Deluxe 5150 coming March 27th

Live Without a Net is on this year’s RSD list that was released this morning.

It’ll be on clear vinyl, and its the same track listing as what’s in this upcoming expanded set.

The cover is different as well.

FYI: Rhino is throwing in a trinket with every order (while supplies last).

Has anyone found the green vinyl on Amazon yet? I’ve looked but can’t locate it.

Jason C: Nothing new here.

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The new parts:
-deluxe booklet
-official audio release of partial New Haven show
-BluRay release of LWAN (better picture, better audio)
-single versions of songs all in one place

https://www.rhino.com/article/van-halen-5150-expanded-edition-rarities-previously-unreleased-1986-live-recordings-more
Rhino will release 5150 (Expanded Edition) on March 27, just days after the album’s 40th anniversary. The LP/3CD/Blu-ray collection includes the 1986 album remastered directly from the original master tapes, overseen by the band’s longtime engineer Donn Landee. Additionally, an Amazon-exclusive green vinyl version will be available the same day.

The “green” looks like an Indie/brick-n-mortar item. UPC: 081227806064

Finally found the Amazon listing, but looks like it’s available everywhere.
https://www.amazon.com/5150-Expanded-Van-Halen/dp/B0GLHQTSBR/
https://www.google.com/search?q=081227806064

https://metalplanetmusic.com/2026/03/album-review-van-halen-5150-expanded-edition/

Album Review: Van Halen — 5150 Expanded Edition
By admin
Posted on 2026-03-12 14:53:15

Review by Rick Eaglestone for MPM

Forty years on and the seismic shift that was 5150 — Van Halen’s first album with Sammy Hagar replacing David Lee Roth and also my first introduction to the band still detonates with a force that few records in the hard rock canon can match.

The 2026 expanded edition, remastered directly from the original master tapes and overseen by the band’s longtime engineer Donn Landee, doesn’t seek to reinvent one of the most commercially dominant albums of 1986, but seeks to honour it, warts and all, and in doing so reveals just how staggeringly alive this record remains.

What the expanded edition offers beyond an outstanding remaster is a genuinely comprehensive document of the album and its era. CD2 gathers the singles campaign in full — edited versions of Best of Both Worlds, Dreams, and Love Walks In, extended versions of Why Can’t This Be Love and Dreams, and three live tracks drawn from the 1986 tour. The crown jewel, however, is CD3: a previously unreleased full concert recording from the band’s August 27, 1986, show at New Haven Veterans Memorial Coliseum, presented here alongside a high-definition upgrade of the classic Live Without a Net concert film on Blu-ray. It is, in short, the definitive version of an album that deserves no less.

Why Can’t This Be Love announces itself with a swagger that is both instant and irresistible — Eddie’s synthesiser-driven riff hits like a freight train wrapped in neon and it remains one of those album openers that feels utterly purpose-built to hijack your ears and refuse to let go. The remaster strips away a slight high-end harshness present in earlier pressings, and the low end now sits with a warmth and authority that makes Anthony’s bass feel genuinely foundational. The extended 12-inch version included on CD2, running several minutes longer than the single, is a fascinating document of how far Eddie could stretch that central riff without once losing its grip on you.

Get Up is one of those tracks that the hardcore have always known is more than filler, and the expanded edition’s remaster practically makes the argument for them. Alex’s drum performance here is thunderously physical, the snare cracking with a presence that was somewhat buried in the original mix, and Hagar’s vocal delivery through the bridge section has a rawness that feels genuinely electric. This is a band firing on all cylinders and barely breaking sweat.

Dreams is, and I will not be taking questions on this, one of the great Van Halen songs full stop. The sweeping enormity of it, that chorus arriving like a sunrise you didn’t know you needed, the way Eddie’s guitar lines weave around the synths rather than compete with them — it is a masterclass in emotional dynamics. Hearing it remastered is something of a religious experience. The stereo field opens up considerably and there is a shimmer and depth to the keyboards that makes the song feel almost orchestral in scale.

