One minute and forty two seconds.
That is all it took for the groundwork to be laid for heavy metal to take the path it did in the late ’70′s and early ’80′s. Clocking in at a meager 1:42, “Eruption,” the second track off of Van Halen‘s eponymous album released in 1978, not only properly introduced the world to the power, talent, and showmanship of Eddie Van Halen but it also created a legitimate feeling of awe to a legion of kids who wanted to start (or were already in) their own metal/hard rock band.
To a lot of people, “Eruption” is their Elvis on the Ed Sullivan Show-type moment, their Beatles at Shea Stadium, their Dylan at the ’64 Newport Folk Festival—a complete game-changer. To be sure, there were plenty of classically trained guitarists who became axe men in a heavy metal/hard rock band before Eddie. And there were also classically trained guitarists before Eddie that produced really complex guitar-driven instrumentals and/or solos. But there was a big difference: their defining songs weren’t sandwiched in between “Runnin’ With The Devil” and a remake of “You Really Got Me”—the former an all-out killer track, the latter one of the better covers in modern rock history.
The genius of one Edward Van Halen (and of “Eruption” in general) is that he and it are totally accessible. The thing about “Eruption” is that you do not need to know what neo-classical rock is or the true degree of difficulty inherent in Eddie’s execution of the song. This is a song that you can just enjoy, compared to, say, Yngwie Malmsteen or guitarists of that ilk who will willingly trade listenability for gosh-wow complexity (but in the process they ultimately create boring music—unless you are a music student). Eddie Van Halen doesn’t care about how transcendent his outward image as a guitar technician is.[1]
As a stand-alone song to the casual music fan “Eruption” might be worth a listen or two and then they will move on—some of Eddie’s shredding might register as too shrill. But to musicians and producers “Eruption” was an eye-opener, and it changed the trajectory of how bands played guitar solos throughout the ’80′s. Why rip off Clapton or Page when you could try to rip off Eddie and his Frankenstrat?
Eddie Van Halen is second only to Jimi Hendrix in terms of mainstream guitar Gods who were copied but never successfully ripped off.[2] “Eruption” pretty much solidified Eddie’s status as a God, and it—alongside Link Wray’s “Rumble” and Dick Dale’s “Miserlou”—make up the Guitar Instrumental wing of the rock Pantheon.
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[1] Actually, I’m sure he does but only up to a certain point. If he really cared how he was viewed as a technically sound musician, would he have signed off on the court jester-like personality of David Lee Roth to front his band?
[2] To paraphrase T.S. Eliot: good poets borrow, great ones steal. Nobody has really been able to steal Hendrix or Van Halen. (You could make the argument that Stevie Ray Vaughn stole Hendrix because Stevie’s live version of “Little Wing” was rousing, but I chalk that up as a copy because at the end of the day it is still a cover song.)
