12 '80s Hard Rock Albums All Fans Should Own
7. 1984 - Van Halen
'1984', released in the year of the title, was quite a shift in the Van Halen sound. Although keyboards had appeared on previous VH albums, this record saw Eddie Van Halen embrace them to an alarming degree for singer David Lee Roth, who'd apparently said to Eddie, 'no-one wants to see a guitar hero behind a keyboard'. Turns out DLR was wrong, however, as 'Jump', the band's biggest hit single at that point, was swamped with Eddie's synth-work.
'Jump' may have enabled Van Halen to cross-over into the wider pop market, but it wasn't really representative of the album as a whole. Two of the other big singles from the record, 'Panama' and 'Hot For Teacher', were much more like the Van Halen of old, although 'I'll Wait' was much more keyboard-heavy.
This was the last VH album to feature Roth for many years - he'd had solo success with a cover of 'California Girls' and felt that the time was right for him to cut his own groove. Replacement Sammy Hagar moved the band's sound sideways into a more traditional rock territory which scored them the biggest-selling albums of their career, although Roth is now back in the band.