Van Halen, 1984 released 25 years ago today!

[WARF]

Actually it's in a few more days 1/9/84.
Let's take the time to stroll back down memory lane...
Where were you when you first heard the album?
What was your first reaction upon hearing it?
The little fucking angel smokin' a stoogie is turning 25 years old!!
Post all the your thoughts about 1984 here!!!

[Va Beach VH Fan]

I was still in boot camp until late January...

When we graduated, I hit the Exchange (PX) and bought it, then we rented a car and headed straight for LA....

I thought Panama was outstanding the first time I heard it, and have never liked Jump...

Drop Dead Legs remains to this day one of the more underrated songs in CVH history...

[WARF]

Boot Camp?

I was still playin with my G.I. Joes!!! LOL

[hideyoursheep]

I was scared shitless.......the first cut I heard was "Jump".

I think it was new years day...on MTV.....then local radio started with "Panama" a few weeks later...I ran out and got it....loved it.....it was Feb. and I just dotted the I on my enlistment papers.....VH was coming in Mar.7 to Cincy.....sold out fast!....another show was added! I was pumped! Then got the orders to report to MEPS and get on the bus for Ft Knox....Mar. fucking 7th!......all I could do is look out the window @ the parking lot on the way down....very depressing....


Wound up catching the MOR tour in Sept. in Nuremburg, FRG. They weren't the same...

I think that might have been the last show they played together...someone verify that for me?



BTW....AC/DC kicked all ass!

[Va Beach VH Fan]

Boot Camp?

I was still playin with my G.I. Joes!!! LOL

You're still a young pup....

[Jérôme Frenchise]

Actually it's in a few more days 1/9/84.
Let's take the time to stroll back down memory lane...
Where were you when you first heard the album?
What was your first reaction upon hearing it?
The little fucking angel smokin' a stoogie is turning 25 years old!!
Post all the your thoughts about 1984 here!!!

25 years ago... Dammit! It never seems that far behind as I've never stopped listening to the album. Those days are still fresh as milk out of a cow's udder.

I was 13, I'd been seeing the "Jump" video on French TV since January and hearing "Jump" and "I'll wait" which aren't my fave VH tunes by far but sound so much better and kickass than anything back then - as far as shit with goddamn keyboards, I mean. I had seen the "You really got me" vid when I was 8, but I don't think I realized they were the same band...

Anyway, I bought the album in May during my first one-week trip to London. I would make our coach driver play the album while we were touring around the city, and on our way back to Dover. Most kids were amazed and delighted with the whole album - our teachers were just amazed and would try to make the driver stop it when "Hot for teacher" started (they didn't even know about the title, the tribal drum intro and the guitar alone got them crazy).

"Panama" was the favorite in the coach, but I remember "Drop Dead Legs" was already my fave - I have to agree with Va Beach VH Fan about it being "the most underrated VH song"!

[DEMON CUNT]

I was not quite old enough to drive at the time, so I talked my Mom into driving me down to Safeway (they carried LPs and cassettes back then) to pick up a copy. On the way home I threw 1984 into the tape deck and cranked it. Mom thought "Jump" was alright, but wasn't so sure about Dave reaching down between his legs and easing the seat back. "What did he just say?!?"

A few days later the Jump video came on TV. I called Mom into the room and made her watch. After watching Dave dance around for a little while she said "Damn! He's good lookin'!"

It was a great time to be a Van Halen fan.

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[Dr. Penis]

Much like Demon Cunt's mother, I was fascinating with Dave's ass shaking antics.

It would be several years before I finally got to taste the Roth cock in my mouth.

But, alas, neither of us left the experience disappointed.

Your pal,
Dr. Penis

[ThrillsNSpills]

Hearing House of Pain cranked for the first time just blew me away.
The song breaks into a stampede and the lead is amazing.
Drop Dead Legs was an instant classic.
I was disappointed with Jump though at the time, agreeing with Roth that people wanted to hear Ed just play guitar.

[Romeo Delight]

the first song I heard was 1984 and I thought it was an intro to Mr Robotto from Styx...seriously play one after another.

[jero]

Fuck we're getting old

[DlocRoth]

My folks would have their friends over, get high and drunk and crank '84...

The old man loved it.

What's funny is it's EXACTLY what I do now.......

Yeah dudes, we ARE getting old..... LMAO

[GAR]

I was really disappointed with "Jump" which jumped-the-shark for me with this band.

