Sammy Hagar’s “Loud”
Originally published at How I Roll. Please leave any comments there.
When I was heading home from work yesterday, the radio station I was listening to played a “crank it or yank it” tune. The idea is pretty simple and has a ton of different names on other stations (and some with the same name). Listeners vote for whether they want to hear the song ever again. It was Sammy Hagar’s “Loud”. I missed the final verdict, but from the polls at the time, “Loud” was going to be yanked from the airwaves; and I agreed.
“Loud” was a revisiting of what made Sammy sound good back in the early 1980’s with his album VOA and the now-classic hit “I Can’t Drive 55″. I have never been a big Hagar fan (in that I don’t go out of my way to buy his music or go to his concerts), but I have always had a rather healthy enjoyment of his music. “Loud” is definitely the exception. Whereas I enjoyed a number of his solo albums and work with Van Halen, “Loud” felt like it was trying entirely too hard to be “I Can’t Drive 55″, but without the fun, edge, and excitement.
The formula is there. The song sounds like Sammy. It is structured the same as his other songs. But the vibrance is not there. There is no excitement. It is a formula without the life behind it. It feels about the same as being a lit major studying algebra. It just doesn’t connect. Whereas his previous work had a certain life that caught fire like a PhD in engineering hitting the cherry equation to make the project click. AC/DC’s albums have that life; their similarity is their comfort. “Loud” sounds like his other stuff but without the impact.