Sammy Hagar has always seemed like he was a man torn by his two
\npassions. On one hand, he can be a very powerful singer addressing
\nmore sensitive issues – well, issues you probably wouldn’t expect
\nto find in the world of hard rock. On the other hand, he seems to
\nwant to be a typical screamer who bangs his head faster than the
\nTasmanian Devil on crystal meth.<\/p>\n
The two worlds collided on his 1981 effort
\nStanding Hampton<\/i>, which turned out to be a great half-album
\n– and it isn’t the duality which sinks it, it’s the
\nsongwriting.<\/p>\n
Hagar displays the more thoughtful side on the album’s opening
\ntrack, “I’ll Fall In Love Again,” a song which has enough muscle to
\nappeal to the rock fan, but the lyrics are incredibly powerful. I’m
\nwilling to bet that most people who listen to this song will be
\nable to relate to Hagar’s cleaning up a broken heart.<\/p>\n
When Hagar gets thoughtful, he creates some of his best music.
\n“Can’t Get Loose” is an example of trying to conquer that which
\nholds you down, backed with a building melody. It might take a
\nlisten or two to get into it, but it’s worth the effort.<\/p>\n
But Hagar can’t deny his own roots, and often wants to go
\nballs-out in his delivery. Songs like “There’s Only One Way To
\nRock” and “Heavy Metal” are examples of this, and despite titles
\nwhich smack of cliches, they are decent efforts. (However, there is
\none portion of “There’s Only One Way To Rock” where the chord used
\nin the vocals doesn’t sound like it meshes with the guitar chord.
\nOh, well.)<\/p>\n
The first half of
\nStanding Hampton<\/i> is an incredible 21 minutes of rock and
\nroll to feed both your brain and your adrenaline. Unfortunately, it
\nseems like Hagar blew his load at the conclusion of the side; the
\nremaining four original songs just don’t hold up as well. “Sweet
\nHitchhiker” and “Baby, It’s You” just don’t hold their water that
\nwell when compared to the first half of the album.<\/p>\n
The big mistake here is “Piece Of My Heart,” a cover of the old
\nBig Brother And The Holding Company bong-fest theme. Hagar tries to
\nmake the song his own, and tries to inject a bit of heavy metal
\nseasoning into the track. Sorry, Sammy, but you’re tampering with a
\nlegend, and it just doesn’t fly. I constantly found myself waiting
\nfor Janis Joplin to start singing, especially in the chorus, and
\nthe guitar work just isn’t the same. It’s really hard to re-create
\na mood 15 years after it ended.<\/p>\n
So is
\nStanding Hampton<\/i> a success or a failure? In one sense, it
\nreally doesn’t fail; it still is an entertaining way to spend the
\nbetter part of an hour, and I can think of worse albums you could
\nselect. If you’re a Hagar fan or enjoyed his stay with Van Halen,
\nthen you’ll get a kick out of this one for sure. But more often
\nthan not you start wondering about what this album could have been,
\nhad the songwriting remained solid throughout. Still, it’s not a
\nbad album – just approach it with a bit of caution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5845],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-38700","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-sammy-hagar","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38700"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}