Diver Down: Difference between revisions
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'''''Diver Down''''' is the fifth studio album by American [[Rock music|rock]] band [[Van Halen]], released on April 19, 1982. It spent 65 weeks on the album chart in the United States and had, by 1998, sold four million copies in the United States. |
'''''Diver Down''''' is the fifth studio album by American [[Rock music|rock]] band [[Van Halen]], released on April 19, 1982. It spent 65 weeks on the album chart in the United States and had, by 1998, sold four million copies in the United States. |
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==Cover art== |
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The album [[cover art]]work displays the [[Diver down flag|"diver down" flag]] used in many US (and Canadian) jurisdictions to indicate a [[SCUBA diving|SCUBA diver]] is currently submerged in the area.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dive-flag.com/law.html |title=Dive Flag Law |publisher=Dive-flag.com |access-date=March 15, 2012}}</ref> |
The album [[cover art]]work displays the [[Diver down flag|"diver down" flag]] used in many US (and Canadian) jurisdictions to indicate a [[SCUBA diving|SCUBA diver]] is currently submerged in the area.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dive-flag.com/law.html |title=Dive Flag Law |publisher=Dive-flag.com |access-date=March 15, 2012}}</ref> [[David Lee Roth]] said it was meant to imply that "there was something going on that's not apparent to your eyes. You put up the red flag with the white slash. Well, a lot of people approach Van Halen as sort of the abyss. It means, it's not immediately apparent to your eyes what is going on underneath the surface."<ref name=SylvSoun>{{cite magazine|first=Sylvie |last=Simmons |author-link=Sylvie Simmons |magazine=Sounds |date=June 23, 1982}}</ref> While impressed by Roth's creative marketing spin, manager Noel Monk also explained the sexual [[double-entendre]] "dive her down" in his 2017 band memoir ''Running with the Devil''. The back cover of the album features a photo by Richard Aaron of Van Halen on stage at the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando, Florida, that was taken on October 24, 1981, as they concluded a set opening for [[The Rolling Stones]]. |
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==Background and recording== |
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==Music== |
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Five of the twelve songs on the album are [[Cover version|covers]], the most popular being the cover of "(Oh) Pretty Woman", a [[Roy Orbison]] song. |
Five of the twelve songs on the album are [[Cover version|covers]], the most popular being the cover of "(Oh) Pretty Woman", a [[Roy Orbison]] song. It was one of the Van Halen brothers' least-favorite albums, with Eddie Van Halen stating "I would rather bomb with my own music than be the world's biggest cover band."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpzyxHnN7HM&t=9s|title = Eddie Van Halen's Home Studio (1998)|website = [[YouTube]]}}</ref> He recalled how the album came about: {{Blockquote|When we came off the [[Fair Warning Tour|''Fair Warning'' tour]] last year [1981], we were going to take a break and spend a lot of time writing this and that. |
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| ⚫ | Dave [Lee Roth] came up with the idea of, 'Hey, why don't we start off the new year with just putting out a single?' He wanted to do 'Dancing in the Streets.' He gave me the original Martha Reeves & the Vandellas tape, and I listened to it and said, 'I can't get a handle on anything out of this song.' I couldn't figure out a riff, and you know the way I like to play: I always like to do a riff, as opposed to just hitting barre chords and strumming. So I said, 'Look, if you want to do a cover tune, why don't we do 'Pretty Woman'? It took one day. We went to Sunset Sound in L.A., recorded it, and it came out right after the first of the year. It started climbing the charts, so all of a sudden Warner Bros. is going, 'You got a hit single on your hands. We gotta have that record.' We said, 'Wait a minute, we just did that to keep us out there, so that people know we're still alive.' But they just kept pressuring, so we jumped right back in without any rest or time to recuperate from the tour, and started recording. We spent 12 days making the album... it was a lot of fun.<ref name=GPlayerDec>{{cite magazine|first=Jas |last=Obrecht |magazine=Guitar Player |date=December 1982}}</ref>}} |
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However, at the time while he admitted to the pressure the band was put under to record it, he was able to tell ''Guitar Player'' (Dec. 1982) that it "was fun": |
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{{Blockquote|When we came off the [[Fair Warning Tour|''Fair Warning'' tour]] last year [1981], we were going to take a break and spend a lot of time writing this and that. |
