Sammy Hagar - Essential Red Collection
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Free Music Notes for Essential Red Collection
Free Music Review: A winner
Hit: 5 Stars
There are other Sammy Hagar best of albums. "The Essential Red Collection" is by far the best one to date. This 20 song, single disc compilation is a chronicle of Sammy Hagar's 30+ career, from his days as the lead singer of Montrose, to his 70s and 80s solo career, to his post-Van Halen solo work. This is a terrific disc for Hagar novices and longtime fans alike.
You could argue over the tracklist for this album. Hagar has an extensive body of work--two albums with Montrose, 17 solo albums, and five albums with Van Halen (live albums included in figures). With that much material, picking a tracklist must have been a challenge, but "The Essential Red Collection" does an excellent job. The hits included have stood the test of time as some of the best, most memorable music from it's era. The songs represented stand not only as Hagar's greatest hits, but as his most memorable work.
Here's a run-through of what's on the disc (rarities discussed later).
Just about every big Sammy Hagar hit is included from every era of his career, sans Van Halen. From Montrose's debut, "Bad Motor Scooter" is included, a terrific rocker from a very underrated band. This collection is skimpy on Hagar's 70s Capital solo output, but with only 80 minutes to a disc, some great songs had to be cut from the tracklist.
"Red" from "Sammy Hagar" aka "The Red Album" is a very cool, 70s sounding arena rock anthem. "I've Done Everything For You," not on any studio album, is an excellent no-holds-bar-rocker.
The disc then moves on to the 1980s with Hagar's Geffen work. Three cuts from Hagar's masterpiece "Standing Hampton." "Heavy Metal," "I'll Fall in Love Again," and "There's Only One Way to Rock" remain three of Hagar's most memorable, well known songs to date. From "Three Lock Box" we get the infectious mid-tempo rocker "Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy." From "VOA" "Two Sides Of Love" and "I can't Drive 55," the album's two most well known (and best) songs. To be honest "I Never Said Goodbye" was not Hagar's best album, but the two singles "Give to Live," and "Eagles Fly," remain Hagar classics. "High Hopes" is an excellent Van Halen sounding rocker from the 1994 "Unboxed" best of collection.
From Hagar's post VH career we get the bluesy "Little White Lie" (feat. Slash on guitar), the spacey "Marching to Mars" and the infectious concert staple "Mass Tequila."
One of the best things going for this collection is the number of rarities and soundtrack cuts. Even if you are a Hagar completeists and own all his solo albums, you will want this disc to supplement your collection. "Thinking of You" and "Call my Name" are two never-before heard rockers from the mid-70s. They're both very cool and as good as anything else Hagar recorded from that era. "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" is a cool 80s rocker from the movie soundtrack of the same name. The excellent "The Girl Gets Around," from "Footloose" and "Winner Takes All" from "Over the Top" are also included.
Some complaints could be made against this album. No songs from the superb HSAS "Through the Fire" album are included. Also, the album has no songs from Hagar's last two albums. Still, as stated previously, a single disc can only contain 80 minutes worth of music. For a truly definitive compilation, with all eras represented, you'd probably be looking at a four-disc boxset. Perhaps someday that will be released.
Nitpicking aside, this is a great compilation. Song-after-song, every track is a winner and this album never looses momentum. There is also a cool booklet and liner notes. If you are a Sammy Hagar fan and not sure where to start, an old-school Sammy Hagar fan, a Van Halen fan, or a fan of 80s style rock in general, I highly recommend this CD.
Free Music Review: The Red Rocker's best compilation on one disc
Hit: 5 Stars
THE BAND: Sammy Hagar (vocals, guitars), and a list of others appearing on assorted albums here including Ronnie Montrose (guitar), Bill Church (bass), Denny Carmassi (drums), David Lauser (drums), Jesse Harms (keyboards), Vic Johnson (guitar), Eddie Van Halen (guitar, bass), Mona Gnader (bass).
THE DISC: (2004) 20 tracks clocking in at just under 79 minutes. Included with the disc is a 14-page booklet containing song titles/credits, which songs came from what albums, pictures, and brief intros from fellow rocker Ted Negent and Rolling Stone Magazine's Scott Schinder. This collection follows his solo career from 1974-1999 (including one song from Montrose in '73). Digitally remastered sound. Label: Hip-O Records / Universal.
ALBUM REPRESENTATION: Montrose (1 song), Sammy Hagar (1), Standing Hampton (2), Three Lock Box (1), VOA (2), I Never Said Goodbye (2), Unboxed (1), Marching To Mars (2), Red Voodoo (1), Unreleased (2), B-Side (1), Movie Soundtracks - (4) from Heavy Metal, Footloose, Over The Top and Fast Times At Ridgemont High.
