10 Perfect Rock Albums That Almost Destroyed Bands

If you were even aware of music in the early '80s, there was no way you could escape Van Halen. Although they were primarily known as a hard rock band, the party attitude of their performances and the catchiness of their hooks gave them fans across many different genres of music. It was a distinct formula, but it was also one that David Lee Roth wasn't all that keen on straying from.

By the time the band got to 1984, Eddie Van Halen was getting more and more emphatic about giving his keyboards a more prominent role in the mix, which caused many fights in the studio. Though he and Roth were able to compromise on earlier projects, this is where Eddie fully put his foot down, leading to some of the most accessible Van Halen songs yet on tracks like Jump and I'll Wait.

If this is what Eddie's mind sounds like, they should have probably done this more often, balancing the heavy side of their sound perfectly with the more tuneful material. That dictator mindset Eddie had did end up coming back around though, with Roth leaving for a solo career after the sessions wrapped. While they would eventually come back from the break with Sammy Hagar in tow, it looked like hair metal's finest were going out in a blaze of glory.