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| ⚫ | Three of the original songs were around long before the album was made. "Hang 'Em High" can trace its roots back to 1976<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBeZP71_JAU|title = Van Halen - Live at the Golden West Ballroom, c. 1976|website = [[YouTube]]}}</ref> as "Last Night", which had the same music but different lyrics.{{Citation needed|date=September 2021}} "The Full Bug" borrows heavily from a demo track called "The Bottom Line" (not the track of the same name released on Roth's 1988 album ''[[Skyscraper (album)|Skyscraper]]'') that leaked in 2023 and "Cathedral" was played in its final form throughout 1981 with earlier versions going back to 1980. Additionally, "Happy Trails" had been recorded for their 1977 demos.{{Citation needed|date=September 2021}} |
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| ⚫ | Dave came up with the idea of, 'Hey, why don't we start off the new year with just putting out a single?' He wanted to do 'Dancing in the Streets.' He gave me the original Martha Reeves & the Vandellas tape, and I listened to it and said, 'I can't get a handle on anything out of this song.' I couldn't figure out a riff, and you know the way I like to play: I always like to do a riff, as opposed to just hitting barre chords and strumming. So I said, 'Look, if you want to do a cover tune, why don't we do 'Pretty Woman'? It took one day. We went to Sunset Sound in L.A., recorded it, and it came out right after the first of the year. It started climbing the charts, so all of a sudden Warner Bros. is going, 'You got a hit single on your hands. We gotta have that record.' We said, 'Wait a minute, we just did that to keep us out there, so that people know we're still alive.' But they just kept pressuring, so we jumped right back in without any rest or time to recuperate from the tour, and started recording. We spent 12 days making the album... it was a lot of fun.}} |
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"[[Where Have All the Good Times Gone]]" is a cover of a song by [[The Kinks]]. During the band's bar-playing days, vocalist David Lee Roth bought a budget label Kinks double album, and Van Halen learned all of the songs on one side to use as staples of their set.<ref name=SylvSoun/> Eddie Van Halen created the effects in the guitar solo by running the edge of his pick up and down the strings and using an [[Echoplex]].<ref name=GPlayerDec/> |
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"Cathedral" was so named because the band members thought it sounded like a Catholic church organ.<ref name=GPlayerDec/> |
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===Songs=== |
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Two interviews from the period give the best account of how the band – especially Roth and Eddie Van Halen – saw the album at the time. The comments here are taken from Roth's interview with Sylvie Simmons (''Sounds'', June 23, 1982) and Eddie's interview with Jas Obrecht (''Guitar Player'', Dec. 1982). |
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The lyrics to "Secrets" were inspired by greeting cards which Roth bought in [[Albuquerque, New Mexico]], on the preceding tour.<ref name=SylvSoun/> Eddie Van Halen used a Gibson doubleneck 12-string for the song, played with a flatpick. The solo was done in one take.<ref name=GPlayerDec/> |
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===="Where Have all the Good Times Gone"==== |
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''Dave'': "We're capable of playing six different Kinks' songs. Because at one time, back in our bar days, I bought a double album from K-Tel or something that had 30 Kinks tunes on it. We learned all of one side and played them into the dirt during the club gigs, twice a night each one, because they sounded so good and they were great to dance to, etc., etc." |
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| ⚫ | The track "Intruder", which precedes "(Oh) Pretty Woman", was written by Roth specifically to cover the length of the promotional video for the "(Oh) Pretty Woman" single. Roth recalled that the video "was about three minutes too long. So, I said, we won't cut any of it; we'll write soundtrack music for the beginning. So we went into the studio and I played the synthesizer and I wrote it. It took about an hour to put that together."<ref name=SylvSoun/> The music video for "(Oh) Pretty Woman" was one of the first banned by [[MTV]], although [[VH1 Classic]] (now [[MTV Classic (American TV channel)|MTV Classic]]) has continuously aired it. Roth explained the ban as the result of complaints that it made fun of "an almost theological figure", the Samurai warrior (played by bassist [[Michael Anthony (musician)|Michael Anthony]]), and also because two [[Dwarfism|little people]] appeared to molest a woman (actually a Los Angeles area transvestite performer).<ref name=SylvSoun/> The video, directed by Roth and [[Pete Angelus]], was, he{{Who|date=February 2023}} said: "rather like a surrealistic art project ... where they paint the picture and come back three days later and try to figure out what they meant." |
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''Eddie'': "The solo was more sounds than lines. I ran the edge of my pick up and down the strings for some of those effects. I think I used my [[Echoplex]] in that song." |
