Loudness

Does anyone remember the awful 80's Japanese hair metal band called Loudness? They came over to the United States when I was in high school and rocked America on a tour with some other lame domestic metal band like Fastway.

I always kind of felt sorry for Loudness. They were strangers in a strange land who thought they could be accepted if they teased their hair with combs and aqua net, played guitars really fast and screamed lyrics in Engrish like: "You make me mad and wild. We're going to rock and pile you."

About the same time Loudness invaded America, the muscle T shirt was popular. One of the varieties of the muscle T depicted the Rising Sun Japanese flag. When I saw a fellow 10th grader wearing one of those in my high school halls, I always wondered if the muscle T signified that its owner was a fan of Loudness. It seemed totally impossible. I liked metal in the 10th grade, and considered myself a connoisseur of the genre, but I knew of no one who liked Loudness.

Loudness quickly faded away. The Japanese are masters of taking an American invention and making it better. But try as they might, they just couldn't master metal.