Behind the Album: How ‘Diver Down’ Made Van Halen a Singles Band

By the time Van Halen released their fourth album Fair Warning in April 1981, their reputation was firmly set. They were admired by their fans for their virtuosity, and particularly that of Eddie Van Halen, as well as for the outrageous party vibes supplied by David Lee Roth. While that combination made Van Halen a unique presence in the rock arena (literally and figuratively), they had yet to break through as a consistent hit-making act. The Top-20 showing of “Dance the Night Away” from Van Halen II in 1979 showed the band’s pop potential, but their third and fourth albums were devoid of massive AOR hits, much less fodder for Top-40 stations.

Van Halen had little left to prove as an albums artist or live act. After releasing four albums in just over three years and having completed massive tours in support of each album, the band were ready for a break by the end of 1981. Roth had a plan to keep Van Halen’s commercial momentum going while the band took time off. That plan not only backfired, but it catapulted Van Halen into a new direction that would change their course for years to come. Their 1982 album Diver Down would be the first step in that new direction.

A Single that Was Maybe Too Successful

With Van Halen looking forward to taking a break from their hectic touring and recording schedule, Roth suggested they record and release a one-off single. Then, once the single was released, the band could take its time getting ready for the next album cycle. Roth proposed that they do a cover of Martha and the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Street.” In a 1982 interview for Guitar Player magazine, Eddie Van Halen recalled he wasn’t eager to record that song because he had trouble coming up with a riff he liked. He countered Roth’s suggestion with Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman,” and the band settled on recording their own version of that classic for the single.

Van Halen achieved both of their goals with their “(Oh) Pretty Woman” single. It took them only a day to record, allowing them to quickly go back to their break. It also kept them in the spotlight. “(Oh) Pretty Woman” became Van Halen’s highest-charting (No. 12) and longest-charting (16 weeks) single ever to place on the Billboard Hot 100. It was possibly too successful, as their label, Warner Bros. Records, insisted the band return to the studio to make a full album in order to build on the single’s momentum.

An Efficient Recording Process

Van Halen granted Warner Bros. their wish, and within a few weeks of the release of “(Oh) Pretty Woman,” they were back in the studio to record Diver Down. Eddie Van Halen told Guitar Player that they abandoned their usual process of working on multiple tracks simultaneously and stuck with the blueprint they used for the single. The band focused on one track at a time and spent only one day on each track, so they completed the album in just 12 days.

They also saved a little time by recording five cover songs rather than relying more heavily on original compositions. Three other tracks had been at least partially written prior to working on Diver Down, leaving only four tracks that were written expressly for the album. Two of those four were brief instrumental intros connected to other songs. One was “Intruder,” which was written to fill time in the video for “(Oh) Pretty Woman.” The other was the acoustic guitar intro to “Little Guitars,” a song that Eddie Van Halen actually played on a miniature Les Paul. If we consider “Intruder” and the “Little Guitars” intro to be merely parts of longer songs, then Van Halen really only composed two completely new tracks for Diver Down—“Little Guitars” and “Secrets.”

Plenty of Bang for Their Studio Buck

While Van Halen minimized their time in the studio to record Diver Down, the album provided the quartet with their greatest success to date on the pop and rock charts. Its peak position of No. 3 on the Billboard 200 was the highest for a Van Halen album up to that point, and it was the first of their albums to produce two Top-40 singles. Eddie Van Halen not only found a suitable riff for “Dancing in the Street,” but as the second single from Diver Down, it went to No. 38 on the Hot 100. 

Diver Down also became the first of three Van Halen albums to place six tracks on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart. “(Oh) Pretty Woman” was just the first of 13 Van Halen tracks to top those rankings.

Kicking off a New Era

Van Halen’s next album 1984 was an even bigger commercial breakthrough. It is often viewed as the point at which the band moved in a more pop- and keyboard-oriented direction, providing the bridge for their Sammy Hagar era. However, the transition from AOR darlings to crossover stars really began with Diver Down. Part of the surge in popularity Van Halen enjoyed with 1984 had to do with the music videos made for three of the album’s four singles. Yet Van Halen had never shot a music video until they made the one for “(Oh) Pretty Woman.” (The live footage that comprised the 1981 official clip for “Unchained” was not shot expressly for use in a music video.)

Even Van Halen’s move toward greater use of synthesizers was foreshadowed on Diver Down, as the brief intro for “Dancing in the Street” features a Minimoog. Just three months after the release of Diver Down, Eddie Van Halen recorded a demo for “Jump,” featuring the first prominent use of synths in a Van Halen song.

Diver Down doesn’t get the acclaim that 1984 and Van Halen’s 1978 self-titled debut get, and in fairness it doesn’t clear the high bar set by those two albums. It does deserve its due as a course-changing album, and incredibly enough, one that could have easily never been made if not for the surprising success of the single that preceded it.

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