# Talk:1984 (Van Halen album)

The synthesizer that Eddie Van Halen plays is an Oberheim OB-X, not OB-Xa. 
And due to the different circuitry the sound is very different! 
As you can see in the linked page (https://web.archive.org/web/20180410072509/http://www.gibson.com/News-Lifestyle/Features/en-us/flashback-eddie-van-halen-on.aspx) in the photo Eddie plays the grey one (OB-X) not the blue one (OB-Xa)
https://web.archive.org/web/20180614172235im_/http://images.gibson.com/Lifestyle/English/aaFeaturesImages/Eddie%20Van%20Halen%20keyboards.jpg
While in the videoclip he pretends plays an OB-Xa, the sound he actually recorded in the song - as we know - come from the OB-X.
Thanks.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.15.34.95 (talk) 09:18, 29 January 2020 (UTC) 

Was this album first released on Vinyl or CD? because the track listing should reflect whatever the newest format used on the day of first release. Hence if it was released on CD later, there should be a "Side One, Side Two" in the track listing. Axcess (talk) 19:42, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Cds weren't commonly around in 1984 from my memory. The main production would have been cassette tape and vinyl.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:99C2:5B00:9CBD:5C01:325A:4DB9 (talk) 18:46, 20 August 2020 (UTC) 

Some things need to be either verified (Who considers it a milestone in rock history? How is Jump one of the biggest songs ever? Who decided what tracks off of the album are classics or not?). One entire paragraph in particular makes the article NPOV:

Irk(talk) 02:09, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I took a look at the sections you mentioned and I think I've managed to make them more NPOV. I got rid of unnecessary adjectives and exaggerations and added some reference links to the larger claims made in the article. Hopefully this improves overall quality.Transego 08:24, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

The references still need some work. Or better put, the article needs to be edited to match the references. For example, the article states that 1984 "is considered by many to be a milestone in rock history," but the referenced article doesn't call the album a milestone, and certainly doesn't show that "many" think it's a milestone. Several songs are called "classics," but the referenced article merely states the songs (actually 3 of the 4) are classics as well. That doesn't prove anything. You can say, "so-and-so called these songs classics," but beyond quotes I would avoid the word classic as hopelessly POV. Make only objectively supportable claims.
Also, as of right now, the references aren't showing up in the article, only on the editing page. Something isn't formatted correctly.--emw 15:11, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
I believe I have edited out all of the POV for now.  The source given wasn't even reliable - it's a page from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame that might very well be copy they received from Van Halen's PR agency. --Spike Wilbury ♫ talk 19:05, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

As I was surfing the various Van Halen pages here, I began to notice that most occurrences of "1984" had been replaced with "MCMLXXXIV". Most of these changes appear to have been made by User:Wiendietry. Although this is how the name of the album is printed on its front cover, a google search for MCMLXXXIV yields only 4410 results whereas a google search for 1984 yields 535000. In addition, almost all of the Van Halen discographies turned up by this google search refer to this album as 1984. What are everybody else's thoughts on this?
Linkminer 22:01, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

If you look at the edit history for this talk page, you will see that the article was moved to MCMLXXXIV recently, and then moved back by me for the reason you mention. When doing this I took into account the fact that 1984 is the more common name, and that the back cover of the album refers to it by that name. --PEJL 22:07, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I did see that, but I'm referring to something else (and if I recall correctly, that move was performed by someone else). I'm referring to changes that are being made to various Van Halen pages that refer to this album. These pages include Hot for Teacher, Jump (Van Halen song), House of Pain (disambiguation), Panama (song), The Best of Both Worlds (Van Halen album), Women in Love (Van Halen song), 5150 (album), 5150 Studios, Van Halen Discography, and many others (search for MCMLXXXIV for a complete list). I figured it makes sense to put this discussion here because it concerns the topic of this article. Linkminer 22:46, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
I realize you were technically referring to something else, but these should all use the same title, so it's really the same issue. In general, I think the name of the article should be the primary source of the title, and other articles should adapt to the title used there. --PEJL 00:45, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
I have two copies of the album on vinyl.  One copy says 1984, the other has a large MCMetc sticker covering up the cigarette packet.  An issue of censorship? Thedarxide (talk) 19:57, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

  
    