COMMENTS: Sammy Hagar is a success story whether you want to admit it or not. Debuting with the now classic Montrose in 1973; a solid solo career; several movie soundtrack songs; a decade stint with one of the best rock bands ever in Van Halen; followed by more creative solo work; countless guest appearances on other rock albums; sitting in with the Emeril "Live" TV show house band on the Food Network in 2005; a rocking party club in Cabo San Lucas; topped off with his own brand of blue tequila. Sammy loves the color RED and fast cars to go with it. This album, "The Essential Red Collection", is the single finest testiment to the man. This is the best one disc greatest hits package out there from Hagar. "Essential Red" covers his most popular hits ("I Can't Drive 55", "Heavy Metal", "I'll Fall In Love Again", "Give To Live", "Bad Motor Scooter", "There's Only One Way To Rock", etc) along with some hidden gems from movies (the best being the title track from "Fast Times At Ridgemont High"). There are several albums (now hard to find and some are now imports only) that have no songs represented here (i.e. "Danger Zone", "Not 4 Sale", "Street Machine", Nine On A Ten Scale", "Ten 13", "Musical Chairs", etc)... most of these were in the mid-to-late 1970's and early 80's. As classic as this collection is, I'd have to admit a few songs are missing (making me believe a 2 disc collection was absolutley necessary)... most noteably "Three Lock Box", "When The Hammer Falls", "Rock Candy" (Montrose), "Top Of The Rock" (HSAS with Neil Schon, 1983), and anything from his Van Halen days (I'm sure there were many legal issues here). The remastered sound is crisp and it makes all the songs here sound like they were recorded last month. The only bad thing here is that it's not long enough. Sammy has stood the test of time - and this "Red" collection rocks (5 stars).
Free Music Review: Excellent single disc compilation of the Red Rocker.
Hit: 5 Stars
This excellent single disc anthology for Sammy Hagar starts off with his biggest hit from 1973 with Montrose "Bad Motor Scooter" and then proceeds to go through 19 tracks from his proper solo career.
There are 20 tracks on here and the CD times out at 78:59. It covers his solo years from 1974 to 1984, his 1987 solo album while he was a fairly new member of Van Halen and 3 songs off of his 1997 and 1999 solo albums. The songs have been remastered in crystal clear clarity and really makes me wish that they would remaster Sammy's entire solo catalog from the 70's and 80's in similar fashion.
I'm not getting into if one song should have put on here instead of another as there is only so much you can cram onto an 80 minute CD. While I do think that they would have better served his fans by doing a 2 disc anthology, for a single disc anthology this does exactly what it should do is give someone a great overview of an artist's career in chronological order.
Most of the hits are here but the coolest thing about this is the you get the 3 soundtrack songs from the films Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Footloose, Over the Top in addition to 2 unreleased 1974 tracks as well. They also included the song "High Hopes" which was a track newly recorded for the prior 1994 compilation attempt "Unboxed".
Until they remaster his back catalog at some point, this is a most excellent choice for someone wanting to re-discover Sammy's excellent solo output and get a great chronological overview of his work.
Like I mentioned this would've been even better as double disc retrospective with a lot of his album cuts off of his solo albums on it (and some people say that there should be some Van Halen stuff on here but I disagree), but for what this is you can't do any better.
Free Music Review: Amazing!!
Hit: 5 Stars
The only thing that would have made this a more perfect release, would be to add a second disc. Sammy is too big for a one disc best of.
The best thing about this release is the inclusion of the soundtrack songs that don't appear on his regular albums. The unreleased stuff is great to have too.
This is the best of Sammy Hagar, not the best of Van Halen, so I do not complain about not having any VH tunes on here, this is all out Sammy (which I prefer anyway).
A second disc would have given more room for the many must have songs missed on this release, like more Montrose (Rock Candy, Space Station #5, Paper Money), and so many more of the 70's era stuff; and where is Three Lock Box?
While it could be a bit better with more tracks, I still think as is, it is one of the best compilations focusing on his entire solo career. Most of the best of releases on him out there are either exclusively early era songs, or later Geffen era stuff. This one crosses the barriers and has it all. Like I said, having the one-off soundtrack and unreleased tunes make this an even better best of!!
Free Music Review: The perfect Sammy Hagar collection
Hit: 5 Stars
Sammy Hagar may be best known for his time in Van Halen, but the Red Rocker had (and still has) an impressive solo career with some pretty big hits. Instead of tracking down all of his solo albums (which seem to be either out of print or have poor sound quality), you can get a great overview of Hagar's solo career with Hip-O's 2004 release The Essential Red Collection.
This release is by far the best Sammy Hagar collection on the market. You get a whopping 20 songs, spanning his entire solo career, plus the Montrose song "Bad Motor Scooter" and three songs he contributed to various `80s film soundtracks. There is even a pair of previously unreleased songs. All the hits are here, and more than enough to remind you that there's only one way to rock, especially while driving over 55! If that wasn't enough, all of the songs have been digitally remastered and sound incredible.
The song selection, sound quality and low price make The Essential Red Collection is the perfect compilation for casual Sammy Hagar fans, and makes a great introduction to Hagar's solo career. What more could you ask for?