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"Little Guitars" was inspired by the flamenco guitar playing of [[Carlos Montoya]]. Eddie Van Halen found he was unable to imitate Montoya's finger picking, so he used a pick as an assist.<ref name=GPlayerDec/> Roth, who thought the music Eddie Van Halen came up with sounded Mexican (Montoya was actually Spanish), wrote lyrics intended to evoke that nation.<ref name=SylvSoun/> The guitar used on the recording (and subsequent tour) was a miniature [[Gibson Les Paul|Les Paul]], built by Nashville luthier David Petschulat and sold to Eddie on the earlier Fair Warning Tour.{{cn}} |
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===="Hang 'Em High"==== |
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Covering "[[Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)]]" was Roth's idea, as was having Eddie and Alex Van Halen's father Jan play clarinet on the track.<ref name=GPlayerDec/> |
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''Dave'': "It's like all those Westerns where there's some kind of dissonant sound in the background. Like they'll have one harmonica that hits only one note—eeeeeeeeee—and that's when you know the hero is coming to town or something terrible is going to happen. And what happens is Edward will come up with a song or a riff and then immediately I'll hear it and I'll know right away what the scenario is." |
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| ⚫ | Of "The Full Bug", Roth said 'PRFCs' were "great shoes for when the cockroach moves into the corner and you can't get at it with your foot or the broom anymore. You just jam your toe into the corner and hit as hard as you can. And if you did it right you got the full bug. So this slang means — bammm! — you have to give it everything you've got. Make the maximum effort, do everything possible, get the full bug."<ref name=SylvSoun/> |
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''Eddie'': "The solo was just loose, fun, craziness. I play it better every night than I did on the record, but who cares? It has feeling. Actually that was a really old song." |
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==Reception== |
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''Eddie'': "I've been doing 'Cathedral' for more than a year and I wanted to put it on record... it sounds like a Catholic church organ, which is how it got its name. On that cut I use the volume knob a lot. If you turn it up and down too fast, it heats up and freezes. I did two takes of that song, and right at the end of the second take, the volume knob just froze, just stopped." |
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===="Secrets"==== |
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''Dave'': "The nucleus of the lyrics come from greeting cards and get-well cards that I bought in [[Albuquerque, New Mexico]], on the last tour, and they were written in the style of American Indian poetry. 'May your moccasins leave happy tracks in the summer snows'." |
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''Eddie'': "I used a Gibson doubleneck 12-string, the model [[Jimmy Page]] uses, and played with a flatpick. The solo in 'Secrets' was a first take. I kind of laid back, and it fit the song." |
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==== "Intruder" ==== |
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The track "Intruder", which precedes "(Oh) Pretty Woman", was written specifically to cover the length of the promotional video for the "(Oh) Pretty Woman" single. In his 1982 interview with Simmons, Roth takes credit for "Intruder", stating: "I wrote that... When we finished the movie (i.e., the video) it was about three minutes too long. So, I said, we won't cut any of it; we'll write soundtrack music for the beginning. So we went into the studio and I played the synthesizer and I wrote it. It took about an hour to put that together."<ref>(''Sounds'', June 23, 1982)</ref> |
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===="(Oh) Pretty Woman"==== |
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| ⚫ | The music video for "(Oh) Pretty Woman" was one of the first banned by [[MTV]], although [[VH1 Classic]] (now [[MTV Classic (American TV channel)|MTV Classic]]) has continuously aired it |
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===="Dancing in the Street"==== |
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''Dave'': "It sounds like more than four people are playing, when in actuality there are almost zero overdubs — that's why it takes us such a short amount of time [to record]." |
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''Eddie'': "It takes almost as much time to make a cover song sound original as it does writing a (brand new) song. I spent a lot of time arranging and playing synthesizer on 'Dancing in the Streets,' and (the [critics]) just wrote it off as, 'Oh, it's just like the original.' So forget the critics! These are good songs. Why shouldn't we redo them for the new generation of people?" |
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===="Little Guitars"==== |
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''Dave'': "Edward was saying he'd just seen this TV show with a flamenco guy doing all these wonderful things with his fingers, and he says 'I've figured out how to do it with one pick, watch this.' And he did it. And it sounded better than the original... It sounded Mexican to me, so I wrote a song for senoritas." The guitar used on the recording (and subsequent tour) was a miniature Les Paul, built by Nashville luthier David Petschulat and sold to Eddie on the earlier Fair Warning Tour. |
