Celebrating its 40th Anniversary in March 2026, “5150” is the first of four albums Van Halen recorded with Sammy Hagar as lead singer. To mark this moment, The band are releasing an expanded edition of this classic with a remastered version of the original album, a disc of rare singles edits and B-sides and a previously unreleased performance from the band recorded on August 27th, 1986. Rounding out the package will be a blu-ray inclusive of the first HD release of the band’s classic 1986 live video Live Without a Net and a promo video for the track ‘Dreams’. Featuring the evergreen tracks ‘Why Can’t This Be Love’, ‘Dreams’, ‘Love Walks In’ and ‘Best of Both Worlds’
Coming after Dave Lee Roth’s acrimonious departure and heralding the arrival of their new singer Sammy Hagar, 1986’s “5150” was always going to be pivotal for Van Halen. It turned out to be more than that. The band had spent the late 70s and early 80s building up an irrepressible head of steam, but Roth’s egomaniacal behaviour on and off stage and guitarist Eddie Van Halen’s desire for respect alongside his fame were increasingly incompatible.
Hagar was not a familiar figure to Van Halen fans who did not know or care about his Montrose past or his solo hit singles, but his singing style – more straightforward than Roth – fitted in well, and “5150” gave them their first No.1 album, on the back of three hit singles: a couple of power ballads in Why Can’t This Be Love and Love Walks In, plus the inspiring, anthemic Dreams.
The production, by Foreigner’s Mick Jones, was tighter and more commercial than anything Ted Templeman had achieved on earlier albums, and left no room for the florid flights of fancy like “Panama” or “Hot For Teacher” that had characterised their previous album “1984″.
So the risk had paid off, and Van Halen looked set to dominate the hard rock/pop scene for a decade or more, especially when 5150’s follow-up album OU812 also hit the top spot. But it turned out Eddie was allergic to singers in general, and the second time things went tits-up it set off a chain of events from which the band never recovered
This five-disc reissue of “5150″ is notable for not including anything new or previously unreleased – a dubious honour.
The first two discs bring you the remastered album on CD and vinyl. There’s a second CD of single remixes, B-sides, etc. The third CD lifts the audio from the band’s Live Without A Net 1986 video from New Haven, Connecticut, which does at least include half a dozen decent rarities: the band play a couple of Hagar solo songs “I Can’t Drive 55” and “There’s Only One Way To Rock” Hagar sings a couple of Roth-era Van Halen songs “Panama” and “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” and together they maul a couple of covers The Troggs’ “Wild Thing” and Led Zeppelin’s Rock And Roll”. The fifth disc is a Blu-ray that includes the “Live Without A Net”
video and a couple of forgettable promos.
The Fat Angel Sings 