Boston's Alternative Source!
     
  · Dining
  · DJs
  · Gossip
  · Party Pics
 
Feedback

Sucking in the ’70s
Kid Rock’s rock classicism

BY SEAN RICHARDSON

It doesn’t take more than a quick glance at the cover of Kid Rock’s new Cocky (Atlantic) to see why old-school rockers of a certain (star-and-)stripe consider him the coolest pop celebrity of the last five years. He’s got it all: the big American car, the cowboy hat, the long blond redneck mane, the wifebeater, the lit cigarette, the open can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. It’s been a long time since anyone glamorized that side of America, especially to the tune of 10 million albums sold — which is exactly what Rock accomplished with his ’98 blockbuster, Devil Without a Cause (Atlantic). He introduced a new generation to Seger and Skynyrd; he somehow made it cool to like Dobie Gray and the Marshall Tucker Band again. He even started dating Pamela Anderson, the queen of all white-trash mamas.

Kid’s musical output hasn’t been as infallible as his pop persona, but he has amassed a pretty impressive collection of hit singles. His breakthrough smash, "Bawitdaba," was the crowning achievement of the ’99 rap-metal outbreak, overpowering even Limp Bizkit’s "Nookie" with its mosh-pit wisecracks. "Cowboy" applied the same kind of gallows humor to a more tepid country-rock arrangement; the stunning "Only God Knows Why" welcomed the acoustic road-dog lament back to the pop charts for the first time since the late ’80s. Kid couldn’t be bothered to do much more than freestyle over the B-list Metallica standard "Sad But True" on last year’s "American Bad Ass," but by that point he had certainly earned the right to pat himself on the back.

More than anything, his hip-hop braggadocio is what sells his anachronistic country-metal fusion to the kids, so it’s no surprise to see him making like Run-DMC on Cocky’s first single, "Forever": "I make Southern rock/And I mix it with the hip-hop/I got money like Fort Knox/I’ll forever be the Kid Rock." The song’s stoned backbeat is more Zeppelin than anything else, and it doesn’t exactly break new ground for Rock. But that’s how he likes it, as he explains on the actual Southern-rock track "Lay It on Me," the new album’s answer to "Cowboy." "I got rich off of keepin’ it real/While you Radioheads are reinventin’ the wheel," he sniffs, becoming the first million-selling white rapper to identify the real enemy (i.e., boho art snobs like Radiohead) while the rest of them waste their time dissin’ one another and the teen-pop masses.

In any case, Rock’s appeal has never had anything to do with formal innovation — his music is about rapidly shifting contexts, and on Cocky he continues to play to his strengths. Written, performed, and produced almost entirely by Rock and his Twisted Brown Trucker band at his private studio/party house in suburban Detroit, it’s a slightly more subdued effort than Devil Without a Cause. TBT are without the services of DJ Uncle Kracker (who launched a successful solo career last year but did co-write several tracks on the album) and deceased rapper Joe C. this time around, but their roadhouse versatility is undiminished by the losses. They can still get heavy, too, easily beating Metallica at their own Seger-metal game with the anti-parental guidance rant "I’m Wrong, But You Ain’t Right."

But ’70s rock classicism is Rock’s primary concern these days, and the surprise highlight of the disc is "Picture," a melancholy duet with Sheryl Crow that marks his deepest foray to date into country music. In a hilarious segue that could happen only on a Kid Rock disc, that tune’s Eagles/Fleetwood Mac tenderness fades into the grimy Stooges swing of "I’m a Dog," which rocks regardless of how familiar you are with token Motor City rock mythology. The ghost of John Bonham rears its thunderous head again on "Baby Come Home," a sweaty blues geography lesson featuring Rock on banjo and lap steel guitar.

His broadest classic-rock stroke is "What I Learned out on the Road," which drops a priceless Steven Tyler sex rap in between a sunny Sublime verse and a mournful Skynyrd chorus. He gives his sex rhymes a more contemporary flavor on the hip-hop bonus track "WCSR," an outrageous collaboration with Snoop Dogg that, uh, climaxes with a verse about Rock and Bill Clinton tag-teaming a flight attendant. Like Devil Without a Cause, Cocky adds up to a little less than the sum of its parts. But Kid Rock’s increasingly refined shtick remains a hoot, and his music stumbles across the right mixture of comedy and pathos more often than not.

Issue Date: December 6 - 13, 2001

Back to the Music table of contents.





home | feedback | about the phoenix | find the phoenix | advertising info | privacy policy


© 2002 Phoenix Media Communications Group