Diver Down
| Diver Down | ||||
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| Studio album by Van Halen | ||||
| Released | April 14, 1982 | |||
| Recorded | January – March 1982 | |||
| Studio | Sunset Sound, Los Angeles, California; Warner Bros. Recording Studios (formerly Amigo Studios) | |||
| Genre | Hard rock, heavy metal | |||
| Length | 31:24 | |||
| Label | Warner Bros. | |||
| Producer | Ted Templeman | |||
| Van Halen chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Diver Down | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |
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| Robert Christgau | B− link |
| Rolling Stone |
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Diver Down is the fifth studio album by American hard rock band Van Halen, released in 1982. It spent 65 weeks on the album chart in the United States and had, by 1998, sold four million copies in the US.
The album cover artwork displays the "diver down" flag used in many US jurisdictions (which indicates a SCUBA diver is currently submerged in the area). Asked about the cover in a 1982 interview with Sylvie Simmons (Sounds, June 23, 1982), David Lee Roth said it was meant to imply that "there was something going on that's not apparent to your eyes. You put up the red flag with the white slash. Well, a lot of people approach Van Halen as sort of the abyss. It means, it's not immediately apparent to your eyes what is going on underneath the surface." The back cover of the album features a photo by Richard Aaron of Van Halen on stage at the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando, Florida that was taken on October 24, 1981 as they concluded a set opening for The Rolling Stones.
Five of the twelve songs on the album are covers, the most popular being the cover of "(Oh) Pretty Woman", a Roy Orbison song. At the time, the record company thought it had a greater chance of a hit record if the album was composed of songs that were already successful. In retrospect, it turned out to be one of the Van Halen brothers' least-favorite albums, with Eddie stating "I'd rather have a bomb with one of my own songs than a hit with someone else's." However, at the time while he admitted to the pressure the band was put under to record it, he was able to tell Guitar Player (Dec. 1982) that it "was fun": "When we came off the Fair Warning tour last year [1981], we were going to take a break and spend a lot of time writing this and that. Dave came up with the idea of, 'Hey, why don't we start off the new year with just putting out a single?' He wanted to do 'Dancing in the Streets.' He gave me the original Martha Reeves & the Vandellas tape, and I listened to it and said, 'I can't get a handle on anything out of this song.' I couldn't figure out a riff, and you know the way I like to play: I always like to do a riff, as opposed to just hitting barre chords and strumming. So I said, 'Look, if you want to do a cover tune, why don't we do 'Pretty Woman'? It took one day. We went to Sunset Sound in L.A., recorded it, and it came out right after the first of the year. It started climbing the charts, so all of a sudden Warner Bros. is going, 'You got a hit single on your hands. We gotta have that record.' We said, 'Wait a minute, we just did that to keep us out there, so that people know we're still alive.' But they just kept pressuring, so we jumped right back in without any rest or time to recuperate from the tour, and started recording. We spent 12 days making the album... it was a lot of fun." In addition to this, two of the original songs were around long before the album was made. "Hang 'Em High" can trace its roots back to the band's 1977 demos as "Last Night", which had the same music but different lyrics. "Cathedral" was also nothing new, being played in its current form throughout 1981 with earlier versions going back to 1980. Additionally, "Happy Trails" had been recorded for their 1977 demos as a joke.
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