It’s hard to believe Van Halen’s landmark album, released in 1984 and creatively entitled, 1984, has turned 40 years old. It’s even harder to believe that following that creative peak they – guitarist Eddie Van Halen, drummer Alex Van Halen, & bassist Michael Anthony – decided to part ways with lead singer David Lee Roth. Oh, that was indeed a dark day for all of us in the Van Halen fan base. Many a VH flag was flown at half-mast when they announced that news in 1985 after the mind blowing tour for 1984 had concluded. A tour on which I saw them twice, once in KC and once in Wichita. They were worth traveling to multiple cities to see live. While Roth split in April of ’85, I didn’t believe it was true until that summer when I saw Eddie Van Halen quoted in Rolling Stone magazine saying Roth was an asshole or some such “I’m glad he’s gone” thing… It’s hard to write about 1984 without thinking about Roth’s departure from Van Halen but I am indeed getting a little ahead of myself here.

I started off this august year of 2024 as I have done for the last few years, with a post and playlist looking back 50 years, in this case to 1974. I don’t have a lot of emotion tied up in music from 50 years ago, I was merely a little kid. However, whenever I do that “it was fifty years ago” thing, it gets me thinking back a mere 40 years, to music that I do have an emotional attachment to. The year of 1984, which gads, is forty years ago, saw the release of a number of landmark albums. Peter Gabriel (who just released the fabulous i/o) released So, breaking into solo superstardom even in the fickle States. I’ve already written early in the life of B&V about the classic 1984 LPs released by Springsteen (Born In The U.S.A.) and Prince (Purple Rain). I recently did a lookback to one of my favorite albums from the Cars from ’84, Heartbeat City. But when I think of the year 1984, other than George Orwell, I have to think about the first classic album released that year (on January 9th, 1984), Van Halen’s 1984.

I think there were two waves of Van Halen’s popularity when huge numbers of people jumped on the bandwagon. The first, which I was on, was when they released their self-titled debut LP. I was in that first wave of Van Halen fans not because I was cool or musically discerning but because I was in junior high school when that debut dropped and after hearing “Eruption” we all thought a new Jimi Hendrix had arrived (turns out we were right). Well, in truth, there were a few people who thought Van Halen was just Kiss without make-up… Gene Simmons paid for their demo sessions and was thanked on the liner notes which sparked that conspiracy theory, audible sigh. The second wave of VH fans came with 1984. By the time that record came out I was already in college. A lot had happened in the world and to me specifically. But there were a generation of younger middle school and high school kids who were swept up in the juggernaut that was 1984.

I have to admit, while I loved their debut album (I do love debut albums), it took years before I picked up the follow-up, Van Halen II. I don’t know why it happened that way. I guess “Dance The Night Away” just wasn’t “Runnin’ With the Devil” in my mind. It’s a great second album that I did eventually buy on vinyl. I did however, pick up their third LP when it came out, Women And Children First. I loved “When The Cradle Will Rock” and “Everybody Wants Some.” Curiously, although I was always a vinyl guy in terms of collecting, I picked up Women and Children on cassette – which I rectified later – because I liked playing it in the car. I won’t lie, I was also a sucker for the “ballad” “In A Simple Rhyme.” VH was always on the road and I knew a few people who saw them on that tour… alas I did not…but the VH buzz grew even stronger at that point from hearing friends rave about their live show. Despite that, VH did not truly enter the “pantheon of the greats” in my mind until Fair Warning came out. My god, I love that album. The guitar on “Mean Streets” is sensational. Critics thought it was too somber of a record, but man it just fit who I was in high school. That album hit my lower brain stem. After that I was hooked. That was the first tour I saw VH on and I had choice seats (we’d slept out for tickets in front of Tiger’s Records on the sidewalk). It’s one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.

I will admit, I was surprised by 1982’s Diver Down. I had read they were taking an extended break. However, pressed by the record company they went in and recorded a single, a cover of Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman.” The record company, giddy with the single (and the video) pushed VH back into the studio for a full album. I always wonder what would have happened if they’d just let these guys rest. Putting exhausted, cranky people all in the same confined space of a studio never works out… see for example, the Beatles. It was in those sessions that tensions began to boil over between Eddie on one side and Roth with producer Ted Templeman on the other side. Eddie presented some of the keyboard stuff he’d been working on and Roth rejected it out of hand…”You’re a guitar god, nobody wants to hear you play keyboards.” Since they rejected all the keyboard stuff the band ended up recording a record number of cover songs for that album. They couldn’t come to terms creatively. It didn’t help that Eddie had this great riff that he wanted to save for an original and Roth/Templeman “forced” him to use it in the cover song “Dancing In The Streets.”

