"Just Like Paradise" is a song by American rock singer David Lee Roth. Released after he left

Van Halen Van Halen ( ) was an American rock band formed in Pasadena, California, in 1972. Credited with "restoring hard rock to the forefront of the music scene", Van Halen was known for its energetic live shows and for the virtuosity of its lead gu ...

, it was produced by Roth and guitarist

Steve Vai Steven Siro Vai (; born June 6, 1960) is an American guitarist, composer, songwriter, and producer. A three-time Grammy Award winner and fifteen-time nominee, Vai started his music career in 1978 at the age of eighteen as a transcriptionist f ...

. The

lead single A lead single (also known as a debut single) is the first single to be released from a studio album by an artist or a band, usually before the album itself is released and also occasionally on the same day of the album's release date. Release ...

from Roth's second solo album, 1988's ''

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'', it reached the top 10 in the United States and

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Music video

The video for the single was released in January 1988. Like other Roth videos, it heavily featured live stage performance. Between are clips of Roth rock climbing at

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shot by Emmy Award-winning mountain climbing photographer

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. "I started climbing when I was 11, in the

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," he recalled. "It was a natural thing, plus you add in the books and comics and the movies. I'd say, 'Aw, I don't want to be the ''actor'', I want to go to Arabia!" The video concludes with Roth on a 28-foot

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gliding across a concert crowd. "You ask four different people their impression of he surfboard you get six different responses," he observed. "I had a driver called Cowboy, a chopper pilot during the

Tet Offensive The Tet Offensive was a major escalation and one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. It was launched on January 30, 1968 by forces of the Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) against the force ...

. He said to me one day at rehearsal, 'Goddamn Dave: that reminds me of 'Nam… contour-flying over a hostile

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!' Then again, everything reminded Cowboy of 'Nam!" Noisecreep ranked the video 10th on their list of the best David Lee Roth videos.

Release and reception

Released in 1987, "Just Like Paradise" entered the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 in January 1988 and peaked at number six in March. It reached number four on the Singles Sales chart and eight on the

Hot 100 Airplay The Radio Songs chart (previously named Hot 100 Airplay until 2014 and Top 40 Radio Monitor until 1991) is released weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine and measures the airplay of songs being played on radio stations throughout the United States acro ...

chart. It also spent four weeks atop the

Mainstream Rock Mainstream rock (also known as heritage rock) is a radio format used by many commercial radio stations in the United States and Canada. Format background Mainstream rock stations represent the middle ground between classic rock and active rock ...

chart. The song peaked at eight in Canada, number 27 in the

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, number 13 in

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, and number 77 in the

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Music critic ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of mu ...

Charles Bottomley called the song "a polished ode to decadence, with a chorus you would be unashamed to punch the air to".

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the dat ...

's Eduardo Rivadavia described it as an "ultra-saccharine" single that tries "too hard to achieve an exaggerated pop sheen".

Track listing

;7" Vinyl #"Just Like Paradise" (Roth, Tuggle) - 4:03 #"The Bottom Line" (Roth, Vai) - 3:37 ;12" Vinyl (UK) #"Just Like Paradise" (Roth, Tuggle) - 4:03 #"The Bottom Line" (Roth, Vai) - 3:37 #" Yankee Rose" (Roth, Vai) - 3:47

Chart performance

Year-end charts

References

{{authority control 1988 singles David Lee Roth songs Songs written by David Lee Roth 1987 songs Warner Records singles