“Jump” by Van Halen

"Jump" was the song that led Van Halen into 1984, their sixth studio album, and the first thing anybody heard was not a guitar at all. Edward Van Halen built this one on a big, bright keyboard riff, fat synth chords bouncing like a stadium scoreboard, and saved the six-string for a solo in the middle. For a band whose earlier records ran on guitar, it was a gutsy left turn.

Everybody's name is on it: Edward, Alex Van Halen, Michael Anthony and David Lee Roth all share the writing credit, with Ted Templeman producing and Donn Landee engineering. Alex keeps the beat simple and pounding, Anthony holds down the bottom, and Roth sells every line with a wink. He dedicated the song to Benny "The Jet" Urquidez, the martial artist he studied under.

It became the band's most successful single, going all the way to the top of the Billboard Hot 100, and Rolling Stone placed it at 177 when it updated its 500 greatest songs list in 2021. It even outlasted Roth's time out front: Sammy Hagar sang it live, which he did with only a handful of the Roth-era songs.

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