67 Comments
Jan 10Liked by Kevin Alexander

Nicely put. I still dearly love the first four VH LPs with Roth, but rarely listen to the last two. However, I did put this one on for the first time in years after Eddie’s death, and was pleasantly surprised by how well most of it still held up. (And yeah, “Panama” still totally smokes.)

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Thank you! I was playing the record while writing this, and yeah, "Panama" totally smokes.

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Jan 10Liked by Kevin Alexander

"Jump" was everywhere in the mid-80s. You simply could not escape it.

Along with Michael Jackson Trapper Keepers, anything VH would have been incredibly sought after in my 4th or 5th grade classes.

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A VH trapper keeper would've ruled! I had to settle for a plain light blue one...

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Jan 12Liked by Kevin Alexander

I'm about 90% sure I had one, but I'm 100% sure it wasn't Van Halen. I *might* have had a Michael Jackson one, though... if it wasn't me, another kid in my class had one for sure.

Ahhhh, fuzzy memories!

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There was a Michael Jackson Trapper Keeper?! Man, mine just had an ‘80s day-glo pattern on it but I would’ve killed a kid for an MJ (or better yet, a Prince one.)

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Jan 12Liked by Kevin Alexander

If memory serves (LOL), these folders were available for purchase: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/set-folders-michael-jackson-1983-27504673

You'd slide the folders into your TK, and then you would look super duper tough and bad ass.

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Oh my GOD!! How did this miss me? My Trapper Keeper deserved better.

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Jan 12Liked by Kevin Alexander

I want to say maybe I traded something for one of these.

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Lol. Mine too. I also somehow ended up with a fabric/homemade pencil pouch, which was absolutely zero help with my social standing.

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Wow - another "Panama" lover! Yeah, that's my favourite too, though most the people I know would choose "Hot for Teacher".

I guess I never really looked at it this way before, but was "1984" the first mainstream Metal album? If so, it probably goes a long way to explaining why bands like Van Halen became "Hard Rock" rather than Metal on down the road. (Hair Metal owes a lot to DLR too, methinks...)

This might be my favourite VH record, though Van Halen I is up there. Kind of weird comparing them since they are so different. But there you go.

Wow - 40 years. I'm not sure "Jump" holds up today (or maybe I've just heard it too many times...) but the other songs on the album do. Love "I'll Wait" and even "Hot for Teacher". "Drop Dead Legs" is a great bridge song between early VH and Van Hagar, especially Poundcake.

I'll give it a spin today if I can find the time...

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Good question on whether or not it was the first mainstream metal album. I might make the case for Judas Priest's 'Screaming For Vengeance,' but that's a admittedly a stretch based mostly on my memory of seeing 'You Got Another Thing Coming' in heavy rotation on MTV.

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In my circles, we certainly knew of Judas Priest, but I don't remember thinking it was "mainstream" until Turbo Lover (back then, "mainstream" being the equivalent to a band that "sold out" of course... lol).

But yeah, that's a murky question for sure. I've been thinking about it - you could almost make a case for Pyromania too, but I'd say that album went mainstream in retrospect after Hysteria came out.

So 1984 is still a strong contender for this (perhaps irrelevant) honour...

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'Fair Warning' was/is my favorite VH album. The record rocks harder and ventures down darker territories than the previous ones. "Mean Streets" is Eddie at his best and the synchronicity between Eddie, Alex and Michael in that particular track is VH at their best. To follow it up with "Diver Down" was a real let down and the point where I bowed out.

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This album blew through the halls of my high school’s gym and pool, parking lot, and blared from every car stereo “up and down the avenue”. Which, in my town, is First Avenue. It was my Senior year of high school. Hall and Oats, the Tubes, and Journey (God forbid), were the other most popular groups that year. You still can’t escape having to put up with having to hear a Journey song on the radio, or by a cover band. I don’t even think they put an album out in 1984, but you couldn’t discount them because they were like the ward on the end of your nose. Anyway. This is about Van Halen.

If there was one band that everybody rocked out on, it was Van Halen. And it meshed so well with those checkerboard Vans sneakers, jeans jackets and teased hair. The guys in the high school parking lot tried to “Jump” to the song lyrics, before going into a public air guitar solo (bet they would have turned beet red if anyone had brought that up at our 40th reunion last Labor Day Weekend).

