1984

The last album with Dave Lee Roth,and there are some great tracks on here!! Eddie's fretwork is beyond reproach and may set your brain on fire.

As everyone knows, their great frontman left after this amidst much recrimination and blaming-each-other on the parts of EVH and Roth. It`s pretty scary that it all happened 23 years ago (I missed it being too traumatising back then, due to my age)...but if only Eddie wasn`t in and out of rehab in 2007 and they could just get along I`d still love to see the classic VH line-up live, and even better, record some new stuff.I still think 6 amazing albums is a pretty decent output, and can`t think of many other bands who`ve managed that. 1984 isn`t my favourite, but it`s still a stunning, 5-star effort. The band weren`t all that happy with Eddie starting to throw a few keyboard numbers in and I think I agree with them, but "Jump" and "I`ll Wait" are great songs, just not the hard rock we`d learned to adore from the previous albums. "Jump" has one of Eddie`s greatest guitar solos on for sure. It`s not really that song though that makes the album so special. There a three or four others that are a sign of a band at it`s absolute peak. Firstly, "Panama", classic Roth, with the sort of tongue-in-cheek sleaze that VH never showcased again with Sammy Hagar. Classic Eddie too, he just blows me away every song. Alex and Mike are great as ever too. "Hot For Teacher" is wonderful too, funny and loud and a real party song! "Top Jimmy", "Drop Dead Legs" and "Girl Gone Bad" would be career-best songs by any other rock `n` roll band. My favourite song though is one of the less heralded VH tracks and the album closer, "House of Pain". It`s almost as though Eddie had distilled all his anger with Roth`s antics and released it in the form of this huge, monster of an attacking solo. It was one of the earliest written VH songs that missed the cut on all their other albums but Alex insisted it was on this time and thank God. If I could play the solo I would die a satisfied man...it`s amazing and I`m always stunned by it...I know guitar playing isn`t all about speed, and that`s why I love EVH because the feel is incredible too and it`s perfect.So, buy it. And revel in the greatest four-piece rock band there ever was (and who knows...perhaps they will be again one day)!

Rarely review items as a bit lazy like that, however decided to for this one.If you are an audiophile and have to put up with a real mix of qaulity when purchasing vinyl you will understand how hit and miss it can be. Sometimes it may be the fact that the record is warped or just doesn't sound that great and you are left wondering have you just got a pressing from a remastered digital source ......well not the case here ...it stated 'from the original analogue tapes' and you can tell it is.I don't need to review the music for obvious reasons, but out of the 250 new vinyls i have bought in the last 5 years (most of which i owned on vinyl,replaced with a CD and have bought again for some reason) this is one of the best sounding.If you like this album and were wondering i hope this review helps....on my 4th play and it turned up a few hours ago !

So like everyone else on the planet of course I know the mega-hit Jump by Van Halen but for some reason, maybe it was the idea of Eddie Van Halen's guitar shredding (don't ask me what that means but I'd assumed I didn't like it) or the bands uber-metal sounding name but something had hitherto put me off investigating Van Halen. But you have to start sometime, somewhere and so 33 years after its release I bought 1984 (for less than a fiver) and dived into Van Halen. Perhaps not head first as 1984 is a soft safe start having the afore mentioned mega-hit as its second track, and having sold 12 million copies in the US alone it had to have something about it; and you know what it does. This isn't a one song album, all the songs are great, although the goofing around at the start of Hot For Teacher is a bit naff and not really fitting for men who are now in their third age. But end-to-end this album rocks, its not the metal album I had supposed it to be, its just good old fashioned heads-down guitar driven rock but with a supporting cast of synthesiser and keyboards. So my first Van Halen album is a big five star thumbs up, but, if as so many other reviewers have suggested this is VH's best album, where do I go next to avoid disappointment. Thoughts welcomed!

Remastered nicely, could have done with a little more umph. Still a little tiny

Van Halen; the genius of Eddie's playing, the pounding of Alex's drums with Michael Anthony's bass rhythm and then the delivery of the unique vocals done by Dave Lee Roth (someone who must be one of the best show/front men of the rock genre) and you have the perfect cocktail that just hits the mark every time !!!!!!! The (probably without knowing it at the time) original innovators of glam metal were just way ahead of anything that had gone before in nearly every respect - Van Halen's classic line-up of Eddie, Alex, Michael and Dave together, were just the 100% perfect recipe!!This was the final album from the classic line-up and, what an album it is with tracks like House Of Pain and Girl Gone Bad that could easily have been put on their very first debut album as they sound and, are, soooooo good !!!! Other tracks like Panama and Hot For Teacher just kick ass - fabulous!!!If you wanna listen to Van Halen, buy the CD's with this line-up of the band.