Van Halen II

Vinyl plays perfect 0 skips, Van Halen 2nd album is just a party happy times feeling, a great follow up to their debut and one of the BEST rock albums of all time. Van Halen 2 isnt anything OMEGA crazy like their 1978 debut BUT it truly is a top 3 Van Halen album in my opinion.

I remember reading a long time ago that early VH albums were mixed with so much sizzling top end because Ed had fried his ears standing in front of a wall of Marshalls for all those years and he couldn't hear the top part of the treble, so he insisted on the albums being mastered with a lot of high end so it sounded correct to him. This makes sense to me and sure enough, this album in particular (the original master) was really, really crispy, to the point that Dave's loudest vocals and the cymbal crashes distort constantly. You can hear it clearly with good headphones (listen to DOA, there's a line with a lot of "S" sounds, "we were sittin' ducks for the police man", all of those "s" sounds distort badly on the original). I bought the vinyl album when it came out in 79 and wore it out, probably bought a cassette of it or two, maybe an 8-track and eventually the CD and I always found myself winding the treble back and wincing when Dave's vocals distorted at the top. I just did an A/B comparison with Apple Lossless rips of the original CD release and this re-master and I'm happy to report that the guitar is richer and fatter, Dave's vocals no longer distort as badly and that sizzling crispy-ness is gone. Guitar is still panned hard to the left though (and it's reverb hard to the right) like some 1960's Beatles recording, I'd hoped they'd move it more center in the mix, but alas, no. Maybe at the next re-release? Having said that, this album contains Mike Anthony's best playing of his career and Light Up the Sky is the greatest VH song ever recorded and it sounds fantastic.

This may sound crazy but I was impressed when I opened the box. This is the second of the VH vinyl remasters that I decided to try after a great experience with “Fair Warning”. The first thing that caught my attention was how heavy this was in the shrink wrap. The outer cover is great quality, and these albums come with an audiophile inner sleeve that is plastic lined white paper. Plus the original inner sleeve is included as well with original lyrics and artwork. You get it like it was in 1979. The remaster is a great improvement in sound quality and the vinyl is superb audiophile quality. Of course Van Halen II was a great follow up to the first album. You’re No Good open up and steers the course.. Dance The Night Away, that cowbell never sounded better. To Beautiful Girls and Women In Love, it’s just classic Van Halen... nothing like it then, and nothing like it now. It was made for analog that’s for sure and this release is exceptional. I’ve paid much more for vinyl that was not near this kind of quality.. it’s worth every cent...

Awesome album

It’s Van Halen so it’s good to go! Nothing else needs said!

I like this 2nd Van Halen album, But, I don't think that Van Halen was trying their best of this studio album. it is does have great songs in my opinion. But I think that some of the instruments were out of place on some of the songs, but still a vary decent album for your CD collection, I recommend this album to classic hard rock fans as well as early Van Halen fans, and even to those who heard Van Halen's newer stuff past (1979) and want to hear some of their early stuff. Don;t get me wrong this is a great album. I still truly think that most Van Halen fans may like this album, but in the world of rock music in my own opinion I've heard better hard rock music from Van Halen. This is Van Halen's second album in which David Lee Roth is the singer not Sammy Hagar yet, if your looking for a Sammy Hagar album here is a list of the ones I know. 1: 5150 (1986) 2: OU812 (1988) 3: For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (1991) David Lee Roth Van Halen Albums 1: Van Halen (1978) 2: Van Halen II (this one) (1979) 3: Women and Children First (1980) 4: Fair Warning (1981) 5: Diver Down (1982) 6: 1984 (1984) This album has 10 songs and is about 31 minutes long

i bought the Roth era 2015 remasters (mostly from amazon) and what i got were cds that look exactly like cds from 30+ years ago (with the black cd backing and spine) The back cover of them are a little different that the amazon pics too. through days of research, i have found these are European re-issue remasters. these ARE a remaster, they just DON'T LOOK like it. they will have the new warner label (in bold print) that have the word WARNER above the word RECORDS with an almost circle just to its left. the last 5 digits of the barcode printed on the SIDE SPINE are: Self/Titled: _55243 / VH2: _54918 / WaCF: _54956 / FW: _54970 / DD: _54994 IMO these do sound better than the originals as they are louder, cleaner and clearer, wider soundscape and i can hear greater definition between vocals and other instruments. these might not be perfect but i have heard worse attempts in remasters. JUST BE WARNED THAT THESE WILL LOOK LIKE THE ORIGINALS, CHECK BARCODES BEFORE OPENING AND MAKE SURE IT SAYS 2015 IN THE PRODUCT DESCRIPTION BEFORE 'ADDING TO CART'.

This is a really good VH album in my 54-year-old-opinion. It has some super cool Eddie licks that have become standards. But besides that, it has some really good songs on it, period. IMHO, there are 3 essential VH albums...They are: VH1, VH2, and VH 1984. Yes, there's some good songs off the other stuff (e.g., "Unchained"). But really, the best stuff is older songs like "Feel Your Love" and "Panama." One of the most amazing songs VH did was "Women in Love." It has some of the best harmonic tapping that Eddie ever did, as well as some of the best vocal harmonies from the whole band. And it's on this album. Along with a bunch of other good stuff like a killer cover of Linda Ronstadt's "You're no good." And their big hit "Dance the Night Away." Van Halen II is a must for any VH fan, and for the uninitiated as well. Some of Eddies best work for guitar fans!