main point about this though is that Cope has justified his appreciation of VH eloquently and the accusations of irony or intellectual dishonesty represented by the 'Cope can go to hell' and 'He is taking the piss' comments are unfair and insulting.

BTW
I have just read 'Our Band Could be Your Life' by Michael Azzerad which is a chronicle of Underground American Indie in the 80s and Van Halen were cited as inspiration by Henry Rollins, Ian MacKaye and The Minutemen so Cope is not their only credible fan.