1984

No way around this cringeworthy opening line, "big brother is watching you" hits completely and disturbingly different in the context of Ten and Van Halen. Let's all listerine that taste out of our mouths and just listen to 1984 on its own terms. Eddie and Diamond Dave and the producers had been having intense creative differences for a while. Mostly Eddie wanted to expand Van Halen's creativity with keyboards, because Van Halen had serious synthesizer money in the early 80s. Dave and the production squad always put up a fight. In fact Dave had previously refused to write lyrics for what became Jump at least twice before. But, while Eddie was having his new Studio 5150 built (named after the California code for temporarily committing someone who represents danger to themselves or others due to mental illness into involuntary psychiatric custody), all he had on hand was an Oberheim OB-Xa (retailing for around 5,000 1982 dollars; that's about $15,500 by today's standards for analog circuitry that would actually go completely out of tune when the weather changed, but unlike a grand piano you couldn't do anything about it except buy a newer model. Also, if you want to buy one, they're selling for 10k-14k on Reverb, so the inflation calculator checks out). Long story short, 1984 turned out to be half keyboard rock like Eddie wanted and half guitar shred like everybody else wanted. 

It's worth mentioning at this point a thing Sammy Hagar said long after his own tenure about how Van Halen the band actually worked. Eddie wasn't a songwriter. He was a virtuoso musician who endlessly produced interesting riffs, progressions, ideas, and brought them in like a bucket of legos for pretty much anybody else to assemble into something coherent. Don't be surprised if you find yourself embarking on a solo career after constantly refusing to use his legos. 

Also, we might as well talk about the infamous M&M clause in their technical rider. Everybody knows the silly "put the brown M&Ms in a separate bowl" part, but few people talk about why it's there at all. Van Halen isn't 4 dudes from Pasadena any more, Van Halen is a corporation with 17 salaried employees (i counted the list of names on the jacket so you don't have to) operating a full-scale internationally touring stage show. It's literally a traveling circus with a hell of a lot of liability insurance. The M&M clause was specifically used as an escape clause that would allow Van Halen, Inc. the option to inspect all technical work, legally absolve the band from responsibility if deficiencies were found, and ultimately cancel any gig that wasn't capable of safely and adequately handling a Van Halen concert. Filter out the brown M&Ms or you clearly aren't taking any of your contractual obligations serious. Quite ingenious, actually. Compare that to the 90s through today where people routinely get hurt and some get killed at Rock/Metal concerts because nobody really cares about anything except the money. 

No surprise people went to great lengths to censor the cover art depicting a putto stealing a cigarette from the pack left on the table. Your first inclanation might be to think that's Cupid, but putti have a much longer and more complex symbolism in both sacred and secular art, specifically those naughty "passions" common to all people. Winged baby angels gonna smoke no matter how many stickers you try to use to hide it. Originally they wanted Margo Nahas to paint 4 chrome women dancing, but she said "i don't even know how to begin to accomplish that, why don't you pick something i've already painted." Yes, that is a real painting from a photo of Carter Helm. You're probably wondering if he had a better time of it than Spencer Elden, and yes i'd say so. For starters Carter is the same age as i am (not a decade younger like Spencer), he has a career as an insurance writer, and i assume his general outlook on life is as cynical as mine or Van Halen's for that matter; we're all the Gen X kids of Baby Boomers who couldn't save Spencer's generation from their inevitable doom. Is having your picture as a 4 year old holding a cigarette on a famous album cover intrinsically more or less psychologically damaging than being a naked baby in a swimming pool? Objectively i'd say no, the two are structurally identical in every way, but it's not an objective situation. Just because neither photo was taken in an intentionally exploitative manner, doesn't mean any feelings that result from being that actual person aren't legitimate, and it certainly doesn't mean that any two people in that situation have to objectively agree that it's perfectly okie-dokie. 

