Diver Down
by Van Halen

It feels weird to call Van Halen's "Diver Down" (1982) a great album - it's slight, and a hodgepodge (like The Rolling Stones' "Flowers;") however, what it lacks in weight, it makes up for in pure fun.

Theoretically, a twelve-song album featuring five (bizarrely disparate) covers and three short instrumentals is a train-wreck; however, this isn't. To Van Halen's credit, there's a singular attitude - summery, humorous, and as carnivalesque as Venice Beach - unifying the diversity of "Diver Down."

Although it's generally conceded to be the least essential of Van Halen's six-classics-in-a-row - now seven, including 2012's "A Different Kind of Truth" - "Diver Down" showcases the Roth/Van Halen creative team as the gloriously odd entity it is. The brilliant original "Little Guitars" sits between the goof music hall rave-up "Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)" and a virtuoso flamenco guitar introduction. "Secrets" is an understated major statement, among the band's greatest songs.

As much as the band's previous album, "Fair Warning," (1981,) is cast in the image of guitarist/songwriter Eddie Van Halen, "Diver Down" is cast in the image of vocalist/songwriter David Lee Roth.

Although "Diver Down" features VH Mach 1's lowest classic song ratio, very few rock bands ("hard" or otherwise) release albums in the same league as this 'odds and sods' collection. To think, all Van Halen set out to do here was let Warner Bros. pad its cover of "(Oh) Pretty Woman..."

I know this is usually everyone's least favorite of the DLR era since this was supposedly their toss off record so they could get back on the road. Yes, it is heavy on covers, but they make them their own. This entire album rocks! The band and this cd in particular is given way too little credit. I love all the DLR era cds, but this is the one I go back to the most.

"Little Guitars" with its "Intro" is one of the greatest rock songs.

No other band could get away with covering "Happy Trails" and "Big Bad Bill" and still make them fit.

From adnielsen 04/12/2018 19:13 | #212759 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

I'm surprised to see this rated so poorly. There's a handful of throwaway songs like Big Bad Bill and Happy Trails, but there's also some amazing classics on this like Secrets, Little Guitars, and Cathedral. Pretty Woman is an excellent cover version that really reintroduced the song to a new generation. Not a lot of bands can match the original artist's version of a song, but DLR and the bros do great here! A fun album with some hits and misses, but overall, one of my favourites of the VH catalogue. At the current moment, this is my most listened to VH album over the past decade.

I saw the band on this tour and they were on top of their game live. "Intruder" has to be one of my favorite instrumentals of all time. I used to listen to it and imagine a video in my head of a mad scientist creating a Frankenstein monster named "Larry" because at times it sounds as if Van Halen's guitar is saying "Larry? Larry? Larry??"

I did a lot of drugs back then. :)