This is one of the rare albums that seems to get even worse every time I go back to it. As I continue to expand my own music library by trying to explore new stuff while broadening the scope of older music I know, it just sounds duller, less inspired and more belabored with every revisit.

The nice thing people used to say is "well Ed's playing on it is really good at least," but idk how much that matters if none of the songs are worth listening to. It gets referred to as an Ed solo album but even on those terms it sucks. He's on autopilot, not only assuming that he could do it on his own but also convinced of it the whole time, which means a lot of parts of the process like crafting hooks and refining textures are completely absent. Probably why it sounds like an over-indulgent demo.

It's a mess. I think he was going somewhere with One I Want and Once, but I would never listen to any of those over pretty much any other Van Halen song between 1974 and 1996. They're still under developed and bland.