1981 – Fair Warning (album)

1980: Women And Children First cover

Released: Apr. 29, 1981

Source: Wikipedia
Fair Warning is the fourth studio album by Van Halen. Released in 1981, it sold more than two million copies, 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 cover artwork features a detail from The Maze, a painting by Canadian artist William Kurelek which depicts his tortured youth. The album was listed byEsquire as one of the 75 Albums Every Man Should Own.

Fair Warning was one of the first albums to reflect the rift in the Van Halen power structure; David Lee Roth wished to emphasize the pop influence that emerged on the previous two albums (which brought the band increased attention and a wider appeal), while Eddie Van Halen preferred to explore darker, longer and generally more complex song-structures that emphasized his innovative guitar work. Eddie apparently prevailed, as the album in fact featured longer, darker, more aggressive guitar-oriented material. Unchained can be heard frequently on rock radio stations.

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. This drywall has 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”.

  Title Length  
1. “Mean Street” 5:00
2. “Dirty Movies” 4:08
3. “Sinner’s Swing!” 3:09
4. “Hear About It Later” 4:35
5. “Unchained” 3:29
6. “Push Comes to Shove” 3:49
7. “So This Is Love?” 3:06
8. “Sunday Afternoon in the Park” (Instrumental) 1:59
9. “One Foot Out the Door” 1:58

Certifications

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

Singles

Billboard (United States)

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

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