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''Eddie'': "I think that the best thing I do is cheat. I came up with the intro after I bought a couple of [[Carlos Montoya]] records. I was hearing his fingerpicking, going, 'My God, this guy is great. I can't do that.' So, I just listened to that style of music for a couple of days and I cheated! [Using a pick] I am doing trills on the high ''E'' and pull-offs with my left hand, and slapping my middle finger on the low ''E''." |
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===="Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)"==== |
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''Dave'': "I think it's a [[Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)|great song.]] And there's been this thread winding its way through all of Van Halen's music and all of our albums since beginning with 'Ice Cream Man.' I played acoustic guitar and songs like this for quite a while before I ever joined Van Halen. It's music. Why do I have to bang my head to every single song on every single album? I don't think the audience has that much lack of creativity or imagination." |
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''Eddie'': "It was Dave's idea to do 'Big Bad Bill'. He bought himself one of those Sanyo Walkman-type things with the FM-AM radio, and you can record off the radio if you like something you hear. He was up in his bedroom at his father's house and he found that if he stood in a certain spot and pointed his antenna a certain way, he picked up this weird radio station in Louisville, Kentucky. He recorded 'Big Bad Bill' and played it to us, and we started laughing ourselves silly and going, 'That is bad! Let's do it!' Dave suggested, 'Hey, we can get your old man to play the clarinet.' We said, 'sure.' |
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''Dave'': "I think when you hear Mr. Van Halen playing, you'll have an idea it's a shadow of where Eddie and Alex are now. There's a sense of humor in there, a lot of technique and a whole lot of beer!" |
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===="The Full Bug"==== |
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| ⚫ | Roth said 'PRFCs' were "great shoes for when the cockroach moves into the corner and you can't get at it with your foot or the broom anymore. You just jam your toe into the corner and hit as hard as you can. And if you did it right you got the full bug. So this slang means — bammm! — you have to give it everything you've got. Make the maximum effort, do everything possible, get the full bug." |
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''Eddie'': "Dave plays the acoustic guitar and harmonica on the intro of 'The Full Bug.' My lines in the middle of that are different. I've been doing a lot of stuff with [[Allan Holdsworth]], and he inspires me." |
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===="Happy Trails"==== |
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In a retrospective review, [[Stephen Thomas Erlewine]] of ''[[Allmusic]]'' called ''Diver Down'' "one of Van Halen's best records, one that's just pure joy to hear", saying it hearkens back to the exuberance and lightheartedness of their early albums while retaining the tightly knit and practiced playing honed over the length of their career. He also found it effectively showcased all four individual members, and said the cover songs were thoroughly revamped to make them distinctly Van Halen works.<ref name=allmrev/> |
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''Dave'': "Joke 'em if they can't take a fuck, Sylvie! You wouldn't believe the number of TV commercials and radio jingles this band can sing in four-part harmony." |
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==Accolades== |
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In 2022, ''Diver Down'' was named #3 of 'The 25 greatest rock guitar albums of 1982' list in ''[[Guitar World]]''.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.guitarworld.com/features/25-greatest-rock-guitar-albums-of-1982 |title=The 25 greatest rock guitar albums of 1982 |access-date=27 March 2022 |last=Prato |first=Greg |date=2 March 2022 |magazine=[[Guitar World]]}}</ref> |
In 2022, ''Diver Down'' was named #3 of 'The 25 greatest rock guitar albums of 1982' list in ''[[Guitar World]]''.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.guitarworld.com/features/25-greatest-rock-guitar-albums-of-1982 |title=The 25 greatest rock guitar albums of 1982 |access-date=27 March 2022 |last=Prato |first=Greg |date=2 March 2022 |magazine=[[Guitar World]]}}</ref> |
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Revision as of 03:39, 17 February 2024
| Diver Down | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | April 19, 1982[1] | |||
| Recorded | January–March 1982 | |||
| Studio |
| |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 31:04 | |||
| Label | Warner Bros. | |||
| Producer | Ted Templeman | |||
| Van Halen chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Singles from Diver Down | ||||
| ||||
Diver Down is the fifth studio album by American rock band Van Halen, released on April 19, 1982. It spent 65 weeks on the album chart in the United States and had, by 1998, sold four million copies in the United States.