Here's the best personal example i can give you, and it just so happens to involve Hot For Teacher. Remember, i don't have any embarrasment being completely honest, i'm more concerned about you the reader having some kind of traumatic shock from misunderstanding me while reading it. Just because i had adolescent crushes on at least two teachers, doesn't mean the actual real life right now criminal conviction (not to mention other highly publicized occurrences from the past) of a teacher here in Iowa having sexual relations with a grade school student isn't absolutely disgusting (i mean the fact that she did that is disgusting). Having disgusting and/or embarrassing fantasies and fetishes is a thing every one of us has in our brains even when we try to vehemently deny it. The problem isn't that we have them, the problem is actually acting on them in real life like it's perfectly acceptable to have no self-control, or worse decide you have the right to make other people participate. You aren't right just because you believe it. You gotta deal with whatever sick thing lives in your brain dungeon and bottle it up so the rest of us can live in peace. You can't just stick your fingers in your ears and lalalala like it's not happening all around you. 

I only say it that way because there's a real fight going on at the highest political levels to protect, in the name of Conservatism, the institutions that historically harbor exactly the kind of hypocrisy that equates wealth and power with permissivity of exploitation and abuse. I'm not talking about that ridiculous Q-Anon conspiracy garbage, or even religion specifically, i'm talking about the mistaken idea that wealth equals virtue, that masculinity is superior to femininity, and that the complete indulgence in one's own personal perversions is the prize for winning some delusional contest called "success." 

Politically speaking we're just living out The Hunger Games and desperately trying to emigrate to District 13 (that's the nuclear district that brokered a deal to freely live underground so the Capital could bomb the surface to make it look like the government won). Except that's a fictional young adult book series made into movies and in our bizarro reality District 12 (essentially Appalachia) is all "heck yeah for the gladiatorial contest to see who gets food this year! Except we're gonna take over the Capitol and be the government from now on!" 

It's not unlike 1984, this backward dystopian future where anything not inhertianty bigoted and redneck must be persecuted with extreme prejudice, but it is completely unlike Van Halen's 1984 which is more about how difficult love is when when you're only ever chasing after prostitutes. Sorry to burst your bubble, that's what this album is about. The women are actual prostitutes and dating the men is akin to jumping off a skyscraper. That and an homage to Top Jimmie and the Rhythm Pigs, sort of the Canned Heat of the '80s LA Punk scene. I think everyone forgets this stuff is actually highly charged dark humor. Van Halen is being obnoxiously ironic, but everybody's about to start taking it very serious. Good lord, if you take the lyrics of House of Pain literal, then i have deep concern for your psychological well-being. Van Halen knows full well the stripper doesn't love them (mostly because they know they themselves are not lovable people), they're making fun of people who apparently don't. 

They aren't, however, immune to the sheer volume of alcohol and cocaine, Eddie's entourage including his own personal importer/dealer. But right from the very beginning they made the context very clear. They said "we aren't the good guys here." Again, i think Sammy Hagar said it best. From the time he arrived in Pasadena as a kid who couldn't speak English up to 2008 when he finally got sober, Eddie had never not been a famous Rock Star for even a millisecond. He literally had no concept of normalcy or anything approaching mundanity, a hundred-millionaire who lived life in a dumpster of his own making. 

Heavy stuff for the album with Panama (another incredibly creepy song if taken literally) and I'll Wait on it. That's the actual point, that's what Pearl Jam was criticizing, the fake facade of success and money and fame. Even Guns 'N Roses corroborated: "we're all drug addict wastrels, completely at the mercy of our corporate overlords. Fame is an illusion. Help." 

I'm going to go one step further and say that the real problem is crony corporatism, aka actual Capitalism. Some people will argue with my considering those two things synonyms, but those people are wrong. You don't have to agree with me, but i will continue to consider them synonyms until you show me that they aren't. Competition does not beget excellence, it merely establishes 1 winner and defines everybody else as a loser until the next tournament. 

Everybody here is giving me the glassy eye roll equivalent of the wrap it up music, so i guess in conclusion you have to hear 1984 in the context of an end of an era: the death of the lovable loser, victim of circumstance who nevertheless succeeds on their own merit and determination, and his replacement by the Reagan Republican and the belief that everybody who isn't already succeeding is being rightfully punished for being the loser they really are. Rotate my tires and drink yourself to sleep on the subway, loser. That's my kind of sarcasm. It's not humorous to anyone but me, it's vicious and insulting and it shuts people up real quick out in the real world because they aren't accustomed to being challenged by someone so observably unimpressed by their garbage. I also only bring it out for special occasions, mostly i'm patient and polite and let people do their own realizing that they're holding up the line. I'm not entitled to anything except common decency, same as everybody else.

Purple