During the mid-1980s, nothing was going to kill Van Halen‘s momentum. They had started the entire hair metal movement by complete accident, and once the Poisons and Cinderellas of the world were packing small venues in the hopes of getting signed, Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth were being looked at as the true ambassadors of everything that the heavier side of rock stood for. All they needed was a number one hit, but the guitarist believed Michael Jackson stole their only chance to reach the top.

If Van Halen owned the rock charts at the time, though, nothing was going to stop MJ from dominating every single piece of the hit parade. He had already solidified himself as a major pop artist on Off the Wall, but if Thriller was going to be the blockbuster he wanted it to be, it needed more than just a few heavy hitters.

At the same time, Van Halen was getting to the point where they could do virtually no wrong. There was still room for them to grow, but the introduction of the keyboards into their sound led to a divided rehearsal space when Eddie came in with ‘Jump’. He wasn’t completely averse to pop music, but a song that kicks off with the most 1980s-sounding keyboard anyone had ever heard didn’t exactly sit well with Roth.

Then again, it was more than just creativity pushing Eddie and Roth in the wrong directions. Eddie had even contributed a token guitar solo to Jackson’s ‘Beat It’, despite Roth’s mentality of keeping everything tight-knit in the group. It does come back to who’s name is on the banner, and since Eddie was calling the shots, he insisted that ‘Jump’ be given a prime spot on the record to compete with the pop starlets.

Even though Eddie was told that 1984 would make it to number one, he thought that Jackson’s freak pyrotechnic accident robbed them of their chart-topping success, saying, “We were supposed to be number one. The week before that, Michael Jackson was filming that Pepsi commercial and burned his hair. When that happened, everyone was going, ‘Oh, poor Michael burned his hair. We’d better go and buy his record.’”

If there was anyone who made out like a bandit in that chart battle, it was bound to be Eddie. No one likes working to be number two in the charts, but considering he had a solo on what would go on to be one of the best-selling albums of all time, he seemed to take everything in stride when ‘Jump’ and ‘Panama’ were still lighting up the charts.

Looking at where they were, having Eddie on Thriller might have been the best thing that could have happened for them. It wasn’t exactly what most metalheads would have called cool at the time, but by lending skills to a pop album, Eddie got a lot more eyes on his guitar playing that wouldn’t have been possible had he stuck to his heavy rock riffs.

And considering Roth would be on his way out, their spot at number two for the keyboard-adjacent crossover gave them a little bit of leeway when Sammy Hagar came storming in a few years later. The times were changing for Van Halen, but the chances of them hitting number one ran out the minute that Jackson’s hair was set alight.