Lists of the number one and top·ranked Album Rock Songs of 1984
SPECIAL NOTICE: Two new Radio Underground exclusive year · end rankings for 1984 using the Radio Underground point system and the Joel Whitburn method are now available! See "Year End Charts" section below.
| Title | Artist | Weeks at #1 | Starting Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| If I'd Been The One | 38 Special | 4 week(s) (2 week(s) in 1984) | see 1983 Number Ones for start date |
| Jump | Van Halen | 8 weeks | 1984-01-21 |
| Got A Hold On Me | Christine McVie | 1 week | 1984-03-17 |
| A Fine Fine Day | Tony Carey | 2 weeks | 1984-03-24 |
| Against All Odds | Phil Collins | 1 week | 1984-04-07 |
| You Might Think | The Cars | 3 weeks | 1984-04-14 |
| Oh, Sherrie | Steve Perry | 2 weeks | 1984-05-05 |
| Run, Runaway | Slade | 2 weeks | 1984-05-19 |
| Magic | The Cars | 1 week | 1984-06-02 |
| Dancing In The Dark | Bruce Springsteen | 6 weeks | 1984-06-09 |
| No Way Out | Jefferson Starship | 1 week | 1984-07-21 |
| The Warrior | Scandal | 2 weeks | 1984-07-28 |
| Rock Me Tonite | Billy Squier | 2 weeks | 1984-08-04 |
| Missing You | John Waite | 2 weeks | 1984-08-25 |
| Are We Ourselves? | The Fixx | 2 weeks | 1984-09-08 |
| On The Dark Side | John Cafferty And The Beaver Brown Band | 5 weeks | 1984-09-22 |
| I Can't Hold Back | Survivor | 3 weeks | 1984-10-27 |
| Run To You | Bryan Adams | 4 weeks | 1984-11-17 |
| The Boys Of Summer | Don Henley | 5 week(s) (3 week(s) in 1984) | 1984-12-15 |
| 19 total | |||
SPECIAL NOTE: There was an error on the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart on the week of March 24th 1984. I've included the data the best I could based on what they published during each week. I apologize for anything in the data that seems incorrect.
<< Previous Year's Number One Rock Tracks | Next Year's Number One Rock Tracks >>
Billboard Magazine didn't publish a year · end countdown for their Album Rock Tracks chart until 1985. I HAD to do something about this for Radio Underground, so...
This chart ranks the top 40 Album Rock tracks for 1984, based on chart data from Billboard Magazine's Album Rock Tracks Chart, using my "point system". By assigning a specific number of points for each track (view the point system here), based on their rank for each week, and using the "magic" of some PHP programming, I came up with a year·end ranking for 1984! In case of a tie in points, I use the "Joel Whitburn" method (see the next chart below this one) to break the tie.
This countdown surveys the Album Rock Tracks Chart from the first week of the calendar year to the last week of the calendar year.
| Rank | Title | Artist | Peak | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Cover Me | Bruce Springsteen | # 2 | 1112 |
| 2. | Drive | The Cars | # 3 | 1107 |
| 3. | Magic | The Cars | # 1 | 1081 |
| 4. | Panama | Van Halen | # 2 | 1049 |
| 5. | The Warrior | Scandal | # 1 | 933 |
| 6. | Missing You | John Waite | # 1 | 933 |
| 7. | I'll Wait | Van Halen | # 2 | 913 |
| 8. | Dancing In The Dark | Bruce Springsteen | # 1 | 901 |
| 9. | In The Name Of Love | U2 | # 2 | 887 |
| 10. | Round And Round | Ratt | # 4 | 858 |
| 11. | I Can't Hold Back | Survivor | # 1 | 834 |
| 12. | Legs | Z.Z. Top | # 3 | 831 |
| 13. | Rock Me Tonite | Billy Squier | # 1 | 784 |
| 14. | No Way Out | Jefferson Starship | # 1 | 780 |
| 15. | Rock You Like A Hurricane | The Scorpions | # 5 | 774 |
| 16. | Leave It | Yes | # 3 | 770 |
| 17. | You Might Think | The Cars | # 1 | 768 |
| 18. | Heart Of Rock And Roll | Huey Lewis And The News | # 5 | 765 |
| 19. | Jump | Van Halen | # 1 | 747 |
| 20. | Run, Runaway | Slade | # 1 | 739 |
| 21. | Are We Ourselves? | The Fixx | # 1 | 725 |
| 22. | Go Insane | Lindsey Buckingham | # 4 | 708 |
| 23. | Blue Jean | David Bowie | # 2 | 706 |
| 24. | Deeper And Deeper | The Fixx | # 3 | 706 |
| 25. | Sister Christian | Night Ranger | # 2 | 704 |
| 26. | We're Not Gonna Take It | Twisted Sister | # 7 | 694 |
| 27. | Oh, Sherrie | Steve Perry | # 1 | 683 |
| 28. | Laying It On The Line | Jefferson Starship | # 6 | 667 |
| 29. | Had A Dream | Roger Hodgson | # 4 | 656 |
| 30. | A Fine Fine Day | Tony Carey | # 1 | 648 |
| 31. | Can't Drive 55 | Sammy Hagar | # 9 | 648 |
| 32. | Back Where You Belong | 38 Special | # 4 | 641 |
| 33. | Girls | Dwight Twilley | # 2 | 640 |
| 34. | On The Dark Side | John Cafferty And The Beaver Brown Band | # 1 | 637 |
| 35. | Against All Odds | Phil Collins | # 1 | 635 |
| 36. | New Girl Now | Honeymoon Suite | # 7 | 635 |
| 37. | Run To You | Bryan Adams | # 1 | 631 |
| 38. | Middle Of The Road | The Pretenders | # 2 | 624 |
| 39. | Infatuation | Rod Stewart | # 5 | 623 |
| 40. | Understanding | Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band | # 5 | 621 |
<< Previous Year's Radio Underground Point System Year End Chart | Next Year's Billboard Year End Countdown >>
Joel Whitburn was an author, writer of many books listing and archiving songs that charted on Billboard Magazine's various charts over the past few decades, mostly 1955 and later. In his books related to the Hot 100 chart, Whitburn ranks the top 25 songs for each decade. The method he uses starts with all of the songs that reached number one, then ranks them according to weeks spent at number one (the more weeks, the higher the ranking), then weeks spent in the top 10 (also the more weeks, the higher the ranking), then weeks spent in the top 40 (see previous two).
