Despite the album's commercially disappointing sales, Fair Warning was met with mostly positive reviews from critics. Fair Warning is the fourth studio album by American rock band Van Halen. or "Push Comes to Shove. 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." pp. Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer's Life In Music. [4], The album was listed by Esquire as one of the 75 Albums Every Man Should Own. 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. There's little question that Eddie Van Halen won whatever internal skirmishes they had, [...] even with the lack of a single dedicated instrumental showcase". ", This page was last edited on 7 October 2020, at 00:23. “Mean Street” starts Fair Warning off with a guitar intro that left listeners wondering how Eddie Van Halen was able to make such unique sounds with his instrument. Taken from my DVD production. – role. Of course, what he's expressing is hard to say. [5], The cover artwork features a detail from The Maze, a painting by Canadian artist William Kurelek, which depicts his tortured youth.[6][7]. Despite the album's commercially disappointing sales, Fair Warning was met with mostly positive reviews from critics. Van Halen performs "Mean Street" live in Sydney, Australia in April 1998. 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." ^shipments figures based on certification alone. [8], A retrospective review by AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine found the album fairly positive. 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. 311–16. He also explained that "at times Eddie could even be said to play an expressive – lyrical? 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. All tracks are written by Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, Michael Anthony and David Lee Roth. From the Different Kind of Truth Tour, 2012, Van Halen LIVE from Chicago, IL. Templeman, Ted; Renoff, Greg (2020). 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. OCLC 1121143123. ISBN 9781770414839. Technocracy putting a patina on cynicism". Toronto: ECW Press. "[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]. 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. 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." Also on the wall is a lyric from the album's opening song, "Mean Street". Fair Warning is the fourth studio album by American rock band Van Halen. "Recording Industry Association of America", "Best Music Albums Ever - Top Album List with Covers", "The Maze by WILLIAM KURELEK - Peter Nahum At The Leicester Galleries", "Canadian album certifications – Van Halen – Fair Warning", "American album certifications – Van Halen – Fair Warning", Recording Industry Association of America, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fair_Warning_(Van_Halen_album)&oldid=982246185, Albums recorded at Sunset Sound Recorders, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2018, Certification Table Entry usages for Canada, Certification Table Entry usages for United States, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Depending on the country, "Unchained" was backed with either "Sinner's Swing!"