I was in charge of the music selection for our reunion. I couldn’t believe the sword I wielded. I alone was determined to make it a great night for everyone, and I refused to put Journey on our playlist. I just didn’t want to gag at even the thought of hearing Steve Perry.

But Van Halen? Hell ya. I can’t think of too many bands that brought a broader cross section of guys together who never socialized my school.

It wasn’t easy being the quiet girl with such outlandish rock and roll taste. And I didn’t have a car. I wasn’t cute either, so I had to walk the 1.9 miles home before I could watch my MTV. I wished I could hang out with the guys back at the parking lot.

1984 was iconic in retrospect. It summed up so much of what went unsaid at the way it transformed my high school class on the verge of its ticket out the door. Although “Hot for Teacher” wasn’t one of those songs that played out its fantasy. Thank God. We were still a bit too innocent.

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I love this, and I love that you intentionally left Journey of the reunion playlist! Bwahaha. I think I've mentioned it before, but at work, we can only get 2 stations on the radio one is classic rock, and the other is a "hits of the 80s" channel. The latter plays Journey so often that it's become a running joke on how long into the day it'll be before we hear the first one. We rarely make it more than an hour.

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Jan 10Liked by Kevin Alexander

A year or so ago I did a complete VH listen through, including solo records and 1984 was my number 1

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Nice! Just out of curiosity, what came in 2nd?

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Jan 12Liked by Kevin Alexander

The debut!

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Right on!

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Jan 10Liked by Kevin Alexander

I actually prefer Aztec Camera loaded version of Jump.

https://youtu.be/4bzKzbucdnE

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Yeah- I can listen to this anytime....the original, not so much.

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How have I never heard this before?!

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"Jump" was never a particular favorite of mine because there are so many other great things musically on "1984", and it was so overplayed on the radio. Although VH was at a turning point in so many ways on this album, I think everyone agrees that "VHRoth" was always a totally different animal than "VHHagar". I often wonder what "Crazy from the Heat" and "Eat Em' and Smile" would've sounded like had Dave taken those songs to the rest of the band instead of turning to a young Steve Vai to shred out the riffs.

Now that we have the luxury of being able to look at the complete discography of the band it's clear the "VHH" lineup simply could not have done what "VHR" did at the time on "1984". Roth's talents were a polar opposite from Hagar, and having seen the band several times with both frontmen I winced when I heard Hagar sing the Roth hits, while, thank goodness, I never saw Roth attempt the Hagar material. I can't imagine Diamond Dave digging into "When It's Love" or "Can't Stop Lovin' You".

Sammy is a good front man for sure, but he just lacks that "thing" in his stage presence that DLR just naturally had in front of an audience. Sam made up for that shortfall with his vocal and guitar abilities but Dave lacked in both of those departments. DLR made up for those weak points in dump truck size loads of pure showmanship with his high leg kicks, bouncing from one side of the stage to the other and his signature show ending, toe touching acrobatic jump from the drum riser. That was all OK because EVH was the real musician in the band along with the best rock rhythm section in the business.

Unlike Sammy, Diamond Dave sent lightning bolts of energy through your speakers and into the audience at live shows. Watching Dave work the 670,000 strong crowd at the US Festival in 1983 https://youtu.be/igdZKgESbJU?si=4JtFRlOJSUkdMrqZ should be required viewing of any serious music student. (Make sure you listen for the greatest line ever said to a fan from stage at the 21:33 mark)

All that said, I really enjoy both versions of VH because as a musician I hear two musical lives of the band and can see it as it relates to a young person growing up and changing with the times. Hell, I grew up with these albums, and I wore out several needles on my record player on "1984", so maybe I see a little of my life's own journey in them.

Perhaps I heard it best in 2002 during the initial run of the Sammy Hagar/David Lee Roth co-headlining tour when two extremely intoxicated fans sitting in front of me were debating who was better. One fella put his beer down and looked at his friend and exclaimed, "I just had an epiphany! Sammy tries to party but David Lee IS THE PARTY!"

Long live "1984"!

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Hell yeah. And honestly, that last line nails better than I could what makes "VHR" special.