      
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There should be a paragraph on the musical development of 1984.  Something like this:
In terms of musical content, 1984 marks the end of the first chapter of Van Halen's recording career, and the start of the new chapter.  The new chapter involved Eddie Van Halen increasingly writing pop oriented songs on keyboard, and recording at his home studio, 5150, which gave him more control and freedom.  2 songs, "Jump", and "I'll Wait", represent this new direction.  However the Van Halen traditional guitar sound dominates the album - two thirds of songs feature no keyboards at all.  This sharp division of synth-dominant pop rock, and 3-piece party rock, would continue on the next two albums (5150, OU812).  Because the synth-dominant songs invariably became the radio-played singles, 1984 also began the popular misconception that Van Halen had completely changed to a pop-metal band.    
Closer examination reveals that songs on the album can be quite sharply divided into 3 categories:
1.  Synth driven: "Jump", "I'll Wait"
2.  Traditional,  simple: "Panama", "Hot For Teacher"
3.  Experimental, complex:  "Top Jimmy", "1984", "Girl Gone Bad", "House of Pain"
In the second category, Eddie uses variations on the same themes present on the first, and arguably most popular, Van Halen album, the self-titled debut.  Hence, "Hot for Teacher" is a souped-up, southern boogified "I'm The One", and "Panama" heats up the concert mosh of "Running With The Devil."  
The third category of songs feature Eddie Van Halen experimenting with non-pop song structures, alternate tunings, and key modulation.  It's a thread which is present on 1981's "Fair Warning", but which, after sales were disappointing, was absent from the much more commercial "Diver Down."  However, much of 1984 feels much like a continuation and refinement of the band's more adventurous  ideas on "Fair Warning."   The song "1984" is an instrumental, basically an improvisation by Eddie on an Oberheim OB-Xa synth.  "Girl Gone Bad" and "House of Pain" feature time changes, rapid key modulations, and relatively long instrumental sections.  Essentially this third category is Eddie Van Halen straining to fit harmonic and structural complexity into a short, high energy rock format.  Although the results, both commercially and critically, were an unreserved success, this third category, would be dropped after this album, and not be picked up again until the recordings with Roth for the greatest hits album ("Me Wise Magic", and "You Can't Get This Stuff No More").

This article says that the album has been released on the 9th of January of 1984. In the past I read that the album was released on the 31st of December of 1983. I wonder if any of you has read the same information somewhere.
ICE77 -- 84.223.76.36 12:56, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

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BetacommandBot (talk) 15:47, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/vanhalen/albums/album/236834/review/6067491/1984
In 1984 (Van Halen album) on 2011-05-25 05:08:42, 404 Not Found
In 1984 (Van Halen album) on 2011-06-07 03:45:30, 404 Not Found
--JeffGBot (talk) 03:45, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
£== Theme Songs ==
This section says "public outcry for the use of the song."
Outcry implies indignation, so I at first wondered if they were angry about the use of the song. Maybe the original author or someone else would like to adjust the sentence a bit.
TheStrawDog (talk) 08:48, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

I removed this: " Little did the band know that Jeffries had a metal plate in his head, and shouldn't have been consuming alcohol. When Jeffries got back to his hotel room he began vomiting and breaking dishes, he had been taking anti-seizure medication. " as it is potentially problematic for many reasons.  It was tagged for references some time ago.  98.67.186.108 (talk) 03:15, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:1984 (Van Halen album)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Jclemens (talk · contribs) 02:01, 9 January 2017 (UTC)


### First Pass
"Along with their debut album, it is Van Halen's biggest-selling album, with 10 million copies shipped in the United States.[4]" Awkward.  "This and their debut album are Van Halen's biggest selling albums, each having sold more than 10 million copies"?
 Done
"Reportedly dissatisfied by the concessions he had made to Van Halen's frontman David Lee Roth and producer Ted Templeman on the group's previous album, the #3 Billboard album hit Diver Down—both of whom had discouraged Eddie Van Halen from making keyboards a prominent instrument in Van Halen's music—Eddie built his own studio in his backyard, naming it 5150 (after the Los Angeles police code for "escaped mental patient.")"  Nothing particularly wrong with that sentence... except that it is all one sentence!  Break it up a bit for easier reading, please.
 Done  Comment - Shortened completely
The quotation marks in the Rolling Stone quotation which makes up the latter half of the Recording section do not match.  Also, make sure to alternate between single and double quotes to indicate quotes within quotes.
 Done  Comment - Shortened completely
"1984 features Van Halen's most prominent use of keyboards to date"  What do you mean by 'to date'?  Was it just the most at the time of release?  Or have they never gotten any more keyboard-prominent in any of their subsequent studio albums?
 Done  Removed
"The summer saw the release of the album's third single "Panama"," Of what year?  You just talked about the 1982 world tour in the preceding sentence.
 Done - Specified year
"The album concludes with "House of Pain", a fiery, heavy metal song that dates back to the band's early club days of the mid-1970s." It SOUNDS like the mid 1970s Van Halen songs, or it was written that long ago? If the former "reminiscent of" or similar would be clearer.
 Done - It is from the 70s, added ref.
Note and address the 'specify' tag, please.
 Done - Couldn't find a source for that interview. removed, re-written and sourced.
Watch for "claims", especially when both DLR and EVH substantively agree.
 Done - Cleared up I think?
"The cover, featuring as it did the smoking putto, was 'censored' in the UK by the addition of a sticker that obscured the cigarette in the putti's hand, and the packet of cigarettes; but the censoring of the cover is cancelled." 1) needs a cite, 2) putto or putti?, 3) scare quotes on censored?, 4) Implemented by whom? Cancelled by whom?
 Done - Cleared up, sourced.
"Like many bands starting out on their career, Van Halen shared songwriting credit equally between all members (including guitar instrumentals, which were clearly composed only by Eddie), but subsequent claims would lend credibility to the view that all songs were entirely or predominantly written by Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth, with little input from Van Halen's rhythm section." Plausible, but without a cite that sounds like OR to me.

