VAN HALEN: OU812 used [cassette tape] 1986. Check videos “When It Love”, “Mine All Mine”, “Cabo Wabo”, “Feels So Good”, “Finish What Ya Started”. Can’t guarantee playback!

Description

Eddie Van Halen on “When It’s Love” from OU812 (1988): “OU812 was a lot easier to make. That’s not to say that 5150 was difficult, but Sammy and I were just feeling each other out. We were more comfortable and relaxed. We opened the doors and it all came out. It’s more mature, too. When we recorded ‘When It’s Love,’ I was so focused.”

Track Listings
1. Mine All Mine
2. When It Love
3. AFU (Naturally Wired)
4. Cabo Wabo
5. Source Of Infection
6. Feels So Good
7. Finish What Ya Started
8. Black And Blue
9. Sucker In A 3 Piece

In the late ’80s, both Van Halen and David Lee Roth were at their commercial peaks, with the two camps competing fiercely against each other for Top 10 dominance. While lacking the overall crunch of earlier albums, OU812 does take the band into credible pop/electronic territory. Showing that party rock can grow and develop, the album contains some premium musicianship.
“”Mine All Mine”” features Ed Van Halen continued use of synthesizers and is an introspective tune about believing in one self. “”When It Love”” is a catchy power ballad that continued the band streak of Top 10 hits, along with “”Finish What Ya Started””, with its good-natured country licks. “”Feels So Good””, a 180-degree turn from the heavy rock of the band early days, is a keyboard-driven pop ditty. The band doesn’t totally stray from its roots though, as “Black And Blue” is a greasy, bluesy salute to an active sex life.”

Finish What Ya Started   (the story behind the song)

explains the story behind the album with exclusive commentary by Sammy:

• “When It’s Love” is a group collaboration on writing, with brothers Eddie and Alex Van Halen having composed the music first and Sammy Hagar writing the lyrics afterwards. This song is Van Halen’s third biggest hit, after “Jump” (#1) and “Why Can’t This Be Love?” (#3). One of the more powerful of power ballads, VH1 put it at #24 on their list of the 25 Greatest Power Ballads.
• The album OU812 is a common little text pun (phonetically working out to “Oh, you ate one, too!”) that’s been bopping around in culture for years. It’s on the wall of the set in the TV series Taxi, it’s the license plate on the Ferrari in Cheech & Chong’s Next Movie, and other such monkey-shines.

• Van Halen, rarely known for their deep, meaningful lyrics, turns in a standard job verses-wise here. Let’s put it this way: The first line, “Everybody’s looking for something,” verbatim, also shows up in the songs “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)” and Olivia Newton-John’s “I’ll Bet You A Kangaroo,” with countless more “everybody’s lookin'” phrases in other songs. Love, apparently, lasts forever and is experienced by two people together, say thousands of other songs as well. Somebody should just make a set of love-song-lyrics refrigerator magnets.

  We’re just pointing out, however, that it’s to the band’s credit that the lyrics come off as incredibly poignant and thoughtful when set to the amazing music.

• Sammy Hagar was uncomfortable in front of the camera for music videos and never wanted his performances to appear phony. “The more you saw yourself on video, the more you realized when you were faking it, it looked really stupid,” he told the UK TV show Video Killed the Radio Star. His solution was to crank up the music and really belt out the songs instead of lip-syncing. Because of this, he blew out his voice while filming the Darek Wolski-directed performance clip for this song and couldn’t perform at a concert the next day.

Only the mighty Van Halen could unite the world’s most popular religions!

Only the mighty Van Halen could unite the world’s most popular religions!