Cover art
The album cover artwork displays the "diver down" flag used in many US (and Canadian) jurisdictions to indicate a SCUBA diver is currently submerged in the area.[4] David Lee Roth said it was meant to imply that "there was something going on that's not apparent to your eyes. You put up the red flag with the white slash. Well, a lot of people approach Van Halen as sort of the abyss. It means, it's not immediately apparent to your eyes what is going on underneath the surface."[5] While impressed by Roth's creative marketing spin, manager Noel Monk also explained the sexual double-entendre "dive her down" in his 2017 band memoir Running with the Devil. The back cover of the album features a photo by Richard Aaron of Van Halen on stage at the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando, Florida, that was taken on October 24, 1981, as they concluded a set opening for The Rolling Stones.
Background and recording
Five of the twelve songs on the album are covers, the most popular being the cover of "(Oh) Pretty Woman", a Roy Orbison song. It was one of the Van Halen brothers' least-favorite albums, with Eddie Van Halen stating "I would rather bomb with my own music than be the world's biggest cover band."[6] He recalled how the album came about:
When we came off the Fair Warning tour last year [1981], we were going to take a break and spend a lot of time writing this and that. Dave [Lee Roth] came up with the idea of, 'Hey, why don't we start off the new year with just putting out a single?' He wanted to do 'Dancing in the Streets.' He gave me the original Martha Reeves & the Vandellas tape, and I listened to it and said, 'I can't get a handle on anything out of this song.' I couldn't figure out a riff, and you know the way I like to play: I always like to do a riff, as opposed to just hitting barre chords and strumming. So I said, 'Look, if you want to do a cover tune, why don't we do 'Pretty Woman'? It took one day. We went to Sunset Sound in L.A., recorded it, and it came out right after the first of the year. It started climbing the charts, so all of a sudden Warner Bros. is going, 'You got a hit single on your hands. We gotta have that record.' We said, 'Wait a minute, we just did that to keep us out there, so that people know we're still alive.' But they just kept pressuring, so we jumped right back in without any rest or time to recuperate from the tour, and started recording. We spent 12 days making the album... it was a lot of fun.[7]
Three of the original songs were around long before the album was made. "Hang 'Em High" can trace its roots back to 1976[8] as "Last Night", which had the same music but different lyrics.[citation needed] "The Full Bug" borrows heavily from a demo track called "The Bottom Line" (not the track of the same name released on Roth's 1988 album Skyscraper) that leaked in 2023 and "Cathedral" was played in its final form throughout 1981 with earlier versions going back to 1980. Additionally, "Happy Trails" had been recorded for their 1977 demos.[citation needed]
"Where Have All the Good Times Gone" is a cover of a song by The Kinks. During the band's bar-playing days, vocalist David Lee Roth bought a budget label Kinks double album, and Van Halen learned all of the songs on one side to use as staples of their set.[5] Eddie Van Halen created the effects in the guitar solo by running the edge of his pick up and down the strings and using an Echoplex.[7]
"Cathedral" was so named because the band members thought it sounded like a Catholic church organ.[7]
The lyrics to "Secrets" were inspired by greeting cards which Roth bought in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on the preceding tour.[5] Eddie Van Halen used a Gibson doubleneck 12-string for the song, played with a flatpick. The solo was done in one take.[7]
The track "Intruder", which precedes "(Oh) Pretty Woman", was written by Roth specifically to cover the length of the promotional video for the "(Oh) Pretty Woman" single. Roth recalled that the video "was about three minutes too long. So, I said, we won't cut any of it; we'll write soundtrack music for the beginning. So we went into the studio and I played the synthesizer and I wrote it. It took about an hour to put that together."[5] The music video for "(Oh) Pretty Woman" was one of the first banned by MTV, although VH1 Classic (now MTV Classic) has continuously aired it. Roth explained the ban as the result of complaints that it made fun of "an almost theological figure", the Samurai warrior (played by bassist Michael Anthony), and also because two little people appeared to molest a woman (actually a Los Angeles area transvestite performer).[5] The video, directed by Roth and Pete Angelus, was, he[who?] said: "rather like a surrealistic art project ... where they paint the picture and come back three days later and try to figure out what they meant."
