Metallica and The Beatles have both been turned into video game heroes; and now it’s Van Halen’s turn to jump on the Guitar Hero wagon.

According to Billboard, the scheduled release for the new Guitar Hero: Van Halen game is scheduled for release at the end of the year. The Van Halen tracks that will be on the game have not been released yet, but we are hoping “Runnin’ With the Devil” and “Dance the Night Away” will be included, for the ultimate in pretend fret-board tapping fun. We are curious if the makers of the game will give players the option to choose past members of the band as their Guitar Hero avatars, because we can’t imagine virtually simulating Van Halen licks without an option to play as Sammy Hagar. No matter what, fans can pretend to shed an axe like Eddie.

Dedicated to those songs that I can’t stop playing, humming, or thinking about; the 4+ minutes you fall head-over-heels in love with. Past instances have included Sleater Kinney’s “Rollercoaster,” The Stooges’ “No Fun,” and CCR’s “Ramble Tamble.”

Some songs live in my guitar. I have a very natural (read: “dumb”) style that’s mostly just strumming along, and certain songs from certain bands tend to dwell within my strings. Others do not. The space taken up by “Dead Leaves On The Dirty Ground” and “Buddy Holly” have kept the well-known catalog of early Van Halen at bay. I like to think this has more to do with style than technical proficiency, and I’d be right. While my kind has neither the cranial capacity nor the opposable digits (name the episode!) to appropriately perform a classic Van Halen tune, I think the reason I’ll never play one of their songs well is because our styles are so different. I strum along with the tune, feeling the song. Eddie Van Halen’s style has never been anything less than cerebral. It’s all about exploding everywhere at once. It’s certainly interesting, but it’s also a little maddening. When you think of “Beautiful Girls,” what do you hum?

When most people in their late 20s or early 30s hear the opening strains of “Beautiful Girls” on their radio, the first image they conjure is a pool full of Speedo-clad men telling house sitters Adam Sandler and Chris Farley that they “look like they need to get wet.” The “Schlitz Gay” bit from early-90s SNL has the kind of legacy no one could have predicted, and much of that staying power has to do with this song. I find the choice to use this song in this commercial parody came about for a couple reasons. First, it’s a great song, and even in the lowest comedy, a great song is a great song is a great song. Secondly, its full-frontal late-70s machismo translates perfectly to a pool party for gay men. It’s cartoonish, thanks so much to David Lee Roth, in how “sexy” it is. For all the work one could put forth to the contrary, “Beautiful Girls” is completely harmless, light as a feather and therefore — to the mid-90s male sensibility — un-masculine. And finally, it’s funnier to have a song called “Beautiful Girls” about a bunch of men. The lessor comic would have played something from Culture Club or some other “gay” band. But these are supposedly beer-drinking gay guys, so they need a beer-drinking gay guy song. They’ve got a big beer taste and they’re gay, after all.

The impact and success of this commercial parody has done much to marginalize the overall Van Halen legend. It’s not solely responsible, of course; so much of that responsibility lies with the band itself. But there was a period where VH was The band, and The theme gong of The band needed to portray their voice, and no matter how many “Panamas” or “Jumps” followed, “Beautiful Girls” epitomizes The voice of The band. In his interesting commentary on OK Computer for the 33 1/3 series, critic Dai Griffiths claims that if you want to hear what 1997 felt like, you would play tracks 6, 7 and 8, a run from “Karma Police” to “Electioneering” that includes the weird spoken word non-song “Fitter Happier”. This claim is obviously pretty ridiculous (It might work if that’s what 1997 felt like to the writer, but I even doubt that’s possible. If it felt that way for him, how did he get his senses together in under a decade to write a book, let alone dress himself. Am I implying that he’s crazy for thinking 1997 felt like a weird spoken-word alien voice thing? Yes, I am.), however I like the balls it takes to make such statements. And while it might just be rock critic talk, I usually love that stuff, so I’ll reconfigure his hypothesis to fit my needs here by stating: “Beautiful Girls” sounds like what every teenaged boy wishes parties were like.

That was the entire appeal of Van Halen from the start. When those squeals, screeches and beats kicked in, fun was forthcoming. The feeling of fun transcends the music itself and lifts it beyond mere notes and guitar solos. A guitar soloist and weird vaudeville-style ring leader are coming to your ears, and there’s no way you should miss it. This blatant happiness has become less and less cool, especially since being the best 80s metal band remains as prestigious as being great at Wii bowling. The criticism remains that this music is fluff, and while that may be true, it doesn’t make it un-great. It’s the best fluff around, if that’s any kind of complement.

