1984 (stylized in Roman numerals as MCMLXXXIV) is the sixth studio album by American rock band Van Halen, released on January 9, 1984, by Warner Bros. Records.

 It was the last Van Halen album to feature lead singer David Lee Roth, who left the band in 1985 following creative differences, until A Different Kind of Truth (2012). 1984 and Van Halen's self-titled debut album are the band's best-selling albums, each having sold more than 10 million copies in the United States.

1984 was well received by music critics. Rolling Stone ranked the album number 81 on its list of the "100 Greatest Albums of the 1980s". It reached number two on the Billboard 200 and remained there for five weeks, kept off the top spot by Michael Jackson's Thriller, on which guitarist Eddie Van Halen made a guest performance. 1984 produced four singles, including "Jump", Van Halen's only number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100; the top-20 hits "Panama" and "I'll Wait"; and the MTV favorite "Hot for Teacher". The album was certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 1999 for ten million shipped copies in the U.S.

Personnel

• David Lee Roth – vocals
• Eddie Van Halen – guitars, keyboards, backing vocals
• Michael Anthony – bass, synth bass on "I'll Wait", backing vocals
• Alex Van Halen – drums, percussion, backing vocals

• Pete Angelus – art direction
• Chris Bellman – mastering
• Ken Deane – engineering
• Gregg Geller – mastering
• Donn Landee – engineering
• Jo Motta – project coordination
• Margo Nahas – cover art
• Joan Parker – production coordination
• Richard Seireeni – art direction
• Ted Templeman – production

Background and recording

Following the tour in support of their fourth studio album, Fair Warning, the band initially wanted to slow down and take a break. They released just one single, "(Oh) Pretty Woman"/"Happy Trails", intended to be a stand-alone release. However, the band's label asked for another album due to the A-side's success and the band recorded their fifth studio album, Diver Down, very quickly. Following the recording of the album, guitarist Eddie Van Halen was dissatisfied by the concessions he had made to Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth and Warner Bros. producer Ted Templeman. Both discouraged Eddie from making keyboards a prominent instrument in the band's music.

By 1983, Eddie was in the process of building his own studio, naming it 5150 after the California law code for the temporary, involuntary psychiatric commitment of individuals (who present a danger to themselves or others due to signs of mental illness), with Donn Landee, the band's longtime engineer (and later, producer on the 5150 and OU812 recordings). While boards and tape machines were being installed, Eddie began working on synthesizers to pass the time. "There were no presets," said Templeman. "He would just twist off until it sounded right." There, he composed Van Halen's follow-up to Diver Down without as much perceived "interference" from Roth or Templeman. The result was a compromise between the two creative factions in the band: a mixture of keyboard-heavy songs, and the guitar-driven hard rock for which the band was known. 1984 took about three months to record, compared to most of their previous LPs taking less than two weeks, and their first LP taking only five days, all at Sunset Studios.

In Rolling Stone's retrospective review of 1984 in its "100 Best Albums of the Eighties" list, Templeman said, "It's real obvious to me [why 1984 won Van Halen a broader and larger audience]. Eddie Van Halen discovered the synthesizer."