Love Walks In is where the album pivots into something genuinely reflective and it is all the stronger for it. There is a tenderness to Hagar’s vocal here that he rarely showed on the harder material, and the synth arrangement builds with a patience that rewards every second of its runtime. The single edit on CD2 trims it efficiently, but it is the full album version — restored with a fullness to the piano tone that earlier CD pressings compressed out of existence — that reminds you why this song resonated so deeply with audiences in 1986.

5150 the title track is perhaps the most perfectly sequenced moment on the record, arriving mid-album like a reset button that reminds you exactly what this band is capable of when they lean into pure hard rock instinct. Eddie’s guitar tone here is ferociously alive and the remaster respects every corner of it, the feedback, the overtones, the sheer physical force of the performance translated more faithfully than any previous release has managed.

Best of Both Worlds is as close to a mission statement as the Hagar era produced and it delivers every single time. There is a broadness to it, an open-road quality, that makes it feel genuinely cinematic. The remaster enhances the spatial quality of the mix and Hagar’s chorus vocal has never sounded so assured, sitting above a rhythm section performance from Anthony and Alex that is frankly immovable.

Summer Nights arrives like the best party you’ve ever walked into mid-flow and demands your participation immediately. It is unashamedly fun and unashamedly loud and on the remaster the handclaps and layered backing vocals sit in the mix with a clarity that makes the communal energy of the track feel palpable. Hearing the live version from New Haven on CD3, recorded just months after the album’s release, is a revelation — the crowd response is seismic, and the band play it with a freedom and looseness that makes even this studio barnstormer feel like it was still finding its ceiling.

Inside is the album’s most underrated moment and always has been. There is a vulnerability to Hagar’s performance that cuts through the bombast of the surrounding tracks, and the song demonstrates that 5150 was never just a triumph of sonic muscle but also of craft. The remaster gives the quieter passages of this track room to breathe in a way that the original never quite allowed.

The CD2 rarities complement the album beautifully. The single edits of Best of Both Worlds, Dreams, and Love Walks In are period artefacts that remind you of the radio landscape these songs were navigating, while the extended versions of Why Can’t This Be Love and Dreams reveal just how elastic these compositions were in capable hands. The three live tracks — Best of Both Worlds, Rock and Roll, and Love Walks In — are a tantalising taste of the full New Haven set that follows on CD3. The previously unreleased concert, all twelve tracks of it, is a genuine revelation: a band in complete command of their new identity, delivering the 5150 material with total authority while threading in classic-era favourites like Panama and Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love. The Blu-ray’s HD upgrade of Live Without a Net rounds the package out magnificently — finally seeing this landmark concert film as it was always meant to be seen is a joy in itself.

The remaster is the foundation everything is built upon, and it is outstanding. Landee has approached the source tapes with evident reverence, resisting the loudness war tendencies that afflicted the 2000 remaster and instead letting the dynamic range of the original recordings speak for itself. Eddie’s guitar breathes. Alex’s kit has physical weight. Anthony’s bass — often the most underappreciated element of the classic Van Halen sound — finally sits in the mix with the presence it always deserved.

The liner notes booklet, a 24-page collection of band photography from the 5150 sessions alongside backstage passes, tour memorabilia, and tape box reproductions, is a genuinely warm piece of archival work. It places the album firmly in its moment — the pressure of the Roth transition, the creative liberation of recording in Eddie’s own studio, the sense of something genuinely new being forged — and does so with an intimacy that promotional material rarely achieves.

The bonus material, across two discs and a Blu-ray, earns every inch of its space. None of it is padding. Each element illuminates rather than dilutes. If you are new to 5150 this is the only version you need. If you have lived with the album for decades, this expanded edition has the power to make it feel genuinely fresh without disturbing a single thing you loved about it in the first place.

Van Halen’s 5150 was always a landmark. The 2026 expanded edition finally gives it the presentation it has always deserved.

10/10

^ probably an uninformed reviewer