1984 (1984)

1984 (stylized in Roman numerals as MCMLXXXIV) is the sixth studio album by American rock band Van Halen, released on January 9, 1984, by Warner Bros. Records. It was the last Van Halen studio album to feature lead singer David Lee Roth until A Different Kind of Truth (2012), following his departure from the band in 1985 due to creative differences. 1984 and the band's self-titled debut album are their best-selling records, each having sold more than 10 million copies in the United States.

1984 was well received by music critics. Rolling Stone ranked the album number 81 on its list of the "100 Greatest Albums of the 1980s". It reached number two on the Billboard 200 and remained there for five weeks, kept from the top spot by Michael Jackson's Thriller, on which guitarist Eddie Van Halen made a guest performance. 1984 produced four singles, including "Jump", Van Halen's only number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100; the top-20 hits "Panama" and "I'll Wait"; and the MTV favorite "Hot for Teacher". The album was certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 1999 for ten million shipped copies in the U.S.

Background and recording

Following the tour in support of their fourth studio album, Fair Warning, the band initially wanted to take a break. They released a single, "(Oh) Pretty Woman"/"Happy Trails", intended as a stand-alone release. However, the band's label requested another album due to the A-side's success, and the band recorded their fifth studio album, Diver Down, in a matter of weeks. Following the recording, guitarist Eddie Van Halen was dissatisfied with the concessions he had made to frontman David Lee Roth and producer Ted Templeman, both of whom discouraged Eddie from making keyboards a prominent instrument in the band's music.

By 1983, Eddie was building his own studio, naming it 5150 after the California law code for involuntary psychiatric commitment, alongside longtime engineer Donn Landee. While boards and tape machines were being installed, Eddie began working on synthesizers to pass the time. "There were no presets," said Templeman. "He would just twist off until it sounded right." There, he composed the follow-up to Diver Down without perceived interference from Roth or Templeman. The result was a compromise between the band's creative factions: a mixture of keyboard-heavy songs and the guitar-driven hard rock for which they were known. 1984 took about three months to record, whereas most of their previous LPs were finished in less than two weeks at Sunset Sound Recorders.

Unreleased tracks or renamed working titles from the 1984 sessions included "Baritone Slide", "Lie to You", "Ripley" (which later became "Blood and Fire"), "Any Time, Any Place", and a cover of Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour". Because finished tracks like "I'll Wait", "Top Jimmy", "Drop Dead Legs", and "Girl Gone Bad" were not mentioned on early Warner Bros. memos, it is believed their titles were changed during production.

In Rolling Stone's retrospective review of the album, Templeman noted, "Eddie Van Halen discovered the synthesizer," citing it as the reason 1984 won the band a broader audience.

Artwork

The album cover art was directed by Richard Seireeni and Pete Angelus, and painted by graphic artist Margo Nahas. Seireeni, then Creative Director at Warner Bros. Records, had collected a number of artist portfolios for the band to review, including the work of Nahas. She had initially been asked to create a cover featuring four chrome women dancing, but declined due to the creative difficulties involved. The band reviewed her work again and chose an existing painting of a putto smoking cigarettes. The model was Carter Helm, the child of one of Nahas' best friends, who was photographed holding a candy cigarette.

Upon the album's release in the UK, the front cover was censored with a sticker that obscured the cigarette and the pack. The back cover features individual photos of the four band members with 1984 in a green futuristic typeface.

Composition

Musically, 1984 has been described as glam/pop metal, hard rock, heavy metal, synth rock, and pop rock. Michael Hann of The Quietus commented that the album sees Van Halen become "everything all at once – synthpop, hard rock, thundering metal, art rock", comparing the guitar lines on "Top Jimmy" to Talking Heads.

The album's first two singles, "Jump" and "I'll Wait", feature prominent synthesizers, as does the one-minute instrumental intro track, "1984". Eddie Van Halen used an Oberheim OB-Xa for most of the album, though "I'll Wait" featured the newer Oberheim OB-8 while his OB-Xa was being repaired. When the band struggled while writing "I'll Wait", producer Ted Templeman brought in Michael McDonald to help David Lee Roth work out the lyrics and melodies.