VAN HALEN SET TO RELEASE REMASTERED VERSIONS OF THEIR SELF TITLED DEBUT ALBUM AND “1984” ON THE SAME DAY AS THEY RELEASE “TOKYO DOME LIVE IN CONCERT”
As previously reported, Van Halen will be releasing its first-ever live album, Tokyo Dome Live In Concert on March 31st. To learn more about this release, please click here.
Also being released that same day will be remastered versions of Van Halen and 1984.
Considered one of the greatest debut albums in rock history, Van Halen took the music world by storm in 1978 with an 11-song manifesto that features some of rock radio’s most played songs of all time and scorching concert staples like Runnin’ With The Devil, Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love, Jamie’s Cryin’, the band’s signature cover of The Kinks’ You Really Got Me, and Eddie Van Halen’s finger-tapping tour de force, Eruption. Six years and five albums later, Van Halen had become one of the biggest bands in the world around the release of 1984, which includes a number of the band’s most legendary songs such as the #1 hit, Jump, Panama, and Hot For Teacher.
Mastering engineer Chris Bellman, who remastered the original albums at Bernie Grundman Mastering Studios, was enlisted for these new versions. In order to produce the original sound the band intended, Bellman cut straight from the quarter-inch tapes for CD; for 180-gram vinyl; and for the digital versions. Newly mastered versions of Diver Down, Women and Children First, Van Halen II and Fair Warning are now being cut (for CD, for vinyl, and for digital) for release later in spring.
additional source: vhnd.com
How about some bonus material, ala Led Zep?
Not a fan of any re-masters. When your ears and brain are SO used to something a certain way for 30 years, any changes can really screw up the magic. I will certainly listen to these before I buy.
Guess VH ran out of vault material. Can’t Eddie & Dave not write new songs anymore?
You know, 99% of the people out there don’t really care about the differences between old and newer mastered editions. I don’t really understand the push for this.
I’ll be surprised if we hear an entire new album of material for VH again. I hope I’m wrong, however.
Remastering is great if it improves the sound of the album without altering it to the point that it sounds more like a remix. But just buying a remastered album doesn’t appeal to me unless it’s a classic album I don’t have anymore either because it was damaged, lost or stolen. Otherwise, the copies I have, which in many cases are the original vinyl albums, sound just fine to me. That’s why they need to add bonus and rare material that make the release special and possibly even collectable. As for the individual Van Halen albums themselves, the first four are all I listen to any more. I was never a fan of DIVER DOWN because it has too many covers and the sound is too thin (remastering that album might actually be beneficial). The originals are pretty good, like LITTLE GUITARS. 1984 was just too poppy sounding for me. I love a lot of the songs on that album though, like GIRL GONE BAD, TOP JIMMY, HOUSE OF PAIN and, of course, HOT FOR TEACHER and PANAMA. But other songs like JUMP and I’LL WAIT are flat out radio pop songs that no remastering job can change for the better. FAIR WARNING, on the other hand, top to bottom is probably my favorite Van Halen album. It’s just so dark and mean at times compared to the other albums and Eddie plays stuff on that album that is some of the greatest and classiest he’s ever created. But chosing between that album, WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST, and VAN HALEN I and II is difficult. I go back and forth with those albums because I love them all start to finish. It’s the same way for me with the first six BLACK SABBATH albums.