Even if it didn’t quite explicitly shout “JUMP!” at you a couple dozen times, the intent was unmistakable. The song’s sense of buoyancy and lift are head-smacking from its opening chords, and simply float higher and higher throughout the song’s relentlessly chugging four-minute runtime. If it was unclear from the band literally titling their new album 1984 that they were ready to take on all comers for the year in question, it would certainly be obvious from its lead single: “Jump,” a song as upwardly aspirational as any character from Wall Street. Luckily, they had a song with such a next-level leap built into its very DNA. If Van Halen were going to continue to compete in a field this crowded - saying nothing of the band’s countless spandex-wearing, fret-shredding acolytes, who would soon flood MTV to take their party-rock-turned-to-11 example to its logical extreme - they were going to need to step it up. But it was also a year for MTV-assisted veteran breakthroughs: Thanks largely to the channel’s added exposure, ’70s rock survivors The Cars, Bruce Springsteen and ZZ Top also scored the biggest pop hits of their career and were elevated to new levels of sales and stardom. It was the year when MTV’s impact on popular music would most profoundly be felt, with the channel’s galactic pop stars like Madonna, Prince and George Michael (with Wham!) and new wave imports like Culture Club and Duran Duran all scoring their first Hot 100 No. Still, whether or not the band realized it at the time, the stakes would be raised in 1984. 12-peaking “(Oh) Pretty Woman,” thanks in large part to heavy airplay of its naughty and surreal music video on a then-nascent MTV.Įddie Van Halen's 15 Best Songs: Staff Picks Each of their first five albums peaked as high or higher on the Billboard 200 albums chart than the one that preceded it, and the most recent of those albums (1982’s Diver Down) had also produced their biggest Billboard Hot 100 hit to date in the No. Their epochal self-titled 1978 debut album and subsequent tour opening for (and by many accounts, showing up) metal gods Black Sabbath had set new standards for harder, faster and uh, limber-er in American hard rock. 1: the eternally triumphant “Jump.”īy 1984, Van Halen weren’t just one of the biggest rock bands in the world, they were already a cultural institution. 6), by diving into his eponymous group’s lone No. Here, we honor the late Eddie Van Halen, who died this Tuesday (Oct. 1 single - by taking an extended look back at the chart-topping songs that made them part of this exclusive club.
1 is a Billboard series that pays special tribute to the recently deceased artists who achieved the highest honor our charts have to offer - a Billboard Hot 100 No. Eddie Van Halen died in 2020 after a battle with cancer.Forever No.
After his successful commercial run, Hagar ceded the vocalist position to Extreme’s Gary Cherone in the late ’90s, but Roth eventually returned to the fold-leading to Van Halen releasing the well-received A Different Kind of Truth in 2012 and embarking on several major tours. 1 albums in a row, starting with 1986’s 5150. Former Montrose frontman Sammy Hagar stepped in and immediately guided Van Halen to four No. 1 hit “Jump” and the rock blockbuster 1984 Roth parted ways with the group soon after for a solo career. The original lineup’s popularity peaked with the keyboard-iced 1984 No. Diamond Dave’s over-the-top stage demeanor and vocal calisthenics gave the band a theatrical edge-later abetted by playful videos-that revolutionized rock well into the ’80s.
Eddie wielded virtuosic guitar technique (the use of finger-tapping on the instrumental “Eruption”) and a melodic, fluid playing style (“Runnin’ with the Devil,” the riff-heavy “Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love”) that complemented the vocal razzmatazz offered by the band’s frontman: David Lee Roth. Guitarist Eddie Van Halen and his drummer brother, Alex, initially started playing music together in the mid-’60s and graduated from gigs at backyard parties to shows in Hollywood, which led to a record deal and the band’s 1978 self-titled debut. In the late ’70s, hard rock was largely the domain of leather-clad metal aficionados and gruff growlers-until Van Halen came along to crash the party.