Top 500 #292

Limited 180 gm vinyl LP pressing. With their 1978 eponymous debut, Van Halen simultaneously rewrote the rules of rock guitar and hard rock in general. Guitarist Eddie Van Halen redefined what the electric guitar could do, developing a blindingly fast technique with a variety of self-taught two-handed tapping, hammer-on's, pull-offs, and effects that mimicked the sounds of machines and animals. It was wildly inventive and over the top, equaled only by vocalist David Lee Roth, who brought the role of a metal singer to near-performance art standards. Mastering engineer Chris Bellman, who remastered the original albums at Bernie Grundman Mastering Studios, was enlisted for this new version. In order to produce the original sound the band intended, Bellman cut straight from the quarter-inch tapes.