Popular four man band of the seventies and eighties, Van Halen, has thirteen number one hits over the course of the band’s career. With catchy lyrics and guitar tones that will make the hairs on your neck stand up, Van Halen has an exceptional song catalog.
Two of Van Halen’s well known songs, “Unchained” and “Ain’t Talkin Bout Love”, both have similar guitar tones and lyrical structures. These songs begin with powerful guitar riffs that have deep and aggressive tones.
Lead guitarist Eddie Van Halen was revolutionary to the guitar world, experimenting with techniques nobody else had ever used. Van Halen created loud rock music that is unbelievable to listen to, and this is mainly credited to Eddie’s guitar riffs.
These riffs and choruses are so instrumentally complex that it is hard for most modern guitar players to even wrap their heads around how to imitate Eddie’s guitar playing. Eddie often did crazy things with his guitar, like tearing one completely apart and rebuilding it from the ground up. This was done to achieve never before heard sounds and tones.
On “Unchained,” Eddie utilized a flanger pedal in the break of each riff. A flanger pedal mixes two identical audio signals together, but one is slowed down just a little. This creates a sound that is almost surreal to listen to.
In Van Halen’s debut album “Van Halen” released in 1978, in which the track, “Ain’t Talkin Bout Love” was on, Eddie used what today is known as his signature brown sound. The brown sound was mainly achieved by Eddie’s crazy obsession with tinkering amps to get better sounds.
While that aspect is not replicable, brown sound was technologically achieved by maxing out his amps and pushing them to the very limit. He used a boosted signal on his amps to get a huge snappy response from his strings. Eddie was a big believer in using the volume of the guitar to get a certain tone.
The infamous brown sound can be heard most notably in the first twenty five seconds of “Ain’t Talkin Bout Love.” The aggressive, sharp, delayed, and distorted tone that seamlessly bites the ears of listeners in this song, is one of the many reasons Eddie Van Halen is considered to be the greatest guitarist of all time.
Alien-like guitar skills such as the dive bombs, tapping, and pick scrapes that Eddie was capable of set aside, Van Halen is just as astounding lyrically. David Lee Roth’s vocals are constantly energetic and passionate.
The song “Unchained” is about Roth’s feelings of people wanting to befriend him now after he is famous. The song conveys a message of attention and recognition only after he is known as the lead singer for such a huge band.
“You’d never miss me till I got a fat city address” is a line where Dave Lee Roth is basically saying you didn’t care about me until I got a huge house in the city. Roth’s enthusiastic vocals and unhinged on stage consumes made Van Halen a great live performance band.
Van Halen’s music across the board is similar, with some variation here and there. Van Halen has been through multiple singers, so that has an effect on the sound of different songs. One thing remains the same throughout any Van Halen song, and that’s the mesmerizing way that Eddie can make his guitar talk.
Critics say that “Ain’t Talkin Bout Love” is one of Van Halen’s most notable powerhouses off of their first album. These two Van Halen songs have catchy lyrics along with incredible guitar tones that seem unreal to the human ear. Van Halen’s music will always be a classic when it comes to rock in the 70s and 80s.
