Maps of Music

OU812 (1988)

Where the lyrics of OU812 take you, and where it was really made.

The title is a pun, pronounced 'Oh You Ate One Too', and the working title Bone was dropped after Alex disliked it.

Key places

5150 Studios, Los Angeles (1988)

Recording site Motown Recording Studios — Van Halen's recording of OU812 is linked to 5150 Studios in Los Angeles. The point uses city-center coordinates, not the studio building. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• OU812: eighth studio album by American rock band Van Halen
• Released May 24, 1988; second Van Halen album to feature vocalist Sammy Hagar
• Title is pronounced 'Oh You Ate One Too'
• No producer credit; Donn Landee is credited for recording
• Remastered by Donn Landee and released October 6, 2023, as part of The Collection II

Background

• Follows 5150, which also reached number 1 on the Billboard 200
• Work began in September 1987, after the 5150 tour ended
• Eddie Van Halen had riffs he had been working on, and Hagar had a set of lyrics in notebooks
• Working title was Bone, which Alex disliked
• Hagar chose the name OU812 after seeing it on the side of a delivery truck on the freeway

Recording

• Band wrote and performed the album, and Hagar said there was no producer in the usual sense
• Completed April 1988, one month before release
• Eddie's piano and drums demo, recorded with Alex Van Halen, became 'When It's Love'
• 'Finish What Ya Started' was the last song developed, composed late in production
• 'Mine All Mine' was the last track Hagar recorded vocals for; its lyrics were rewritten seven times
• The only cover song is Little Feat's 'A Apolitical Blues'

Cover

• Front cover is a homage to the classic cover of With the Beatles
• Black and white photo of the band members' faces, partly hidden in shadows
• Back cover artwork is Hugo Rheinhold's statuette Affe mit Schädel

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Van Halen was an American rock band formed in Pasadena, California, in 1972.
• The brothers Alex (b. 1953) and Eddie Van Halen (b. 1955) were born in Amsterdam, moved to Pasadena in 1962, and began playing together in the 1960s.
• The band went through the names Broken Combs, Trojan Rubber Co, Genesis, and Mammoth before becoming Van Halen in 1973.
• David Lee Roth joined as lead vocalist in 1972 and Michael Anthony joined on bass in 1974.

Members

• Eddie Van Halen (guitar, keyboards, backing vocals), Alex Van Halen (drums), David Lee Roth (lead vocals, 1974–1985), Michael Anthony (bass, 1974–2006).
• Sammy Hagar replaced Roth in 1985 and Gary Cherone replaced Hagar in 1996.
• Wolfgang Van Halen, Eddie's son, replaced Anthony on bass in 2006.

Career

• The self-titled debut album (1978) reached No. 19 on the Billboard 200 and was later certified Diamond by the RIAA.
• The album 1984 (1984) produced 'Jump', the band's only number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100.
• With Hagar, the band released four U.S. number-one albums, including 5150 (1986) and OU812 (1988).
• Eddie Van Halen died of cancer on October 6, 2020; Wolfgang later confirmed the band had ended.
• The band has sold more than 80 million records worldwide.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Reviews for OU812 were mixed at first
• Rolling Stone's David Fricke gave the album three-and-a-half out of five stars
• Xavier Russell of Kerrang! was more enthusiastic, calling the album loud, rude, dirty, and very much a Van Halen album
• Stephen Thomas Erlewine's AllMusic retrospective review was fairly positive
• Robert Christgau gave the album a C in The Village Voice
• Martin Popoff called the music cynical corporate rock and found the album over-produced

Reappraisal

• Erlewine said the riffs were complicated rather than catchy and that Sammy Hagar sang too hard to add good times
• Erlewine still called it the best showcase of the instrumental abilities of Van Hagar
• Eddie Van Halen later said the record was not mixed as well as he would have liked
• Some criticism noted the bass guitar sat low in the mix compared with the vocals and other instruments

Records

• Billboard 200: number 1, the second of four consecutive number-one studio albums for the band
• Four Billboard Hot 100 top-40 singles: Black and Blue (34), Finish What Ya Started (13), When It's Love (5), Feels So Good (35)
• Sales: over 4 million copies

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• The track listing on the back cover is in alphabetical order, while most releases list the songs in sequence.
• The album is dedicated to Eddie and Alex's father, Jan, who died on December 9, 1986, at the age of 66, and the inner lining reads 'This one's for you, Pa'.
• Jan had previously played clarinet on 'Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)' on the 1982 album Diver Down.
• OU812 appears on the license plate of a car in Cheech and Chong's Next Movie (1980).
• The experimental band Mr. Bungle, fronted by Faith No More singer Mike Patton, named their 1989 demo tape after the album, retitling it OU818.
• 'Source of Infection' was written about Eddie's hospitalization with dengue fever during a vacation in Australia in April 1988.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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