Van Halen I

Damn.

About once a year, I'll throw Van Halen I on the turntable and just be amazed. This record came out in 1978!? Think about that time. There was nobody like Eddie Van Halen. There was nobody like David Lee Roth. Led Zeppelin hadn't put out a record in 2 years. The Rolling Stones put out a disco song. Most popular hard rock was just primitive [KISS, AC/DC, Foreigner]. I can imagine when Gene Simmons first saw Van Halen at that fabled L.A. club show in 1976, he thought to himself, "Holy fucking shit! Should I get these guys in a recording studio, or should I have them killed?"

I'm glad he spared their lives. Van Halen I is one of the greatest hard rock albums of all time.