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Read an excerpt from LIFE’s Van Halen special issue.
The year was MCMLXXXIV.
Credit: David Tan/Shinko Music/Getty Images
Or, yes, 1984.
Here, Kostya Kennedy explains why1984made everyone snap, er, “Jump” to attention.
This is Van Halen?
Warner Bros.
Synthesizer everywhere, electronic bass drum this was not your big brothers VH.
(Sales of synthesizers spiked in the aftermath.)
2 on the Billboard charts and wound up as Van Halens best-selling album since the debut.
Van Halens rendering was not nearly so ominous.
The year 1984 had arrived!
It was to be celebrated and embraced right here, right now.
The clothes, the colors, the hair, the laughter!
The official album title,MCMLXXXIV, was its own kind of spoof.
Teacher could provide the happiest five and half minutes of a day.
If they had stopped watching MTV, just think of all the education theyd have missed.