When the tour concluded and they headed back to the studio, Eddie remained steadfast and only presented the keyboard stuff. Roth – who’d become a bit of a dick about Eddie being married to Valerie Bertinelli which didn’t help the band’s interpersonal relationships – relented and came up with some lyrics. Roth, who was also pissed Eddie had played on Micheal Jackson’s “Beat It” probably realized at that point – and this was my thinking at the time – if you put an Eddie Van Halen guitar solo on any song, even a Michael Jackson song, it’ll be a hit. Still, I don’t think any of us were prepared what hit us when, right before Christmas 1983, the low-fi video for “Jump” came out. It looked like it had been filmed in my dad’s garage. You can never overstate how important MTV and videos were in those days. They certainly looked like they were having an extraordinarily good time. That’s how I first heard the song, on MTV but it soon was all over radio.

“Jump” was a huge surprise as a tune. It was just so… synth-y. But it boasted a great guitar solo from Eddie. And Roth’s pro-suicide lyrics were catchy as Hell…”might as well jump.” (If you’re feeling down, please don’t jump, please get help). He admitted to writing the lyrics when seeing a jumper on the news trying to decide whether or not to… well, jump. With the short instrumental keyboard thing that led into it, title track “1984,” it was an impressive start to the album. It’s an iconic song, it’s an iconic video. The second keyboard-centric song was “I’ll Wait.” I’ve always loved that song and for years thought it might be about Dorothy Stratten, the murdered Playboy model. Turns out it was written from the perspective of a smitten fan of a model, but it was just a random woman in a Calvin Klein underwear ad. I loved how spooky “I’ll Wait” is. It was co written by Micheal McDonald of Doobie Brothers fame, but the band didn’t put his name in the writing credits on the LP, a dick move that had to be Roth’s idea. The tune made my “Playlist, Songs About Waiting.” Regardless of how worried everyone was about Eddie on keyboards – both of these songs are amongst the band’s best tunes ever.

For those of us from the first wave of Van Halen fans, who were in it for Eddie’s guitar, we needn’t fear the band had gone all synthesizer. “Panama” is a fierce rock n roll song about a car. It was an absolute live favorite on that tour… at least to me. “Hot For Teacher” was another balls to the wall guitar track. All of the songs I’ve mentioned up to this point were singles! Four singles off a rock n roll album was unheard of in those days… Well, I guess Springsteen’s Born In The U.S.A. had as many or more so maybe I’m wrong about that. “Drop Dead Legs” was a great rock n roll song Eddie wrote for Valerie. It’s another slinky rocker. “Top Jimmy” was about some bartender who was Roth’s buddy and the guy’s band. It was a fun track, although it’s always made me scratch my head a little bit. I still like the song, but not as much as the rest of the album.

“Girl Gone Bad” and “House of Pain” were great rock songs, but I’ve always read that both tracks were resurrected from the aforementioned Gene Simmons’ financed demo from their early, early days. Apparently tensions got so bad within the band they couldn’t even write enough new songs to complete the album so they had to reach back for earlier material. I don’t know if that’s true but neither song would have been out of place on Van Halen. I do know some folks who partied with the band – well, with Eddie – in Wichita on that stop of the 1984 tour and Eddie, who had popped the plastic “pour control” thing out of a handle of vodka, had nothing good to say about Roth. But of course, that could all be apocryphal bullshit. Can you really trust drunk teenagers from Wichita to tell the truth?

1984 was just such a monumental album. It really encapsulated the era in full. I can’t hear those songs without flashing back to an era where women had big hair and men had mullets (your intrepid blogger included). When we drove down to see VH in Wichita, we stopped at a Walmart and bought bandanas so we could look like Roth. God, were we ever that immature? What am I talking about, of course we were. Suddenly, we hard rock purists weren’t the only ones listening to Van Halen, everybody was! And there was never – even with the keyboards – anybody who said VH was “selling out.”

But as great as it all was, sadly it came crashing to an end when after the tour Roth announced he’d left the band. Creative tensions and personality clashes finally ended a brilliant rock band. Alas, with great success comes greed, envy and jealousy. The egos exploded and sadly, so did the band. Van Halen was never the same. Don’t get me wrong, I actually liked Van Hagar and have posted about that era in the band. I think Sammy and Michael Anthony are out on the road right now playing old Van Hagar tunes with Joe Satriani on guitar… I might have to look that tour up… but I digress. Roth had some early solo success but seeing some of his social media posts lately make me wonder… what happened?

At least we have this landmark, spectacular album with all the well written hit songs to remind us of a time when rock n roll ruled the world. Back when I always felt like, well, the lyric, “I get up and nothing gets me down…”

Cheers!