Sammy Hagar's Standing Hampton is programmer-tested rock Muzak for the Eighties: high-gloss production, a minimum of counterpoint and clutter, riffs hammered home along clean lines of sound. If only it weren't so damn derivative of Journey, Foreigner, the Jefferson Starship, et al. Though the single "I'll Fall in Love Again" is a full-throttle car-radio delight, the rest of the record sounds as if Hagar were deliberately underachieving as a means of mining that AOR gold. He's got too much company these days. (RS 366)

PARKE PUTERBAUGH