"Little Guitars" was inspired by the flamenco guitar playing of Carlos Montoya. Eddie Van Halen found he was unable to imitate Montoya's finger picking, so he used a pick as an assist.[7] Roth, who thought the music Eddie Van Halen came up with sounded Mexican (Montoya was actually Spanish), wrote lyrics intended to evoke that nation.[5] The guitar used on the recording (and subsequent tour) was a miniature Les Paul, built by Nashville luthier David Petschulat and sold to Eddie on the earlier Fair Warning Tour.[citation needed]
Covering "Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)" was Roth's idea, as was having Eddie and Alex Van Halen's father Jan play clarinet on the track.[7]
Of "The Full Bug", Roth said 'PRFCs' were "great shoes for when the cockroach moves into the corner and you can't get at it with your foot or the broom anymore. You just jam your toe into the corner and hit as hard as you can. And if you did it right you got the full bug. So this slang means — bammm! — you have to give it everything you've got. Make the maximum effort, do everything possible, get the full bug."[5]
Reception
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [9] |
| Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s | B−[10] |
| Rolling Stone | [11] |
In a retrospective review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic called Diver Down "one of Van Halen's best records, one that's just pure joy to hear", saying it hearkens back to the exuberance and lightheartedness of their early albums while retaining the tightly knit and practiced playing honed over the length of their career. He also found it effectively showcased all four individual members, and said the cover songs were thoroughly revamped to make them distinctly Van Halen works.[9]
In 2022, Diver Down was named #3 of 'The 25 greatest rock guitar albums of 1982' list in Guitar World.[12]
Track listing
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Where Have All the Good Times Gone!" | Ray Davies | 3:02 |
| 2. | "Hang 'Em High" | Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, Michael Anthony, David Lee Roth | 3:28 |
| 3. | "Cathedral" (instrumental) | E. Van Halen, A. Van Halen, Anthony, Roth | 1:23 |
| 4. | "Secrets" | E. Van Halen, A. Van Halen, Anthony, Roth | 3:28 |
| 5. | "Intruder" (instrumental) | E. Van Halen, A. Van Halen, Anthony, Roth | 1:39 |
| 6. | "(Oh) Pretty Woman" | William Dees, Roy Orbison | 2:53 |
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7. | "Dancing in the Street" | Marvin Gaye, Ivy Hunter, William Stevenson | 3:43 |
| 8. | "Little Guitars (Intro)" (instrumental) | E. Van Halen, A. Van Halen, Anthony, Roth | 0:42 |
| 9. | "Little Guitars" | E. Van Halen, A. Van Halen, Anthony, Roth | 3:47 |
| 10. | "Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)" | Milton Ager, Jack Yellen | 2:44 |
| 11. | "The Full Bug" | E. Van Halen, A. Van Halen, Anthony, Roth | 3:18 |
| 12. | "Happy Trails" | Dale Evans | 1:03 |
| Total length: | 31:04 | ||
Personnel
Van Halen
- David Lee Roth – lead vocals, synthesizer on "Intruder", acoustic guitar and harmonica on "The Full Bug"
- Eddie Van Halen – electric and acoustic guitars, backing vocals, synthesizer on "Dancing in the Street"
- Michael Anthony – bass guitar, backing vocals
- Alex Van Halen – drums, backing vocals on “Happy Trails”
Additional personnel
- Jan Van Halen – clarinet on "Big Bad Bill"
Production
- Richard Aaron – photography
- Pete Angelus – art direction
- Ken Deane – engineer
- Donn Landee – engineer
- Jo Motta – project coordinator
- Richard Seireeni – art direction
- Ted Templeman – producer
- Neil Zlozower – photography
Charts
| Chart (1982) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)[13] | 79 |
| Canada Top Albums/CDs (RPM)[14] | 5 |
| Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)[15] | 28 |
| Finnish Albums (The Official Finnish Charts)[16] | 20 |
| French Albums (SNEP)[17] | 9 |
| German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[18] | 65 |
| Japanese Albums (Oricon)[19] | 22 |
| New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)[20] | 37 |
| Norwegian Albums (VG-lista)[21] | 19 |
| Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)[22] | 28 |
| UK Albums (OCC)[23] | 36 |
| US Billboard 200[24] | 3 |
Certifications
| Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
|---|---|---|
| Canada (Music Canada)[25] | Platinum | 100,000^ |
| United States (RIAA)[26] | 4× Platinum | 4,000,000^ |
|
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. | ||
References
- ^ "New Releases" (PDF). FMQB. April 16, 1982. p. 34. Retrieved March 22, 2023.
