90's Guilty Pleasures #10: Van Halen "Poundcake" (1991)

So as the story goes, with one album, Van Halen changed to Van Hagar. What was once an exciting scuz-bucket-of-rock extravaganza (with some of the best guitar and drum work of any of their contemporaries) morphed into generic, boring, standard, no-nonsense AOR. About 90% of the fun (and scuz) that David Lee Roth apparently encouraged all went down the shitter. Throughout their four albums, Van Hagar's biggest moment was the annoying-as-shit and horribly overrated video for "Right Now" (which beat out "Smells Like Teen Spirit" at the '92 VMA's for "Best Video Of The Year").

Despite their newfound "maturity" and lameness, and despite the annoyance levels of Sammy's singing voice, "Poundcake" remains the one song that nearly justifies their post-Roth existence. (I guess it's kinda cool they named their album For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, in a way that's not really cool at all...)