It's unclear from his books whether Mr. Whitburn devised this method for ranking songs, or someone else did, but this is the method used in his books. The following ranking, again through the use of a PHP program, uses this method for ranking Billboard's top 40 Album Rock Tracks for 1984.
Like the chart above, this countdown also surveys the Album Rock Tracks Chart from the first week of the calendar year to the last week of the calendar year.
| Rank | Title | Artist | Peak* | Wks@Pk | WksTop10 | WksTop40 | WksOnCht |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Jump | Van Halen | # 1 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 12 |
| 2. | Dancing In The Dark | Bruce Springsteen | # 1 | 6 | 10 | 14 | 17 |
| 3. | On The Dark Side | John Cafferty And The Beaver Brown Band | # 1 | 5 | 6 | 10 | 11 |
| 4. | Run To You | Bryan Adams | # 1 | 4 | 8 | 9 | 7 |
| 5. | I Can't Hold Back | Survivor | # 1 | 3 | 10 | 13 | 14 |
| 6. | You Might Think | The Cars | # 1 | 3 | 9 | 13 | 14 |
| 7. | The Boys Of Summer | Don Henley | # 1 | 3 | 7 | 8 | 6 |
| 8. | The Warrior | Scandal | # 1 | 2 | 9 | 16 | 18 |
| 9. | Rock Me Tonite | Billy Squier | # 1 | 2 | 9 | 14 | 15 |
| 10. | Missing You | John Waite | # 1 | 2 | 8 | 17 | 18 |
| 11. | Are We Ourselves? | The Fixx | # 1 | 2 | 8 | 12 | 13 |
| 12. | Oh, Sherrie | Steve Perry | # 1 | 2 | 8 | 11 | 13 |
| 13. | A Fine Fine Day | Tony Carey | # 1 | 2 | 7 | 11 | 12 |
| 14. | Run, Runaway | Slade | # 1 | 2 | 6 | 13 | 18 |
| 15. | If I'd Been The One | 38 Special | # 1 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 7 |
| 16. | Magic | The Cars | # 1 | 1 | 11 | 19 | 20 |
| 17. | No Way Out | Jefferson Starship | # 1 | 1 | 9 | 13 | 14 |
| 18. | Against All Odds | Phil Collins | # 1 | 1 | 7 | 12 | 14 |
| 19. | Got A Hold On Me | Christine McVie | # 1 | 1 | 4 | 9 | 11 |
| 20. | Middle Of The Road | The Pretenders | # 2 | 4 | 7 | 10 | 13 |
| 21. | In The Name Of Love | U2 | # 2 | 3 | 10 | 16 | 14 |
| 22. | Cover Me | Bruce Springsteen | # 2 | 2 | 10 | 21 | 21 |
| 23. | Blue Jean | David Bowie | # 2 | 2 | 9 | 11 | 12 |
| 24. | Valotte | Julian Lennon | # 2 | 1 | 9 | 10 | 9 |
| 25. | I'll Wait | Van Halen | # 2 | 1 | 7 | 19 | 21 |
| 26. | Sister Christian | Night Ranger | # 2 | 1 | 7 | 13 | 15 |
| 27. | Nobody Told Me | John Lennon | # 2 | 1 | 7 | 9 | 9 |
| 28. | That's All | Genesis | # 2 | 1 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 29. | Panama | Van Halen | # 2 | 1 | 5 | 24 | 31 |
| 30. | Girls | Dwight Twilley | # 2 | 1 | 4 | 13 | 14 |
| 31. | Runaway | Bon Jovi | # 2 | 1 | 3 | 13 | 13 |
| 32. | Union Of The Snake | Duran Duran | # 2 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 5 |
| 33. | Footloose | soundtrack | # 2 | 1 | 2 | 11 | 14 |
| 34. | Talking In Your Sleep | The Romantics | # 2 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 5 |
| 35. | Drive | The Cars | # 3 | 3 | 13 | 20 | 21 |
| 36. | I Want To Know What Love Is | Foreigner | # 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 2 |
| 37. | Deeper And Deeper | The Fixx | # 3 | 2 | 9 | 12 | 14 |
| 38. | Pink Houses | John Cougar Mellencamp | # 3 | 2 | 6 | 7 | 9 |
| 39. | Runner | Manfred Mann's Earth Band | # 3 | 2 | 5 | 12 | 13 |
| 40. | Leave It | Yes | # 3 | 1 | 10 | 15 | 16 |
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