ABC Music Humpday Videos - "V" is for Van Halen

Oh yeah, a rock classic from my killer vault of awesome tunes.

Bros and Hos, this is  "Unchained" by Van Halen:

I had to restrain myself for not posting their other  awesome videos like the hilarious yet misogynistic "Hot for Teacher", or the "each-member-plays-out-his-fantasy-film-roles" in their cover/butchering of  Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman", or even the rock star stage shenanigans in "Panama" (loved Eddie's use of the "blowdryer" in that one). Oh no...

I chose "Unchained" which comes from their 1981 album Fair Warning.

Despite going double platinum, "Fair Warning" was not considered a commercial success because it had no radio "hits". I beg to differ. I thought this album was pretty damn good. My best friend N had the LP while I had the cassette tape of this album. I think it was all the better for it (not having any radio friendly hits), in my opinion. This was definitely not a "soft" pussy rock album. "Fair Warning" is one of VH's darkest albums with a cover that depicts someone getting their face punched in. The album starts off with Eddie's blistering hammer on axe attack with cascading notes punctuating the furious intro of "Mean Street", one of my favorite songs when it first came out. I was a 7th grade rocka rolla chick.
Remember my musical tastes are in a time warp but hell, I still love this music to death. This album in particular appealed to me because it was a mix of light and dark. There was very little "FFF" (Fast Forward Factor - as in cassette tapes, ha ha) for this. No shitty songs to fast forward since every song was good! I remember in the song "Dirty Movies", there's a line where the band members are catcalling the screen (hence the song's title) and someone is screaming, "Take it off! Take it all off!" and the radio stations actually played "Sinner's Swing" uncut which was surprising since there was a line in it where David Lee Roth sings, "She looked so fkg good, so sexy and so frail..." Whoa, wait a minute now? That was on the radio? KGB FM baby.

Song list (listen to snippets here):
1."Mean Street"
2."Dirty Movies"
3."Sinner's Swing!"
4."Hear About It Later"
5."Unchained"
6."Push Comes to Shove"
7."So This Is Love?"
8."Sunday Afternoon in the Park" (instrumental)
9."One Foot out the Door"

Anyhow, this was the live version of "Unchained" since there wasn't really a video for this song. This lineup is the classic incarnation of Van Halen, not of that Sammy Hagar or Gary Cherrone (Seriously please? Ugh!) on vocals. It's David Lee Roth baby. And none of that let's replace original bassist Michael Anthony with Eddie Van Halen's obese son, Wolfgang. Nepotism at it's worst.  Back in the late70's when girls were putting up their Tiger Beat posters of Shaun Cassidy or Scott Baio on their walls, I had Eddie Van Halen posters. Courtesy of Creem Magazine and Hit Parader. My parents were pretty liberal I guess buying me those mags. I didn't have teeny bopper idols on my walls, I had Eddie Van Halen and his "Frankestein guitar" as well as the late Randy Rhoads (from Ozzy Osbourne's "Blizzard of Ozz").  Some things never change.

There were no runner ups to the "V" choice. There weren't really a lot of options for me.At least one ones that I liked. Hmmm, Voice of the Beehive? Velocity Girl? Vixen? Stevie Ray Vaughn? Vinnie Vincent Invasion? Vandenberg (shit, they were pretty good!), and oh my God, I almost forgot! Velvet Revolver! Well, Van Halen still rules over all these choices!