Eddie Van Halen's trailblazing virtuosity on guitar is the stuff of legend, having influenced everyone from Kiss's Bruce Kulick to "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott of Pantera. 1978's
Van Halen blazed a trail that runs through 1980s hair metal to grunge to nu Metal to hardcore to everything in between, and it's one of those albums you'll find in virtually every classic rock/metal fan's music collection. As of this writing, there are
over 300 separate editions of it listed on Discogs, so it was naturally a prime candidate for digital remastering. How does the remaster fare when compared to an earlier, non remastered release? I have both the 2000 remaster and an earlier 1990 version, so let's see how they stack up.
Runnin' With the Devil
1990 CD release
2000 CD remaster
Eruption
1990 CD release
2000 CD remaster
You Really Got Me
1990 CD release
2000 CD remaster
Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love
1990 CD release
2000 CD remaster
I'm the One
1990 CD release
2000 CD remaster
Jamie's Cryin'
1990 CD release
2000 CD remaster
Atomic Punk
1990 CD release
2000 CD remaster
Feel Your Love Tonight
1990 CD release
2000 CD remaster
Little Dreamer
1990 CD release
2000 CD remaster
Ice Cream Man
1990 CD release
2000 CD remaster
On Fire
1990 CD release
2000 CD remaster
And the winner is: 1990 CD release. Here is yet another example of a great sounding original CD release that's been given the "wall of sound but not by Phil Spector" treatment. The remaster, while listenable, nevertheless shows the choice made by someone in the industry to favor volume over dynamics, whether at the direction of the record label, the mastering engineer, or someone else. The final track, "On Fire," shows this at its worst and also provides a suggestion of what should be done to this remaster. Original release all the way here. Incidentally, the 2000 disc is stated on the back to be HDCD encoded. Decoding of the tracks, however, yields no improvement in dynamics.
