OU812 is the eighth studio album by American hard rock band Van Halen. It was released in 1988 and is the second to feature vocalist Sammy Hagar. The album is dedicated to Eddie and Alex’s father, Jan, who died on December 9, 1986.
About OU812 in brief
OU812 is the eighth studio album by American hard rock band Van Halen. It was released in 1988 and is the second to feature vocalist Sammy Hagar. The album is dedicated to Eddie and Alex’s father, Jan, who died on December 9, 1986, at the age of 66. The only cover song on the album, Little Feat’s ‘A Apolitical Blues’, was coincidentally also done by former Van Halens producer Ted Templeman and Landee. The deeper metaphysical lyrics to ‘Mine All Mine’ were rewritten seven times, with Hagar saying: ‘It was the first time in my life I ever beat myself up, hurt myself, punished myself, practically threw things through windows, trying to write the lyrics’ The album’s front cover is an homage to the classic cover of With the Beatles. The track listing on the back cover is arranged in alphabetical order, instead of in sequence on most releases.
The inner linings of the album include the words, ‘This one’s for you, Pa’, which is a reference to Jan’s clarinet playing on one track, ‘Big Bad Bill’, on the 1982 album, Diver Down. The song ‘Source of Infection’ was written about Eddie’s hospitalization with dengue fever during his vacation in Australia in April 1988, celebrating his seventh wedding anniversary with Valerie Bertinelli. Robert Christgau rated the album a C in The Village Voice, which signifies ‘a record of clear professionalism or barely discernible inspiration, but not both’ He noted that ‘Eddie’s obsessed with technique, Dave’s contempt of technique, and Sammy’s klutz genius’
You want to know more about OU812?
This page is based on the article OU812 published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 18, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
