I Hate 1984: Van Halen's '1984'

The Working Dirtball's California Dreams

by G.R. Anderson, Jr.

Part One

The first album out of the gate in 1984 was, quite literally, Van Halen's 1984. In a brilliant piece of marketing strategy, it was released on New Year's Eve day (December 31, 1983), jumping ahead of the pack for the pop onslaught that was to come for the next 12 months or so. Of course, some of the big hits that year came from records that were released earlier--Michael Jackson's Thriller was in the middle of a long squat on the top of the Billboard album charts--but Van Halen managed to stake a claim on that year like no other band.

Sales savvy aside, there was an accidental feel to the record's success, especially its domination on the singles chart. Think about it: The first single, "I'll Wait" died quickly and quietly, only to be replaced by "Jump," an obnoxious piece of synth rock that actually hit number one on the strength of a video shot with a handheld camcorder by the band's drummer, Alex Van Halen. His brother Eddie was evidently stoned in the clip, frontman David Lee Roth was so full of hubris that he looked like he was coming back to fuck your sister again while bassist Michael Anthony was quietly raiding your parents' liquor cabinet. Or your beer stash. Whatever.

The point is, there was no reason for Van Halen to rise in the height of the pastel Reagan era. What started as a working-class band from Southern California had put out five platinum records with marginal singles chart action and no critical acclaim. It's tough to imagine now, but they were the leaders of a rock underworld--the Atomic Punks, as Diamond Dave proclaimed on Van Halen I--that had far more to do with a punk/immigrant entrepreneurship than Madonna's bustier. Don't believe me? The cost of the "Jump" video: $100. The song roosted at number one for most of the spring.

In other words, the dirtballs triumphed. This was not lost on me as I hit the parking lot my first day of high school, as a freshman, and hung out with leather-jacketed dudes in vo-tech who skipped class smoking bowls and Marlboros on the hoods of their Impalas, Cameros and Skylarks. They blasted 1984; and they were happy for the attention. I was a shade over 5 feet tall, and 97 pounds with my braces, and wore a button-down Oxford with a red argyle crewneck. I knew Van Halen intimately. They welcomed me immediately.

Part Two

I suppose I should talk a bit about the music. But let me start by saying too much has been said about the "Orwellian" title, 1984. Roth is erudite enough--he once quipped that most metalheads understood Voltaire to be a kind of air conditioner--but I'm pretty sure nobody in the band thought much about the implications of the name of the record. They were too focused on the rock.

Ted Templeman, the band's producer during the golden age of VH--those first six records with Roth as the lead singer are still somehow underrated--told Rolling Stone years ago that the band was "balls to the wall" while recording 1984, and it shows. The purists derided the keyboard intro of the titular track, and the wussy flava of "Jump" to boot. ("I'll Wait" was another keyboard song, and that's why it failed at first. It was later re-released as the album's fourth single to hit the top 20.)

But the purists were missing the point; the Halen boys weren't out to follow a trend so much as subvert it. And they did that with "Panama," which followed "Jump" on the record and as a single.

Now this was a revelation: Never had such a woozy combo of California burgers and cheap beer come out of my AM radio or my brand-spanking maroon Walkman. "Panama" made me feel drunk for the first time, dovetailed the band's pop sensibilities with the urge to fucking rock, and generally obliterated the misgivings anyone might have had about "Jump." (Itself a piece of unparalleled songcraft, if you could get past the sellout of it all.)

Best of all, it made no fucking sense. I defy anyone to explain to me what the hell "Panama" means. No matter: Once you've seen an arena of 14,000 people pumping their fists and yelling the chorus (oh, just do it now), you understand pretty much everything about how the rock universe works. Is that Dave's scream or Eddie's guitar? What the hell kind of time signature is Alex playing? And what's that "hairblower" sound in the bridge? (Answer: One of Eddie's Lamborghinis, close-miked, revving in neutral-so much for working class.) Ease the seat back indeed.

"Panama" remains one of Van Halen's--and one of pop's--best works of art. That it was played incessantly on top 40 radio slays me to this day.