"1984 is the second of two Van Halen albums to have achieved RIAA Diamond status, selling over ten million copies in the United States." Since the lead mentions that the initial album was the other, the Release section ought to, too, shouldn't it?
 Done
"It sold over three million copies, making it one of the four best-selling rock songs of the 1980s." Citation needed.
 Done - Couldn't find source for this. Re-written to say the song  was certified Gold.
"When Van Halen's 1984 was released in the UK, a removable sticker with the Roman numerals MCMLXXXIV (which is "1984"), had to be placed over the cherub's hand, as it was holding a cigarette and there happened to be a non-smoking campaign happening at the time. The same protocol was upheld for several other bands' albums as well, such as the UK release of Canadian rocker Kim Mitchell's album Akimbo Alogo, where the entire cover was changed due to a smoking reference."  Ah, this explains a bit about the smoking cherub (is it a cherub or a putto? or a putti?), but it's still not cited.
 Done
"With 1984 some critics felt Van Halen reached the pinnacle of its commercial and critical success.[18]" Specify who, please.
 Done + sourced
"This song is also used by the French soccer team Olympique de Marseille as they enter the field in their Stade Velodrome." Seems trivial; cite it or lose it, please.
 Done - Removed
Track Listing still lists Michael Anthony on all songs--I understood from the article that they had been removed after legal actions.
 Done - Removed
Reference one needs a title for a title, rather than a URL.
 Done
Overall, the prose is in pretty marginal shape for a GA candidate, and definitely needs a thorough going-over. Let me know when you're ready for a re-review. Jclemens (talk) 03:00, 9 January 2017 (UTC)


### Second pass
Refs 2 and 26 are both to Consequence of Sound.  They can be merged.
The first two sentences of the Recording section still aren't quite right.  Probably need to do a bit more nuanced rewording and separation there.
Working... Jclemens (talk) 05:37, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

@Jclemens: - Done and done. I do not peg myself a good writer but I redid the first few sentences of the Recording section. --Jennica✿ /  talk 05:53, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
(EC) I went and fixed the Rolling Stone quote to match the source and conventions for quotes within quotes.
I don't think we're allowed to have the single cover as a fair-use image. I'd take it out and spend a bit more time looking for something on the band itself.
Back cover is a bit less iffy, but we still need to have a good fair use rationale, ideally supported by critical commentary in the article which references the back cover artwork: was it controversial? Was it panned?  That will help determine whether we can have more than just the front cover. See WP:FUR for starters, but I'm afraid while I know it's common practice, I don't see where there is a "thou shalt not have more than one fair use image" expectation documented for albums.
Still have a 'claim' in there.  See WP:CLAIM.
The sticker incident in the Release section is still not cited.
You don't have to fix everything right away.  Feel free to slow down, deliberate a bit more, and ask questions back at me about what I've said.  I don't fail GAs while an editor is working on addressing concerns. Jclemens (talk) 05:56, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Jclemens - I didn't upload the single cover. Surely someone would have been on it and deleted it? I uploaded the back cover. I will work on the claim thing. I don't really know what to put in place of it. --Jennica✿ /  talk 06:28, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
I could not find anything about the sticker so I removed it.--Jennica✿ /  talk 06:37, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
Removed 'claimed'. Nothing controversial about the back cover, but there aren't many photos of the band from that era that can really be used. --Jennica✿ /  talk 06:48, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
Jennica, it's okay to have the single image on Wikipedia, but not in its parent album article. That is perfectly fine on "Jump". Not 1984. Jclemens makes a good assessment of this, as there's no way of saying that we definitely can't do more than one, but keep in mind that Van Halen themselves were delisted way back in 2007, and they had several on their page (though as I recall they had two). dannymusiceditor  Speak up!  21:12, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
@DannyMusicEditor: - okay, I removed the single cover from the article. What do you mean by "delisted in 2007"? sorry --Jennica✿ /  talk 02:00, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
See Talk:Van Halen for information about that. The band article used to be a GA. dannymusiceditor  Speak up!  03:37, 11 January 2017 (UTC)


### Third Review
Now that you've fixed up so much of the other stuff, the 'Songwriting Credits' section looks like it should be addressed, and written a bit more chronologically.  All the parts are there and cited, but it just reads a bit choppily.

