Creativity Quote by Sammy Hagar

Hagar’s complaint isn’t moral panic; it’s market reality dressed up as good vibes. He opens with a bright-line preference - no “negative, dark things” - the classic hard rock posture of escape, fun, and volume as uplift. But the pivot gives away what’s really bugging him: “The only thing I’ve got against” Marilyn Manson is that the videos and images are “unbelievable.” That word lands twice because it’s doing double duty: admiration and anxiety in the same breath.

The subtext is competition. By the late ’90s, rock wasn’t just about riffs or radio anymore; it was about owning the visual channel. MTV-era spectacle rewarded artists who could translate sound into a sticky, meme-like iconography. Manson’s whole project weaponized that system: shock as branding, transgression as a logo. Hagar, a musician shaped by an earlier economy of concerts, charisma, and guitar heroics, is implicitly admitting that the center of gravity has shifted. You can dislike the darkness, sure, but you can’t ignore how effectively it cuts through.

There’s also a sneaky self-protection here. By framing his critique as aesthetic rather than ethical (“unbelievable images” instead of “harmful messages”), Hagar avoids sounding like the censorious adult in the room. He’s not condemning; he’s acknowledging that the new game is imagery, and that it’s being played better by the very artists he’d rather not dwell on.