The 30 best songs released in 1984

1984 is roundly considered to be one of the greatest years in pop music history, a year that produced an embarrassment of riches in both the mainstream and underground. It was a year where the echoes of Michael Jackson’s Thriller could still be felt, a year that Prince turned into a superstar and Madonna had her first hits. And it was a year where the Replacements, Hüsker Dü, the Minutemen, and R.E.M. defined college rock as MTV took hold throughout America, just as Britain wound down its new pop renaissance.

There was too much great music made during 1984 to fit on one list (for further exploration, turn to Michaelangelo Matos’ definitive document Can’t Slow Down: How 1984 Became Pop’s Blockbuster Year). But the 30 songs that follow convey the breadth and depth of the music that dominated the airwaves—both in the mainstream and on those stations existing to the left of the dial—and those still sounds phenomenal forty years later.

1. “Jump,” Van Halen

Van Halen had fiddled with synthesizers long before moving them to the forefront on 1984, the group’s monumental final album with David Lee Roth. The difference with 1984 is that the group paired an emphasis on synths with an embrace of pop hooks, a combination that came to a stunning pinnacle on the album’s lead single, “Jump.” Propelled by a simple, nagging synth line—power chords translated to a keyboard—“Jump” provides plenty of space for Roth and Edward Van Halen to trade lines and jibes, the pair adding color and humor with their interjections and solos. As fluid as Van Halen’s guitar solo is here, what’s striking about “Jump” is how his fills are equally memorable: it’s all in service of a song with undeniable pop power.