Also, I fixed a bit of the FUR on the back cover photo, but I think you really need to come up with an accurate and convincing NFCC#8 rationale, because what's there now is not accurate. Remember, you don't HAVE to have images, but you should have them as is possible. I looked through Commons, and I don't see any free photos of the band from this era. Jclemens (talk) 05:50, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
@Jclemens: What about a low quality screencap of the Jump video maybe? I am sort of struggling to find what else could go there, if anything. I changed around the songwriting section a bit. --Jennica✿ /  talk 08:03, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
If there's nothing else to add, there's nothing else to add.  Fair Use limits are pretty set in stone, so we can't just add copyrighted stuff (and yes, a screencap from a video counts as a derivative work) willy-nilly.  The best thing would be to find old school Van Halen fans who were also photography buffs in the 1980s who would be willing to donate some high-quality pics from that era with a Creative Commons license.  I appreciate how hard you're working to find an answer here, but it may simply not be reasonable to find additional, suitable images. Jclemens (talk) 17:26, 11 January 2017 (UTC)


### From the top again
I see a couple of paragraphs where there is no citation: Songwriting credits last paragraph, singles last paragraph, 3rd in Release, etc.  Most likely you will be able to duplicate existing inline references to illustrate which apply to which statements.  Let me know if you need help doing that.
I still don't think the rear photo cover has sufficient commentary to justify the fair use.  It's not that WE need to comment on it, we need to be reporting on other people commenting about it to justify it.  Frankly, the rear cover seems entirely pedestrian and very 1980's. Jclemens (talk) 18:17, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
@Jclemens: - Honestly, I dislike the songwriting credits section (I didn't write it btw) and upon researching, this 2015 anniversary edition of 1984 still has him on the vinyl label. And then you look at the I'll Wait page and it lists Michael Anthony as well as producer Ted Templeman, with book sources.  The whole section is just problematic. --Jennica✿ /  talk 20:11, 11 January 2017 (UTC)


### January 14th
I know you continue to work on this, so here's yet another take from the top:

"their debut album" could stand to be wikilinked in the lead.
Lead should be expanded with some critical reception and chart position information.
Songwriting credits needs to be verified thoroughly and revised appropriately, as you note above.
I still do not see the back cover image as appropriate fair use for album artwork.  I'm going to ping another editor more versed in these matters than I am.
If (and this is an IF) you want to take more time than a typical GA review to rewrite the article more thoroughly, you are welcome to do so. That would mean not passing the article at this time, which may be appropriate if you aren't able to make progress on the sticky problems. Any time I "fail" a GA article, I offer a reviewer the option to have me pick it up right back out of the queue as soon as the issues I've identified before have been addressed.  I know how difficult it can be to put a lot of effort into getting something to GA and then realize you just don't have all the puzzle parts lined up!  Of course, that's an optional offer, and anyone is always welcome to wait in the queue for a different set of eyes on the article.  At any rate, that's just another option. Jclemens (talk) 18:24, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

@Jclemens: Hello. I have made several small changes. I tried expanding on the lead as well. I was able to find more sources for the songwriting credits section. And it's fine if the back cover goes, if need be. I am hopeful and optimistic this is the last set of edits. --Jennica✿ /  talk 00:17, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
I like the improvements to the songwriting section.  I'm going to delete the back cover and pass it. Jclemens (talk) 18:53, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

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States "It was the last Van Halen album until A Different Kind of Truth (2012) to feature lead singer David Lee Roth". False. "Best of Volume 1" 1996 featured DLR with two original songs. Granted, DLR wasn't the whole album, but it invalidates the original, as written portion IMHO, considering that Sammy didn't get any new songs on BOV1. Hagar was out of the band by the time BOV1 was produced & released...therefore, BOV1 "featured" DLR.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by FiggazWithAttitude (talk • contribs) 18:25, 14 August 2018 (UTC) 

OK, having had a year + to think about this, it's OK as written since it now specifies "Full length original studio album" or some such statement which defines the difference between a compilation and an original album. Thanks for indulging me. Peace out! FiggazWithAttitude (talk) 16:39, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
greatest hits albums are compilations and two new tracks isn’t a full album  Shhsbavavaa (talk) 16:56, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

There is no mention in the article of who the baby in the cover art for the album is. Is it Roth himself when he was young?--Fandelasketchup (talk) 23:05, 15 October 2021 (UTC)