This week on The Collection, we are talking Van Halen. More specifically, Van Halen on vinyl. We will go through all my Van Halen Vinyl including studio albums, live albums, box sets, 7″ Singles and even Bootlegs. From the debut up to Balance as I don’t have Van Halen III or A Different Kind of Truth (and some live). But I have enough to talk about, so let’s do that. Find out who I prefer…David Lee Roth or Sammy Hagar. Find out what my favorite album is and which ones are not. A lot to get through, I hope you enjoy it.
So go check it out as it will be live tonight, September 8, 2025 at 7pm. Thanks for stopping by and please click “Like” and hit “Subscribe” as it helps out the site when you do.
When I was on vacation during this past Summer, I found a ton of 45 Singles with the Picture Sleeves at a place called House of Vinyl and I ended buying 7 Van Halen 45’s. For the next 7 weeks, we will go through those singles in release order. And first up is “Dance the Night Away” from 1979.
For the band’s second album, “Dance the Night Away” was the first single released for the album. The copy I have is actually a promotional copy so the song “Dance the Night Away” is on both sides. Why is that you may ask. That is because as a promotional copy this was sent to radio stations. The first side has the song in Mono and B-Side is the same song but in Stereo. That way the radio station could use the side that fit their format if they were either an AM Radio station or an FM, I presume. The song is I believe the album track and not a edited version so nothing special about it other than it is cool.
The song was originally titled “Dance, Lolita, Dance” according to David Lee Roth, but Edward Van Halen thankfully talked him out of it. The song was one of the few off Van Halen II that were actually conceived in the studio and done so when the band was standing in a circle humming to each other. And according to Wiki, the song was inspired by Fleetwood Mac’s song “Go Your Own Way” which I can see. The song is a little more upbeat and less hard rock and maybe even more pop rock.
2 Loud 2 Old Music 