Fair Warning (Van Halen album)

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 in the United States, 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".

On US Billboard 200 the album peaked at #5 while single "So This Is Love?" failed to reach Hot 100, just peaking at #110 in the Bubbling-Under list.

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 usually featuring at least three worthwhile cuts." 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 "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 "it's a dark, strange beast, partially because it lacks any song as purely fun as the hits from the first three records" and "whatever the reason, Fair Warning winds up as a dark, dirty, nasty piece of work [...] Dull it is not and Fair Warning contains some of the fiercest, hardest music Van Halen ever made. There's little question Eddie Van Halen won whatever internal skirmishes they had, [...] even with the lack of a single dedicated instrumental showcase."

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

Personnel

Van Halen

• David Lee Roth – lead vocals
• Eddie Van Halen – guitar, synthesizers, backing vocals
• Michael Anthony – bass guitar, backing vocals
• Alex Van Halen – drums

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

Certifications

References

Further reading

Templeman, Ted; Renoff, Greg (2020). Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer's Life In Music. Toronto: ECW Press. pp. 311–16. ISBN 9781770414839. OCLC 1121143123.

1. 1984 (Van Halen album)
2. Van Halen discography
3. Diver Down
4. Fair Warning Tour
5. Unchained (song)
6. Best Of – Volume I (Van Halen album)
7. The Best of Both Worlds (Van Halen album)
8. FW
9. Live: Right Here, Right Now
10. Women and Children First
11. OU812
12. Van Halen
13. A Different Kind of Truth
14. So This Is Love? (song)
15. Fair Warning
16. David Lee Roth
17. Michael Anthony (musician)
18. David Lee Roth discography
19. Tokyo Dome Live in Concert
20. Van Halen World Invasion Tour