- ^ John Scanlan (November 18, 2012). "The Story Behind Van Halen's 'Diver Down'". Van Halen News Desk. Retrieved August 21, 2022.
The album was recorded in 12 days at Amigo Studios (now known as Warner Brothers Recording Studios) at a cost of approximately $46,000.
- ^ "Van Halen singles".
- ^ "Dive Flag Law". Dive-flag.com. Retrieved March 15, 2012.
- ^ a b c d e f g Simmons, Sylvie (June 23, 1982). Sounds.
{{cite magazine}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - ^ "Eddie Van Halen's Home Studio (1998)". YouTube.
- ^ a b c d e f Obrecht, Jas (December 1982). Guitar Player.
{{cite magazine}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - ^ "Van Halen - Live at the Golden West Ballroom, c. 1976". YouTube.
- ^ a b Diver Down at AllMusic
- ^ "Robert Christgau: CG: van halen". robertchristgau.com.
- ^ "Diver Down". rollingstone.com. June 10, 1982.
- ^ Prato, Greg (March 2, 2022). "The 25 greatest rock guitar albums of 1982". Guitar World. Retrieved March 27, 2022.
- ^ Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.
- ^ "Top RPM Albums: Issue 6473". RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved February 2, 2024.
- ^ "Dutchcharts.nl – Van Halen – Diver Down" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved February 2, 2024.
- ^ Pennanen, Timo (2006). Sisältää hitin – levyt ja esittäjät Suomen musiikkilistoilla vuodesta 1972 (in Finnish) (1st ed.). Helsinki: Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava. ISBN 978-951-1-21053-5.
- ^ "Le Détail des Albums de chaque Artiste – V". Infodisc.fr (in French). Archived from the original on October 22, 2014. Retrieved February 2, 2024. Select Van Halen from the menu, then press OK.
- ^ "Offiziellecharts.de – Van Halen – Diver Down" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved February 2, 2024.
- ^ Oricon Album Chart Book: Complete Edition 1970–2005 (in Japanese). Roppongi, Tokyo: Oricon Entertainment. 2006. ISBN 4-87131-077-9.
- ^ "Charts.nz – Van Halen – Diver Down". Hung Medien. Retrieved February 2, 2024.
- ^ "Norwegiancharts.com – Van Halen – Diver Down". Hung Medien. Retrieved February 2, 2024.
- ^ "Swedishcharts.com – Van Halen – Diver Down". Hung Medien. Retrieved February 2, 2024.
- ^ "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved February 2, 2024.
- ^ "Van Halen Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved February 2, 2024.
- ^ "Canadian album certifications – Van Halen – Diver Down". Music Canada.
- ^ "American album certifications – Van Halen – Diver Down". Recording Industry Association of America.
Further reading
Templeman, Ted; Renoff, Greg (2020). Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer's Life In Music. Toronto: ECW Press. pp. 318–25. ISBN 9781770414839. OCLC 1121143123.
| Studio albums | |
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| Compilation albums | |
| Live albums | |
| Singles |
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| Other songs | |
| Videography | |
| Tours | |
| Related | |
