10 Hard Rock Bands Never Better Than Their First Album

Rock and roll really needed a kick in the ass by the late '70s. With rock's forefathers falling into bad habits with disco and the giants of the early 70's running out of steam, something needed to come out of the woodwork to make rock and roll feel exciting again. Long before the Motley Crües and Poisons of the world started their ascents, Van Halen launched themselves onto the scene and conquered the hard rock world.

By any hard rocker's standards, Van Halen's debut is a perfect rock record, with each track being its own unique form of awesome. While everyone knows tracks like "Runnin With the Devil" and "Jamie's Cryin," even the lowlights on the album like "On Fire" and "Little Dreamer" show the band's penchant for dipping their toes into much darker territory. The album also features the gold standard of shred with "Eruption," which is by far the greatest solo composition Mr. Edward Van Halen has ever created.

Though the band had countless hits after this album with both David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar up front, this debut is the true crowned jewel of their entire body of work. Most of Van Halen's catalog is a hard rock goldmine, but this is the one record that any self-respecting hard rock fan should listen to at least once in their life.