'Women & Children First' vs. 'Fair Warning'/ Van Halen vs. Smiths

Everyone says 'FW' is the masterpiece but there's so much goddam filler on it! "So This is Love", "Hear About it Later", pffft, and "One Foot Out the Door" isn't even a real song! Even "Unchained" is a bit below par, the schtick in the middle seems forced. "W&CF", on the other hand...OK "And the Cradle Will Rock" is kinda dull - but then, holy fucking shit. "Everybody Wants Some!". If Michel Houellebecq really positively didn't give a fuck about hedonistic atomisation, in fact got off on it, "EWS!" would be the result. Kind of like the end of 'Shivers' where the aphrodisiac parasite infects the whole building and turns everyone into raving sex monsters. "Fools" is a blues and the drumming is quite impressive.Except it isn't bluesy, it's just more mechanistic battering, but with Louis Prima shit on top. DLR KNOWS this shit, not like that clown Brian Setzer. "Loss of Control" does what it says on the tin, "Could This Be Magic?" = Black Oak Arkansas x Gabby Pahinui, and "Romeo Delight" is deranged 200-mph hardcore with a 'musique concrete' solo and a mood of scary, drunken, disoriented belligerence, the red mist descending, the sound of somebody being bundled into the next apartment tied up in burlap and duct tape, the lyrics sound like the last conversation between OJ and Nicole. ("I ain't looking for somebody to fight baby don't get uptight PLEEEEASE I know the law!") Apparently EVH was a simple soul who really hated being hijacked by DLR's exhibitionism, and if the frustration of being stuck in this circus is what made him come up with these sounds then it was worth it! It's just pure bludgeoning, like he was trying to drive the singer out of the band, which was probably what was going on. (EVH quote - "I can't explain it, Dave sucks the life out of me". Everything clicks! One pictures Eddie, the reclusive geek plank-spanker, a typically insecure musician type powerless to assert himself in the face of DLR's relentless hyperactive goading except via sublimation, the mousy housewife, the daydreaming adolescent schizo, but one who can make fighter-plane noises on the axe and fantasise about strafing the monster of extroversion out front into oblivion - think EVH as Matthew Broderick in 'Cable Guy' opposite DLR's Carrey - it's the reverse of Morrisey/Marr in fact!) Back to the record tho which is the only think what counts - it ends with "In a Simple Rhyme" which is WAAAY to close to the dave q bete noire Crosby Stills & Nash for my liking, but after a half-hour of this caveman stomp, maybe a breather is welcome. In sum, anybody who claims to like 'Damaged' or 'GI' and can't get into this needs their hearing checked!