Where have all the good times gone?
My first memory of Van Halen was my sister's cassette tape copy of 1982's Diver Down album. The So-Cal quartet were already bona fide rock stars at that point, but I was new to rock-n-roll, joining the party late. Diver Down, Led Zeppelin IV and Ozzy's solo debut "Blizzard of Oz" created the sum total of my music collection (I'll rarely admit to owning the 45 of "Eye of the Tiger"), all "borrowed" from my sister.
In '82 I was on the edge of the cliff, ready to cannonball myself into the deep blue world of rock-n-roll, and just when I hit the water, Van Halen made one of the biggest splashes in music history with "1984". The album would go platinum many, many times and became a staple in the minds of music-loving teenagers cutting their teeth in the mid-to-late 80s.
This is a round-about intro to what I intend to be a review of Van Halen's latest release "A Different Kind of Truth." But to understand Van Halen, I believe you needed to be there, at least in spirit, for the band's most glorious glory days.
