Kenny Loggins Admits He Was ‘Blown Away’ By Lady Gaga’s ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Ballad
Legendary singer Kenny Loggins spoke EXCLUSIVELY with HL about the impact of ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ and his praise for Lady Gaga’s ballad that was featured in the film.
Top Gun: Maverick continues to make a statement at the box office 3 months after its epic debut. The highly-anticipated sequel is now the sixth highest-grossing movie of all time in the United States. Top Gun: Maverick featured the Kenny Loggins hit “Danger Zone,” which became a sensation when the first film was released in 1986.
“It feels good to be a part of this phenomenon again, really,” Kenny told HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY while promoting the film’s recent Digital release. “It’s exciting to see it moving around me and to see the streaming numbers going up. It’s fun to see that and to get to put my toe in the game a little bit longer.”
Kenny’s “Danger Zone” was part of the film’s soundtrack, along with Lady Gaga’s “Hold My Hand.” The song is the sequel’s lead single. Kenny admitted he was “blown away” the first time he heard Gaga’s track.
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“I was really surprised at how great her track came out. I don’t know why I was surprised, but I didn’t expect a ballad like that,” Kenny said. “That’s a very old-school ballad format, and she nailed it. It’s a powerful thing, and it works really well on the screen, and I think in some ways better than as a hit single, which I don’t know how far up the charts it went. But as a closer to the movie, it was like the perfect ending thing. And what a voice. I’m always blown away by what she can do with her voice.”
Kenny acknowledged that Top Gun: Maverick definitely had that nostalgia factor and really embraced the importance of a movie’s soundtrack as many ’80s movies did. “There has been a big movement towards the ’80s music resurfacing and channels on satellite radio. Every young person that I know that’s in music is steeped in ’80s music, and I think that’s interesting. I’m not sure exactly why. I’m glad that’s happening because I was there…”
He added, “I think there was a lot of energy around the ’80s music, especially when it came to films because nobody had done it before. Rock and roll was not an accepted musical format for movies except if you had a movie about rock and roll. When it first started happening right at the beginning with Caddyshack and Footloose, the videos got so much airplay on MTV, which was also a new format, because the movie companies were pouring a ton of money into making great videos. It was the best way to sell the soundtracks, and it worked like a charm. I think the merging of those two: pop music with pop movies, if you will, has really made those movies iconic.”
The singer-songwriter recently released his memoir Still Alright. He called writing his memoir a “combination of therapy and a deposition.” He revealed, “It was a two-year process for me and really an interesting balancing act of wanting to tell the total truth and, at the same time, not piss off my ex-wives.”