Touching back on the “harmlessness” of the song, I’m not saying that “Beautiful Girls” displays a pro-feminist stance, or that the band itself was anything but leturous. But “Beautiful Girls” is far superior to, say, “Girls Girls Girls” in the way most VH songs are better than those of their contemporaries because “Beautiful Girls” is harmless in the right ways. In a musical genre so reliant on style, the band or song with the most style takes the title of “best,” but they also made music that anyone could sing, hum and get. That’s not simple dumbing it down. That’s relatablility. In the song, Roth is a bum in the sun, having fun and all he needs is a beautiful girl. He doesn’t (specifically) need sex. He doesn’t (specifically) want sex. We all apply the Van Halen legend (which is to say, the legend of rock stars in general) to assume that Roth does specifically want to have sex with this and any other (non-specifically) beautiful girls. But the omission of this specificity changes the song from just another horny trip to the beach to the longing-for-love genre we’ve heard from Cochran, Petty and every other artist to walk the earth. In fact, by the end of the song, Roth doesn’t get the girl. He’s hitting on her, but she leaves (as evidenced by his outro riffing “What’s your name–hey! Where you going?”). So, in fact, through the harmlessness of their lyrics, “Beautiful Girls” becomes resoundingly feminist.

This is why Van Halen is brilliant, especially on the first couple records. They implied everything through the overall band package that they never had to actually say “let’s fuck.” This, in a nutshell, is cool. If we had all been so capable, high school would have been a breeze.

This cool remains so prominent in “Beautiful Girls” that you almost forget how — for a band built around the guitar prowess of Eddie Van Halen — there is very little front-line soloing. In fact, there are two, but neither one steals the show. They’re just there to help the song as a whole. The only real solo in the “go nutzo” style we can all hear since “Eruption” comes at the end, when everyone’s going nutzo. That’s one of the great elements of “Beautiful Girls;” it’s more than an Eddie Van Halen song. It is a Van Halen song. The Band, not the man. This distinction may illuminate the problems which tore the original group apart back in 1984. Eddie was obviously an extraordinary guitar player, and his impact among his followers is still being felt today. But people loved Vah Halen the band more than Eddie Van Halen himself. If this hadn’t been true, then David Lee Roth would’ve had absolutely no career following his departure and Eddie should have released solo albums. The song lives outside of any mere guitar or comedy bit. This week, it lives in my lungs.

Video Note: I searched and searched for the actual album cut and didn’t find one. Believe it or not, the recent reunion of DLR and Eddie doesn’t skimp on the chops for “Beautiful Girls.” Of course the original cut remains superior. It’s full of Class-A Roth clowning at the end that you miss out on in the live cut, though you do get plenty of Lounge-Lizard Dave, which may speak more honestly to the heart of the man’s charms. Furthermore, I couldn’t find the original “Schlitz Gay” commercial, so I’m sorts of screwed. So if you’ve got a big beer taste and you’re gay, do yourself a favor and drop $.99 and get the song from iTunes.

They announced their formation barely a month ago and their debut album doesn’t come out for another five weeks, but apparently the buzz around “supergroup” Chickenfoot is so great that they’ve managed to sell out all nine road-test shows they had planned for the month of May.

Maybe it’s a fascination with that weird name, maybe it’s faith in the group members’ collective history (Van Halen, Red Hot Chili Peppers, suing Coldplay) or maybe it’s just the desire to fork over large sums of money to see bands whose music you’ve never even heard. We can’t really be sure. All we know is that from Seattle to Toronto to Philly, Chickenfoot tickets were a hot commodity.

In fact, tickets for the shows were in such high demand that the band has laid down a strict anti-scalping policy, requiring each ticket to be presented with ID at the door of each show. Apparently members of the band’s fan club were even shut out. (Fan club? Based on what? We know.)

Their debut album comes out June 9, and they’re promising fans they’ll be back on the road at bigger venues in August and September for a major North American tour. You can also check out a very informative introductory video here.

Sold-out Chickenfoot dates
05.14.09 – Seattle, Wash. (El Corazon)
05.15.09 – Vancouver, BC (Commodore Ballroom)
05.17.09 – San Francisco, Calif. (The Fillmore)
05.19.09 – West Hollywood, Calif. (The Roxy Theatre)
05.22.09 – Chicago, Ill. (Park West)
05.24.09 – Toronto, ON (The Mod Club Theatre)
05.26.09 – Cambridge, Mass. (Middle East Upstairs)
05.28.09 – New York, NY (The Fillmore)
05.29.09 – Philadelphia, Penn. (TLA)

Dedicated to those songs that I can’t stop playing, humming, or thinking about; the 4+ minutes you fall head-over-heels in love with. Past instances have included The Groovie Ghoulies’ “I’m Doin’ Fine,” Electric Six’s “Improper Dancing,” and Tender Box’s “Spectacular Spider-Man Theme.”

I don’t buy music every week, so when I go shopping I often pick up more than one album at a time. This is great and stupid, because while the one-stop shopping is an economic use of my time, I end up unfairly comparing two unrelated, dissimilar albums. If I’d purchased The Velvet Underground’s first album on its own without the accompanying purchase of Van Halen II, I have a higher opinion of it today. When I bought the pair — for whatever reason — I couldn’t get into the trippy stylings of the Velvets because I was head over kicked heels for VH II. Since then I have grown and adapted from my initial impression, realizing it was unfair: Not only is Velvet decidedly overrated and more than a little dated, but the run of the final three songs of VH II (”D.O.A.,” “Women in Love” and “Beautiful Girls”) are better than anything Lou Reed could pretend to care about writing. Velvet Underground can’t touch VH II’s ass-less chaps.

