Matthew Kelly1001 albums you must die before you hear
#117: David Hasselhoff – Looking For Freedom (1989)
In Part 3 of a survey of the complete musical works of Sir David Michael Hasselhoff, MATT KELLY dissects the risible Euro-’80s muck that constitutes Sir Hasselhoff’s possible nadir.
Lovin’ Feelings (1987) may have bombed in the West but was a surprise smash in Europe and Hasselhoff was off on a headlining tour there where he met and began a partnership with Jack White. (No, not that one, though that would be pretty funny.) This Jack White is the stage name of Horst Nußbaum, a German music industry figure who had great success as the producer behind Laura Branigan’s first three albums. White suggested that he could help Hasselhoff make an album targeted at Europe and do even bigger business.
He wasn’t lying either: Looking For Freedom took the German-speaking world by storm, #1 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, its title track becoming a legitimate anthem as the process of tearing down the Berlin Wall began. In fact, Hasselhoff was given the honour of actually performing the song on the Wall on New Year’s Eve leading to the classic joke that the crowd was only motivated to tear it down to prevent further Hasselhoff performances.
Because this is a record that wastes no time at all in sucking. It goes zero to suxty in nano-seconds, beginning with the god-awful ‘Is Everybody Happy?’ as shrieking backing vocals, dreadfully persistent percussion sounds, fake horns and the most plastic party atmosphere imaginable conspire for a truly dreadful opener. More like ‘Is Anybody Happy?’
Then it gets even worse with the interminable ‘Sheltered Heart’. I can feel my soul leaving my body as Hasselhoff wobbles his way through this sappy never-ending monument of mush. Meanwhile, ‘Je T’Aime Means I Love You’ is a masterclass in dated production, all Linn drums, DX5s, and disco backing vocals the ’70s don’t want back.
There’s even a track called ‘Flying On The Wings Of Tenderness’, the title of which alone is enough to finish me off. And Jesus that awful saxophone/keyboard combination sound on ‘Lady’. It’s a Herculean task to keep your finger off the skip button. As for the hit title track, it’s every awful upbeat faux-inspirational ’80s song in one only with less poise and restraint than that description implies.
Yet I can confess there’s a charming side to Looking For Freedom. ‘Song Of The Night’ is a bombastic piece of romantic cheese that is so unabashed it can’t help but raise a smile, and Hasselhoff emoting his way through ‘Lonely Is The Night’ is quality unintentional satire that I prefer to the Air Supply original. At 51 minutes though, these blips of “This isn’t *that* bad” are drowned in a sea of insufferably impossibly tropey nursing home ’80s pop.
But Looking For Freedom was just the beginning of White and Hasselhoff’s reign of terror, the first of four albums the pair would make together. There is so much more to come.
