Fair Warning (Van Halen album)

Fair Warning
A crude painting of a street scene with a man assaulting someone and onlookers passing by
Studio album by Van Halen
Released April 29, 1981 (1981-04-29)
Recorded Early March – early April 1981
Studio Sunset Sound, Los Angeles[1]
Genre
Length 31:11
Label Warner Bros.
Producer Ted Templeman
Van Halen chronology
Women and Children First
(1980)		 Fair Warning
(1981)		 Diver Down
(1982)
Singles from Fair Warning
  1. "So This Is Love?"
    Released: June 1981
  2. "Unchained"
    Released: July 1981
  • Depending on the country, "Unchained" was backed with either "Sinner's Swing!" or "Push Comes to Shove."

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,[3] 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.[4]

The album was listed by Esquire as one of the 75 Albums Every Man Should Own.[5] It is their shortest album to date.

Packaging

The cover artwork features a detail from The Maze, a painting by Canadian artist William Kurelek which depicts his tortured youth.[6][7]

The album's cover artwork is accompanied by an insert of a black-and-white picture of the band, as well as a view of a ghetto drywall with a wire running across it, cracked windows at the top and a Roth-era Van Halen logo with plaster cracked over the left wing. Also on the wall is a lyric from the album's opening song, "Mean Street".

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[4]
Robert ChristgauB−[8]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[9]

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".[8]

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."[4]

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."[9]

Track listing

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

Side one
No.TitleLength
1."Mean Street"4:58
2."Dirty Movies"4:08
3."Sinner's Swing!"3:09
4."Hear About It Later"4:35
Side two
No.TitleLength
5."Unchained"3:29
6."Push Comes to Shove"3:49
7."So This Is Love?"3:06
8."Sunday Afternoon in the Park"1:59
9."One Foot Out the Door"1:58

Personnel

Van Halen

Production

  • Pete Angelus – cover design
  • Chris Bellman – remastering
  • Gregg Geller – remastering
  • Greg Gorman – photography, inlay photos
  • William Kurelek – cover artwork, from The Maze
  • Donn Landee – engineer
  • Gene Meros – engineer
  • Jo Motta – project coordinator
  • Richard Seireeni – art direction
  • Ted Templeman – producer
  • Neil Zlozower – photography

Charts

Weekly charts

Chart (1981) Peak position
US Billboard 200[10] 5

Singles

Billboard (North America)

Year Single Chart Position
1981 "So This Is Love?" Mainstream Rock 15
1981 "Mean Street" Mainstream Rock[11] 12
1981 "Push Comes to Shove" Mainstream Rock 29
1981 "Unchained" Mainstream Rock 13

Certifications

Region CertificationCertified units/Sales
Canada (Music Canada)[12] Platinum 100,000^
United States (RIAA)[13] 2× Platinum 2,000,000^

^shipments figures based on certification alone

References

  1. ↑ http://www.sunsetsound.com/?page_id=477
  2. ↑ "Van Halen Biography". Rolling Stone.
  3. ↑ "Recording Industry Association of America". RIAA. Archived from the original on June 26, 2007. Retrieved February 24, 2012.
  4. 1 2 3 Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. Fair Warning - Van Halen at AllMusic. Retrieved October 12, 2011.
  5. ↑ "Best Music Albums Ever - Top Album List with Covers". Esquire. Retrieved February 24, 2012.
  6. ↑ "The Maze by WILLIAM KURELEK - Peter Nahum At The Leicester Galleries". Leicestergalleries.com. Retrieved March 22, 2012.
  7. ↑ British Journal of Psychiatry (2001)
  8. 1 2 Christgau, Robert. "CG: Van Halen". The Village Voice. Retrieved October 12, 2011.
  9. 1 2 "Van Halen: Album Guide". Rolling Stone. Retrieved November 25, 2012.
  10. ↑ "Van Halen Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved June 20, 2017.
  11. ↑ "Van Halen - Chart history | Billboard". www.billboard.com. Retrieved 5 December 2016.
  12. ↑ "Canadian album certifications – Van Halen – Fair Warning". Music Canada.
  13. ↑ "American album certifications – Van Halen – Fair Warning". Recording Industry Association of America. If necessary, click Advanced, then click Format, then select Album, then click SEARCH. 
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