Where do you go from here? The rest of the record is not my favorite Van Halen record (that distinction belongs to the still-frightening and oh-so-naughty Women and Children First), nor does it carry the headbanging legend of Van Halen I. But it is, objectively, the quintessential Van Halen record, and that's why it's sold more that 10 million copies since it was released.

The blues-boogie of "Top Jimmy," an ode to an L.A. club rat, follows "Panama," underscoring the band's street cred. Then comes "Drop Dead Legs," my favorite song on the album, which features Beatles harmonies over a stripper's chicka-boom-and the kind of melodic guitar work that Hendrix, even Hendrix, couldn't have pulled off.

Side Two (vinyl or cassette, downloaders) starts with the obscene rumble of "Hot for Teacher," a bombast that has spawned countless similarly themed porn Web sites, leading to "I'll Wait," the best power ballad this side of "Dream On," and nearly culminates with "Girl Gone Bad," the most audacious song ever written about a nubile Sunset Strip hooker.

The whole shebang ends with "House of Pain," a song that the band had been playing since its backyard kegger-party days of 1973, and foretells an impending doom. About 18 months after he laid down the final vocals for lyrics he had at hand for a decade, Diamond Dave quit the band.

Part Three

But none of this comes close to what 1984 actually meant. There was the most expensive and highest grossing tour ever mounted (at the time) in the wake of the record. There was Diamond Dave doing an interview on the fledgling Entertainment Tonight in bed, with an acoustic guitar on his lap and a busty blonde on each side. There was, of course, the thrill of hearing 'Hot for Teacher' next to Cyndi Lauper's "She Bop" on KDWB, and what that did to the pre-adolescent mind at the time I can't even tell you.

But I'll try. For me, the magic of Van Halen is found in the cover art for 1984, a coy angel that looks a little like Eddie and a little like Dave, mischievously stealing a smoke on a well-earned break from piety. (Roth yelping "Class dismissed" and "Oh my god" at the end of 'Hot for Teacher' nicely married the secular and non-secular in one stroke.) It's sinful, it's delightful, it's pretty much how everybody should feel listening to a Van Halen record. It's pure escape.

But more than that, it's a crucial part of the long-running narrative of California dreamin? The Beach Boys get credit for inventing it, and Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles honed it. Van Halen basically reinvented it, filling a void and paving the way for the Minutemen, The Chili Peppers, and even Tupac. Nada Surf and The OC wouldn't exist without VH. When I was a kid, I wanted to move to southern California just so I could live in Van Halen's world--the ocean, the beach, the riffs, the girls. It never happened.

Forgive me for a minute, as I'm suffering a hangover from still foolishly chasing the California dream. I just spent a week in L.A., and didn't hear one single Van Halen song. I stayed with my friend, whom I half-jokingly call Diamond Dave, and we always used to talk about turning on the Van Halen frequencies. It never happened.

But I felt it anyway: the never-ending party, the false bravado, the general good times of what Van Halen had hatched. But it was so 20 years ago; all I had was my imagination, and even Los Angeles doesn't want Van Halen anymore. They were once hometown heroes there, you know.

As I write this, there's talk of a Van Halen reunion tour with--blech--Sammy Hagar fronting the band. This is not the kind of thing that moves me: Hagar, after all, replaced Roth, and shut the door on everything that Van Halen was about. Songs became about love and commitment, loyalty and service; nothing about indulgence, sex, and drugs. Hagar made the band grow up, and because of this, ensured that Van Halen would become humorless and irrelevant. The workingman's escape had been co-opted into the myth of marital bliss. Fuck that. They might as well be John Mayer. (Roth, on the other hand, god bless him, has managed to get a bit part on The Sopranos. This seems significant to me.)

There's plenty of folks in the know who dismiss Van Halen outright, but they're simply snobs. For a while there, with Roth, Ed, Al and Mike were the best band on the face of the earth. They were the Beatles of metal, and in one California fall they made a defining record that, with any justice, will be seen on a par with Pet Sounds, Rumors, or Nevermind. 1984 combines all of those records, and it blows them all away.

But that was the point. Make an untouchable record, crash the top 40 party, steal the chicks and the beer, and get out. And that's what happened. Score one for the dirtballs.