S.O.D. "Fools" by Van Halen

6/14/2015      Crazy good tune here, doing some cool things with instruments and vocals.  While not the most popular tune on the album, maybe the most instrumentally diverse.  It comes from their third studio album "Women and Children First" and is the longest track at 5:55 and well worth the listen.  The LP also features the song "Could This Be Magic" with Nicolette Larson singing back up during some of the choruses.  This marks the only time the group has used female vocals.  Also during this track it was raining and they used two Neumann KM84 microphones to add the sound, so when you hear it, it's not an effect.  

     According to the Recording Industry Association of America Van Halen is the ninth best-selling band/artist of all time with 56 million albums sold in the U.S. and 80 million worldwide. Two other feats worth mentioning: They have had the most #1 hits on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart in history and throughout the 80s had more hits on the Billboard Hot 100 then any other hard rock/heavy metal band, with the 80s being the height of this genre.  In the U.S. they have had two albums that have sold more than 10 million copies making them only one of only five rock bands to do so.