Kid Rock
The History of Rock
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Kid Rock
The History of Rock
WEA/Atlantic, 2000
RiYL: Eminem, Metallica, WWF |
Luckily, thanks to History, I don't need to. Not a new record by any stretch of the imagination, History is a compilation of, ahem, hits from Kid Rock's previous releases, including the classic Grits Sandwiches For Breakfast and several others you haven't heard of.
That said, The History Of Rock isn't so much a CD as a compact, circular vacuum designed to suck 14 dollars and 99 cents out of large population of adolescent boys who don't know how to talk to girls throughout the country. Which is exactly what it's doing right now.
The album's sole new track, "American Bad Ass," is based on a sample of Metallica's "Sad But True," with "sample" defined as "the entire song playing straight through on a boom box somewhere in the studio." Never mind that "Sad But True" lends itself about as well to a hip-hop track as "Thank God I'm A Country Boy," or, say, "Jack And Diane."
Lyrically speaking, "Bad Ass" is about one thing: how damned cool Kid Rock is. Which, incidentally, is the central theme of each of the record's 14 tracks. By itself, this isn't a problem -- street braggadocio goes back as far as rap does -- but Rock does it with a low-budget lyrical skill that makes Will Smith sound like Common ("Bad Ass," for example, masterfully rhymes a crowd yelling "Hey!" with a crowd yelling "Hey!").
Elsewhere, we hear about who Kid Rock listens to these days, how he's a pimp, more of who he listens to, the number of records he sold, more of who he listens to, how many women he's slept with, how the critics hate him, how he hates the critics, and in the album's most touching track, how he "fucks (women) blind." And it goes on like this.
There's also a classic verse by Joe C., which qualifies for its own brief mention. If you can listen to the lines "I'm Joe C., bitch, lemme get them digits! I might be a little small, ho, but I ain't no got-damn midget," and not whiz your drawers laughing, you're not human.
But Rock has no flow, no style, no vocal prowess to speak of, and judging from the older tracks, he never did. Listen to his Detroit counterpart Eminem, whose rhymes are delivered with surgical precision and whose flow is straight machine-gun staccato, and then listen to Rock: "Punk rock the Clash / Boy bands are trash / I like Johnny Cash and Grandmaster Flash." He sounds like somebody joke-rapping on a T.G.I. Friday sitcom.
Strangely, Kid Rock is far more palatable on his older tracks, some of which, like the impossibly named "Early Mornin' Stoned Pimp" or the boringly named "I Wanna Go Back," have a funky, low-budget groove to them -- a Seger-with-a-sampler sort of feel. And lyrically he's a smidge more thoughtful: "The critics don't like me, because I ain't got much to say." Truer words have never been spoken, but give the man credit for at least a heightened sense of self-awareness.
Still, History suffers from a problem that faced its predecessor Devil Without A Cause, in that Kid Rock is trying to sculpt his image to fit some sort of pimp-meets-the-Lord character. History boasts a couple dozen stock "bitch" or "ho" references per track, but often they're intermingled with a random reference to faith. It didn't work on Devil, in which Rock The God-Loving Pimp tried to mend his ways on "Only God Knows Why," and it doesn't work now.
But that slight identity crisis is the least of this collection's problems. Rock, who actually plays a number of instruments and whose stage show has received raves across the land, reportedly has the musical skill to make a real record. But this ain't it.
JEFF VRABEL | Jeff Vrabel may look like your average, strapping Midwestern-type, but lurking inside him is a passion for all things Springsteen, "Weird" Al, and regrettably, the Chicago Cubs. He's touched Britney Spears. He knows Slash's phone number. Obey him at all costs.