Van Halen – 5150

Here we have an excelent album by Van Halen with Sammy Hagar on vocals and sounds beautifuly 80's. This German pressing sounds fresh, transparent, airy and crispy.

Very good pressing IMO. Managed to snatch a NM which looks and sounds unplayed. Dynamics are surprisingly good and can't hear any distortion whatsoever.

Edit: I kinda bought this on a whim, as I knew and liked one or two songs on it and it was a steal. As someone who had almost completely steered away from the Hagar era productions, I've found myself unable to keep away from this record. There's just so much energy and good vibes here that it's intoxicating. 6/5

This pressing is decent. My copy is in excellent condition, yet in quiet moments some noticeable crackles. During Get Up there is some noises I noticed also, mostly during the kick pedal. This doesn't continue through to Dreams however.

I would prefer the bass to be more pronounced in the mix all round. The vocals, synths, guitars, drums really take precedent over bass on most tracks. With tracks that have more sonic space such as Best of Both Worlds you can hear the bass better. AVH's drumming is some of my all time favourite, some of the fills he does on 5150 are incredible, not all of them are done justice by the mix however.

Van Halen's album cover art varies from bland to awful, their debut being their best cover in my opinion, 5150's cover is laughably bad. The inner sleeve is poly-lined with lyrics which is a great touch.