2020 and beyond

This week in 2020 guitarist and founder of rock band Van Halen, Eddie Van Halen, died at the age of sixty five. I'm not exactly sure but he seems to have led a full life, raised a family, achieved his goals, and created something that will endure long after his passing, his music.

Van Halen formed in 1972, when I was two years old, and it wasn't until 1983 I became Van Halen-aware as I was exploring my musical interests as a young teenager.

In 1984 I bought my first vinyl record with money I'd earned at my first job which I started the year prior, it was the Van Halen album called, 1984 (MCMLXXXIV), of course. You can see that very album above in a photo I took today thirty nine years after having purchased it. The cover is a little worn and tattered and it's well-travelled, (like me I guess), but it's as important to me today as it was the day I bought it.

I loved that album, loved it a lot, and immediately began to collect their past albums on vinyl switching to compact discs when they became available; I can't recall exactly but I think Van Halen was the first compact disk I bought also and now I have an extensive Spotify playlist of the band which gets regular play-time.

Their music meant a lot to me over the years: Powerful lyrics and strong vocals, heavy drums, keyboards and of course Eddie Van Halen on the guitar...certainly one of the best guitarists of his time...and probably even still now if he was alive.

They knew how to put a song together be it rock or a ballad and they had fun doing it. I found their tracks meaningful, the music and lyrics reached inside me in times of need and tempered me, brought detachment from what I was doing at the time, and to this day it has that effect when I listen to the band.

Today, in honour of Eddie Van Halen, I thought it would be appropriate to share some of their tracks. If you give them a listen drop a comment about them below if you're keen to do so.