Happy Anniversary: Van Halen, Van Halen II

37 years ago today, Van Halen released their second album, handily avoiding any accusations of having committed a sophomore slump.

It’s been said that bands have a lifetime to write their first album and a couple of months to write their second album, and that’s true…unless you’re Van Halen, in which case you’ve got the better part of a second album’s worth of songs written before you ever record your first album. Indeed, some of the tracks on Van Halen II date back to the band’s demos with Gene Simmons, which were recorded three years earlier.

The cover of Van Halen II has become legendary over the years for a few years, most notably because of the black and yellow guitar pictured on the back of the album. The guitar in question wasn’t actually used on the album, but it nonetheless became iconic. It’s no longer in Eddie Van Halen’s collection, however, and for a very sad – yet very sweet – reason: it was the favorite guitar of Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell, and when Darrell died, Eddie placed the guitar in his casket. Another notable sight on the cover is the fact that David Lee Roth is sporting a cast. This is ostensibly because he broke his heel while making the leap on the back cover, but whether it’s true or not, it’s still a great story.

As for the music, which is the most important part anyway, the best known song on Van Halen II is almost certainly “Dance the Night Away,” which was a top-20 hit – it made it to #15, in fact – and remains one of the great rock ‘n’ roll party anthems of the ‘70s. Beyond that, there’s also “Beautiful Girls,” which crawled onto the Hot 100 as well, but don’t let the fact that it stalled at #84 ruin your memory of what a great song it was and remains.

Sure, Van Halen II hits just about all of the same notes as the band’ self-titled debut – what do you expect when the songs were written at the same time? – but it does so in the best of all possible ways.