371 of 1001 Albums: Van Halen's 1984

Van Halen appropriately titled this album released in 1984...1984. It captures what you think of sounds being like in 1984 quite perfectly at that. The album gets off to a strong start, but does fade a little about halfway through. It does provide you with many songs that will be stuck in your head for a while, and maybe even fun to jump to. In the days of when MTV played videos they also had a very popular video on the channel, "Hot For Teacher".

After getting past the introduction to the album, "1984", you get a great song that I really enjoyed beginning with. "Jump" isn't one of the more hard rock sounds on the album, and has more of a playful feel good vibe to it. It's one of the few on the album I would probably listen to again. The tune has been stuck in my head since hearing it. This song definitely deserved it's number one standing on the Billboard Charts.


Impressively, this band reached the pinnacle of their popularity in 1984, which makes since considering it was the last time all the original band members were together. Before that they were building each year upon their success, and made the most money touring in 1983. Eddie Van Halen also became known for inventing a new path for the electric guitar. He mixed it with other genres, and contributed to Michael Jackson's Beat It. So with 1984 you also get to hear the incredible talent he put on the album. With that though, David Lee Roth really does have the vocals to match the power of guitar playing that could outshine anyone else.

You'll probably notice the other two hits from the album, "I'll Wait" and "Hot for Teacher", but probably my other memorable favorite was "Panama". I think it carried on from "Jump" well in making me want to continue listening to the album. Mostly, this album just seems like it wants to be fun, and doesn't take itself lyrically that seriously. All the guys seem passionate about their talents in the band though.

I want hide that it did take me a while to get through this album though. It's only 9 songs, but it took me like 3 days to complete. After "Panama" something did lose me that excited me about those first few songs. I do like the unique cover art though, and I like the obvious things like the vocals and guitar playing, but sometimes it's okay to be a little serious too.

Rating 7 of 10