Van Halen is the debut studio album by American rock band Van Halen. Released on February 10, 1978, the album initially peaked at #19 on the US Billboard Albums Chart, en route to selling over ten million copies in the US alone by 1999, (RIAA diamond status.)  Retrospective appraisals (e.g. the following appraisal by music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine) tend to describe "Van Halen" in terms of signifying "an epochal generation shift, like [the debut albums of] Led Zeppelin, The Ramones, The Rolling Stones, or Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols... The still-amazing thing about Van Halen is how it sounds like it has no fathers... Like all great originals Van Halen doesn't seem to belong to the past and it still sounds like little else, despite generations of copycats."  

"Van Halen" (1978) contains many of Van Halen's signature songs, including "Runnin' with the Devil", the guitar solo "Eruption", the Kinks cover "You Really Got Me", "Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love", "Jamie's Cryin'," and "Ice Cream Man." Each of these songs remains a staple of rock radio, as do - to a lesser extent - all of the tracks on "Van Halen" (i.e. "Atomic Punk," "Feel Your Love Tonight," "I'm The One," "Little Dreamer," and "On Fire" all receive substantial radio airplay.)