Van Halen ? Fair Warning ? 1981 Warner Bros. Records Original Vinyl LP w/Insert

$

40

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Fair Warning The photo is taken from a painting by William Kurelek. Studio album by  Van Halen Released April 29, 1981 Recorded March–April 1981 Studio Sunset Sound, Los Angeles Genre

• Hard rock
• heavy metal

1. "So This Is Love?"
   Released: June 1981 (US)
2. "Unchained"
   Released: July 1981 (Europe)
3. "Mean Street"
   Released: 1981 (Europe)
4. "Hear About It Later"
   Released: 1981 (NL)

Fair Warning is the fourth studio album by American rock band Van Halen. Released on April 29, 1981, it sold more than two million copies, but was still the band's slowest-selling album of the David Lee Roth era. Despite the album's commercially disappointing sales, Fair Warning was met with mostly positive reviews from critics.

The album was listed by Esquire as one of the 75 Albums Every Man Should Own.

Packaging

The album's cover artwork features a detail from The Maze, a painting by Canadian artist William Kurelek, which depicts his tortured youth.

The album's cover artwork is accompanied by an insert of a black-and-white portrait of the members of the band, in addition to another black-and-white photo of an exterior wall featuring cracked windows and a lyric from the album's opening song "Mean Street" in handwritten graffiti. This second photo was taken by famed rock photographer Neil Zlozower.

Critical reception

The Village Voice's Robert Christgau rated Fair Warning a B-, signifying "a competent or mildly interesting record that will usually feature at least three worthwhile cuts." He stated that it featured "not just Eddie's latest sound effects, but a few good jokes along with the mean ones and a rhythm section that can handle punk speed emotionally and technically." He also explained that "at times Eddie could even be said to play an expressive – lyrical? – role. Of course, what he's expressing is hard to say. Technocracy putting a patina on cynicism".

A retrospective review by AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine found the album fairly positive. In the review, he initially stated that "it's a dark, strange beast, partially because it lacks any song as purely fun as the hits from the first three records" and that "whatever the reason, Fair Warning winds up as a dark, dirty, nasty piece of work." He went on to say that "dull it is not and Fair Warning contains some of the fiercest, hardest music that Van Halen ever made. There's little question that Eddie Van Halen won whatever internal skirmishes they had, [...] even with the lack of a single dedicated instrumental showcase". He concluded that "nastiness is the defining characteristic of Fair Warning, which certainly doesn't make it bunches of fun, but it showcases the coiled power of Van Halen better than any other album, which makes it worth visiting on occasion."

The Rolling Stone Album Guide, however, gave the album two-and-a-half stars out of five, stating that "the most significant musical development is the synthesizer introduced at the end of Fair Warning, which would be exploited to greater effect on later albums."

Track listing

All tracks are written by Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, Michael Anthony and David Lee Roth.