Album dossier / 1984

1984

Van Halen · Hard Rock

The last David Lee Roth-fronted Van Halen album before his 1985 departure, its synthesizer-driven hit 'Jump' spent five weeks at #1 and marked the peak of the band's classic lineup. It was the first album recorded at Eddie Van Halen's own 5150 Studios, a home facility he built with longtime engineer Donn Landee specifically to escape producer Ted Templeman's cover-song-first philosophy after clashing with him on 'Diver Down'; Van Halen has said he initially only wanted a demo room but Landee insisted 'we're going to make records up here.' Roth and the rest of the band initially resisted 'Jump' as a synth song ('you're a guitar hero, nobody wants to hear you play the keyboards'), but Templeman backed it once he heard the 5150 demo, reportedly caring little for the rest of the album beyond that single hit. Mixing became a battle of its own: Van Halen and Landee allegedly stalled handing over the master tapes to Templeman for roughly two weeks, forcing Warner Bros. to prepare a backup mix at Sunset Sound before Landee finally delivered the real masters.