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Theres a longer story, but to try and be be quick; I had the pleasure of meeting EVH twice (both times at NAMM) and AVH once. I'm a professional drummer and owned a music school/retail store for 26 years. My mentor when I was starting out as a serious player was Jim Chapin, father to Harry Chapin, and one of the greatest drum teachers ever. I ended up managing Jim during the last part of his career and we were in CA for a drum clinic when Jim was "summoned" by Al for a lesson at his house. Amazing day for sure. Ed was just wandering around the show floor at NAMM and I was standing with a friend of mine that works at Fender when Ed walked by. My buddy stopped Ed and they were chatting and he introduced us. Ed invited me by the booth to see his latest line of guitars and we ended up talking shop for about an hour in the booth later that day. Brilliant guy in so many ways.

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I love it!

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Jan 10Liked by Kevin Alexander

You could not escape 1984 — or the apocryphal references — the year this came out. It's one of those albums forever time stamped in my brain, not just because of the synthesizer on "Jump."

Not sure if it was intentional on the band's part, but I blame Van Halen's massive success with 1984 for much of the horrible music production we were stuck with in the late 1980s.

Most of that was hair metal, a genre that — with the exception of isolated songs — I never got into. Unfortunately, because record companies at the time were nothing if not copycats, it also creeped into bands that had become my lifelines. In many respects, I think you can draw a mostly straight line from 1984 to the worst elements of X's "Ain't Love Grand" and The Replacements' "Don't Tell A Soul." And we all know what happened to those bands after that...

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Jan 10Liked by Kevin Alexander

What a great story, Kevin.

For me, this song is also very much about a friendship. One shorter lived than yours, though. But still.

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Thank you, Arjan!

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Jan 10Liked by Kevin Alexander

I was in college in 1984 and few in my arty circle would admit to liking Van Halen, but I always got a thrill from what I heard on the radio. So, when a copy of 1984 landed in the reject pile at the radio station, I gladly took it back to my dorm room. There I discovered many wonders beyond Jump (also wonderful) and became a committed DLR-era fan. Finally got to see them in 2007 and it was incredibly fun!

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The only correct answer to the "question" is Van Halen, not Van Hagar. Panama is my favorite too, btw!

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Haha. Yes!

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Jan 10Liked by Kevin Alexander

Love the school age setup on this one because that’s what 1984 always reminds me of as well. Being a touch younger I knew all of the radio hits but when I picked up guitar in middle school, Eddie was a huge part of my interests, even if I looked at the tabs for Eruption and thought, “yeah, not going to be able to play that one!” Grabbed 1984 on vinyl for probably two bucks back when you could do that, and the loved the synths, especially on the opening title track, which I feel like was this era’s answer to Eruption.

I actually like Van Hagar quite a bit if you look at it as a different band but one of my favorite memories was going to the David Lee Roth reunion tour with my dad. It doesn’t look like it’s streaming right now (c’mon!) but also think their reunion album A Different Kind of Truth was way better than it has any right to be. RIP Eddie.

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Wait; do you still play? Love that you were able to go to shows with your dad, too!

RIP Eddie indeed! And RIP to the era of picking up vinyl for 2 bucks.

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Jan 12Liked by Kevin Alexander

I have many guitars and an inherited banjo but rarely play them unfortunately. Biz side more interesting to me these days.

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Jan 10Liked by Kevin Alexander

Enjoy

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Jan 10Liked by Kevin Alexander

No slight intended at all to the author, but I turn the dial whenever Jump comes on SiriusXM or my local Phoenix classic rock station. And I consider myself a big VH fan - both the Roth and Hagar years. 1984 as an album was alright in my humble opinion. I'll Wait, Panama and Hot For Teacher are great tracks though. 5150 is WAY better than 1984.

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No offense taken! Us Kevins have to stick together. :)

Seriously though, the song means more to me because of the friendship it launched than anything else.

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Jan 11Liked by Kevin Alexander

And that's what it's generally about with certain songs! Take it easy.

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Jan 10Liked by Kevin Alexander

What makes the album magic is the juxtaposition of sterile tones driven by 100% human performance. Just listen to the isolated drum parts and the middle section of the chord changes on Jump. It’s head spinning but totally accessible. This sound gets copied by others for much of the rest of the 80s but doesn’t work because it’s mostly programmed and sequenced.

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Great point! I know VH is a little out of the DMO wheelhouse, but have you guys ever covered any of their records?

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https://digmeout.substack.com/p/252-van-halen-in-the-90s-round-table-a52

our Van Halen in the 90s episode might be our most downloaded episode of Dig Me Out

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Fantastic! Thank you for both of these.

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