"Just Like Paradise" is a song by

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singer

David Lee Roth David Lee Roth (born October 10, 1954) is an American rock singer. Best known for his wild, energetic stage persona, he was the original lead vocalist of the hard rock band Van Halen across three stints, from 1974 to 1985, in 1996 and again fro ...

. Released after he left

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, 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 for ...

. 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 s ...

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

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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

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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 forces o ...

. 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

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chart and eight on the

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chart. It also spent four weeks atop the

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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 mus ...

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

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'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