I first met EVH when I was 10 at a grad party down the street, he let me hold the guitar during a break and showed me an open A barre chord. At summer camp age 9 I held the counselor's 12 string acoustic, but that was the first time I ever held an electric, Ed had a yellow Explorer. I knew then I wanted to play guitar even if it didn't sound like what I'd heard on Beatles records.

Strapped on, the guitar went past my knees. I went "bomp bomp bomp" and he turned the volume down low because it squeeled. Some drunken fat college chicks cheered. The singer says "hey quit fucking around with the kids and lets play"..

This is the band I followed from obscurity on up to the local heros who made it to doing a record, to getting on the radio, then getting another one on radio, to getting on the magazine covers.. then they put out "1984" and I knew that was the end for me sitting in the Van Halen Cheering section at the back of the class.

I remember Los Angeles KLOS FM had been a strong supporter of VH for many years but had taken to the gap between "Diver Down" and "1984" to airplay more commercial-friendly tunes with synthesizers such as Def Leppard stuff, and when "Jump" came out it was a real let-down.

Year after year, like hand over fist, each album got progressively harder guitar, darker and faster. "Hot For Teacher" seemed to take the mantle forward from the previous highpoint in Diver Down's "One Foot Out The Door" yet "Jump" just pissed over everything else in it's swishy path. I didn't hear "Girl Gone Bad" until years later because it wasn't a radio single.. xlnt friggin tune. "Drop Dead Legs" was a great and heavy tune, xlnt rock n roll really good stuff.

However to this day I still do not and will not own 1984: it has this uniquely thin sound to it I'd ascribe to the garage-based aspect of its' recording origins.. the inclusion of "Jump" and "1984" with all them keyboard synths it just really really wrecked it for me.

I always looked forward to a Van Halen record you could just lay back on your bed after the mad rush home on your bike to get in and experience it like a new feeling.. then replay, replay and replay it some more till dinnertime. Afterwhich I'd fall asleep listening thru the headphones as I did with:

VH2
WACF
Fair Warning
Diver Down

I just could never understand why such a hot-cold mix of the crap along with the gold could happen to a Van Halen record like it occured on "1984" and I thought things couldn't be any worse.. and then along came 1985, naturally.

Ever since "1984" I had been awaiting a revival in Van Halen music, it has nothing to do with being local heroes to me.. I lost respect for them as a teen after finding out they were such pro-drug degenerates yet held out the hope of that awesome experience of hearing newer and never-before-heard sonic scenes of heavy metal pop music; the R & B of it, the whole pop-rock 3-minute culture clip of each song, what it said, how it was expressed and the backing vocals of it all (ie "..get get get out and push" "break like the wind, watch where she blows), how Roth rode the fence of decency and comedy with clever euphemisms like that..

I just always hoped for that experience again, where you could sit back and just follow one song after the other and drift.. one album with the continuous vibe to it. It stopped happening with "1984" and it hasn't happened since.

That's my take on 1984. I know most peoples' favorite song or riffs are off "Hot For Teacher" but "House of Pain" is my favorite to turn up when it comes on the radio.. the whole vocal expression on that was immense and I think for me that's where Roth left off in Van Halen because the next songs "Me Wise Magic" and the other one from Best Of kinda dovetail from there and work together.

I hope any new album this year "dovetails" from there, integrating the best of 1984 yet leaving the crappy synths shit out of it. And yeah I can hope all I want to, but having towed the line in following this band from the very start there are a few things I should have the expectations of seeing - one of them is the supposed high-quality guitar compositions, the four-part harmonies with Mike in there, no keyboards, and the one vocalist to deliver it to the people like noones business, Diamond Dave.

In the meantime, there's always the back catalogues of other lesser artists to catch up on that I never got involved with such as The Carpenters, New Christy Minstrels, Simon and Garfunkle and Sammy Hagar.

[moose]

Was a cold fuckin night back then,,,,I just finished smokin a fatty with sum chick and we was diggin in the back seat of sum fuckin boat of a car listinin to Q107 when they played the track Jump, I can still vizualize them teets in front of me when the tune came on I totally forgot about the task at hand and concentrated on lisitin to the MIGHTY VAN HALEN and this new tune........... FUCK those were the dayz.....thanx I needed that blast from the past
I hate getting old!!!!!

[julesk]

Much like Demon Cunt's mother, I was fascinating with Dave's ass shaking antics.

It would be several years before I finally got to taste the Warf cock in my mouth.

But, alas, neither of us left the experience disappointed.

Your pal,
Dr. Penis

memories to cherish....