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    The Jock of Rock posted an update 4 years, 12 months ago · updated 4 years, 12 months ago

    RockChat Rewind with Joe Milliken.
    On this day (April 29) in 1981, Van Halen released their fourth studio album titled “Fair Warning.” Recorded for Warner Bros. at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles, and produced by Ted Templeman, “Fair Warning” was the band’s worst-selling album of the David Lee Roth despite getting mostly positive reviews from the media.
    The cover art featured detail from a painting called “The Maze” by Canadian artist William Kurelek depicting his tortured, bullied youth. The inner sleeve featured a black and white portrait of the band and on the other side, a ghetto wall with a Van Halen logo and a lyric from the opening song “Mean Street.”
    “Fair Warning” was a departure from the band’s usual party-it-up, happy-go-lucky feel and featured a much darker, harder-edged vibe throughout. It was also the first Van Halen album to introduce synthesizer, which is featured at the end of the album.
    Despite it being their lowest-selling album of the Roth era and having no charting singles, “Fair Warning” climbed to #5 on the Billboard album chart and featured some classic-rocking Van Halen concert favorites such as “Mean Street,” “Unchained,” “Hear About It Later” and “So This Is Love?” The album would go on to sell over two million copies worldwide.
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