![]() From the very beginning, 5150 was a fully professional facility, starting off as a 16-track studio equipped with classic gear that, while it seemed outdated during its time of installation in 5150, was more than up to the task of capturing Ed’s ideas in a polished, finished state that was suitable for release.ġ984 was the first album to come from 5150 Studios, and the studio has remained Van Halen’s home base for all of the albums the band has recorded since then. Of course, the facility now known as 5150 Studios is not the ordinary home studio. alone.ġ984 is further notable for being one of the best-selling hard rock albums of all time, sharing lofty heights with company like AC/DC, Def Leppard, Guns N’ Roses, Led Zeppelin and Metallica.īut perhaps the most noteworthy attribute of 1984 is that it is likely the only Diamond-certified (sales of 10 million or more) album that was recorded entirely in a home studio. In total, the album delivered four singles – Jump, I’ll Wait, Panama and Hot for Teacher – which all remain staples of classic-rock radio today.ġ984 went on to become one of Van Halen’s all-time best-selling albums, matched only by their debut album, which also sold more than 10 million copies in the U.S. The fact that every song on the album was as strong as anything else in Van Halen’s catalog up to that point in time is also impressive. The showstoppers from a guitar perspective are Hot for Teacher, with its hot-rodded blues boogie shuffle, and Girl Gone Bad, featuring Van Halen’s signature harmonics, a dynamic progressive rock structure and a blazing solo filled with Allan Holdsworth–style legato runs. The pumping groove of Panama and the heavy-hitting House of Pain rocked as hard as anything the band had offered on its five previous albums, while Top Jimmy and Drop Dead Legs introduced entirely new territory that paved the way for the band’s next chapter.Įd’s dazzling guitar solos even elevated the keyboard-dominated songs Jump and I’ll Wait. While three of the album’s nine songs are dominated by synths, the entire album features some of Eddie Van Halen’s hottest and most impressive guitar playing ever. Music store keyboard departments were soon filled with the sounds of aspiring musicians playing ham-fisted versions of Jump, much the same way that guitar departments were subjected to novices attempting to play Stairway to Heaven.īut there is much more to 1984 than Jump, which incidentally was Van Halen’s first and only song to reach the Number One spot on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Almost overnight, sales of synthesizers increased exponentially, similar to the revolutionary boost in guitar sales that Van Halen influenced after the first Van Halen album made its debut, and fortuitously coinciding with the introduction of the first affordably priced polyphonic synths. ![]()
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