1984 by Van Halen

1984, Van Halen's sixth album, came out on Warner Bros. on January 9, 1984, and it's the sound of a party band at the absolute peak of its powers, cranking out hard rock built for arenas and grinning the whole time. Ted Templeman produced, and he keeps it big, bright and punchy.

"Jump" is the obvious one, a bouncing, sky-high anthem that gave the band its only number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100. "Panama" is a flat-out joyride of a riff with David Lee Roth whooping over the top like a carnival barker, "Hot for Teacher" is a tumbling, rowdy romp that became an MTV favorite, and "I'll Wait" is sleek and moody, a top-20 hit in its own right. Eddie Van Halen's guitar is everywhere, flashy and fluid, with the rest of the band slamming away underneath.

Critics liked it, and the public liked it more. It sat at number two on the Billboard 200 for five weeks, stuck behind Michael Jackson's Thriller, a record Eddie Van Halen had played on as a guest. It was certified diamond in 1999, and along with the band's debut it is their best seller, each topping 10 million copies in the US. It was also the end of an era: Roth left in 1985 over creative differences, and he wouldn't make another Van Halen studio album until A Different Kind of Truth in 2012.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.