This comparison trend of mine was tested again when I received the dual gift of the Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible along with The Faces‘ A Nod Is As Good as a Wink… To a Blind Horse, and if I’d been placing bets, I would have put it all down on the boozy bar rock of Rod Stewart and Ron Wood. Chuck Berry covers, dirty riffs, sexism… Wink is like a Stones cover album and should have swept me off my feet. I promised myself I’d listen to both albums all the way through once before allowing myself the privilege (or the handicap) of repeated listens. Wink won the first listen of the pair (which was chosen at random — I try to do these things fair since I understand my own psychosis better anyone).

But then I moved on to Neon Bible, which started with “Black Mirror”, and I forgot all about rooster hair cuts.

“Black Mirror” — in fact much of Neon Bible — is a fantastic musical creation forged from the qualities I find annoying in bands I don’t usually enjoy. The overt sincerity of U2, the airy musicality of the Talking Heads, the sing-it-to-Saturn of Bruce Springsteen, the symphonic back-up of Coldplay. Maybe it’s a ratio thing: I can’t get past these annoying bits with these bands because their music seems to offer little else. If things were more evened out, maybe I could actually manage to get through Achtung Baby. But somehow when these qualities join together in this Arcade Fire configuration, it sounds like the kind of noise that could consume the world.

At the risk of outing myself as a hack, “Black Mirror” is a classic example of an album launcher. Some Track One’s start an album only to get out of the way, and others announce the album’s presence and tell everyone to get on board fast. “Black Mirror” possesses an unrelenting drive, feeling at once out of control — like a stagecoach headed by rocket elephants — yet fully aware of where it’s heading. It may be aiming for a cliff, but it knew that from the start. The Arcade Fire have a major Bowie thing happening with most of their work, and that would be a hindrance if they didn’t wear it so well. One review of “Black Mirror” compared it to a reworking of the “Suffragette City” riff, but that misses the point. The song may cosmetically sound a little like “Suffragette”, but the culmination of all those textures brings intensity, depth, darkness and hope along with them. If anything, it feels like “Heroes”. Bittersweet, heartsick and romantic.

On the rare occasion I don’t repeat “Black Mirror” and actually allow another song the daunting task of following up, I half expect to hear Radiohead’s “The National Anthem”. This would theoretically fit the mood, but where Kid A is an experiment in anti-music, “Black Mirror” is about music-music. It’s as pro-music as you can get. Kid A is clinical and shattered, Neon Bible is lush and voluptuous. Radiohead tends to write music to comment on music itself, but there’s no barrier separating you from the emotions and excitement of The Arcade Fire. Neon Bible gives a million of these kinds of emotional payoffs, but “Black Mirror” demonstrates them in the kind of way that tells you everything you’d ever want to know about the band, or hope to find.

Tension runs through the entire song, and it’s never released, only eased. The singing, instruments and song entirely build up to a cliff before “falling” into the chorus once again. Each verse is a remount back up that hill. The best example of this comes right in the middle. We build and build with the lyrics, and that familiar piano lick trickles in late enough to remind us it’s there and to keep us climbing. Then the lyric doesn’t lead directly into the chorus, but takes us to the “That curse is never broken” section, and it doesn’t get broken for many measures after. Win Butler suddenly breaks into a French version of the titular chorus, deftly giving the song a plateau but still no free-fall into the dark waters beneath. The backing vocals rise to the forefront after the full orchestra takes us through the chorus once again. “The kiss is never broken,” and neither is this rhythm. Butler talks to his mirror as everything seems to crescendo until we finally hit the water and gasp for air.

Individually as pieces, the music isn’t complicated at all. It’s a simple rhythm guitar lick, straight-forward drums, bass line, piano lick. That’s where the true power of the song originates: it’s not inventing new wheels to play with. It’s using all the wheels we already knew were available in a way we could only hope to achieve. The placement of these elements shows mastery. “Black Mirror” is one of those songs that is so good and so consuming and so powerful and so magnificent that you can’t imagine a single person in the free world who wouldn’t enjoy it. This is the curse of music loving — of course there’s someone out there who won’t like it, and even worse there are some who will simply dismiss it as, “Yeah… that’s alright.” I can understand not liking something completely, but when a song like this demands the kind of respect and attention it so obviously does, a mere dismissal like that would result in glove-to-face slaps in a more gentile era.

“Black Mirror” marks a year’s worth of Greatest Song at This Moment articles, and I’m thrilled beyond words that I can continue to enjoy this song without having to uphold my self-imposed moratorium on each artist I consume. If anyone wonders about the thesis of this project (i.e. “Trying to answer WHY these songs are so great at these moments”), I have no better answer concerning “Black Mirror” than I would for Van Halen II. The answer is: They’re the best.

Watch the “Black Mirror” video.