Operation Appreciation: Kid Rock, I Have Mixed Feelings for Your Music

Anyway, this post was [originally] inspired after watching Kid Rock perform at the Grammys a week and a half ago. To an extent, I will defend Kid Rock. I don't ask for much from musicians - especially those whose music seems to exist as a ticket into a helluva party (if you'd like, pretend "helluva party" was a link to the Kid Rock/Scott Stapp/Gaggle of groupies sex video. I myself won't actually make a link to it). Something tells me Andrew WK will be the subject of a future post.

 

Also, there somewhat of a nostalgic quality: Rock's Devil Without a Cause was the fifth CD I ever bought, and I still consider it a fun piece of rap-rock fluff to this day. I mean, c'mon, it at least concerns itself with having a good time and rapping over some decent grooves while his contemporaries spent lyric-writing time hating dad/women/society. Did he have his moments of misogyny and sexism? Yeah, sure, but it was never out of angst. It was in the same mold as Motley Crue or Aerosmith before him. It's stupid music, and it ought to be treated as stupid.

Also, "Fuck Off" has a verse that is some awesome early Eminem goodness, with Shady Renegade-ing Kid before "Renegade" even got recorded.

 

But then we get into everything that's happened since then. He probably should've been a one-album wonder, with "Bawitdaba," "Cowboy" and "I am the Bullgod" doing fine on the charts and fading into obscurity - as mediocre but spirited party rap songs should. But then "Only God Knows Why"* is released and becomes a hit. Completely different from anything else on the album, or in his past discography (including a debut so bad and yet so funny that it ranks somewhere between Back 2 Back Hits: MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice and Jennifer Love Hewitt's BareNaked in my collection), it managed to salvage his career for a few more spins.

   

If that seemed like a Hail Mary-like "Please, God I hope this crosses over, I need another diving board on my swimming pool!" move, then Cocky, which flopped like Kid Rock's career by any reasonable standard honest-to-God should... until "Picture," his duet with Sheryl Crow, got radio play (and a boring-ass video to boot). Dude pulled the same trick twice. If you replace "autotune" with "Sheryl Crow," it's the exact same desperation play.

 

And hey, I will stick up for Kid Rock, his self-titled album that, to my ears, is the perfect balance between his redneck rock-plus-Detroit rap sound, managing to name drop himself and bands he likes while not losing the party atmosphere. Plus, it show Kid aging with relative grace**. Sure, it had no hits, but he could be hap-- wait... no hits?

 

One album later, enter "All Summer Long," the song where he not only mashes "Werewolves of London" with "Sweet Home Alabama," but also sings about how he likes Lynyrd Skynyrd. Sure, "American Badass" was Metallica's "Sad But True" with the lyrics turned into a list of band names - but Metallica was not included in those band names (correct me if I'm wrong). I strongly believe that this is the longest, laziest crossover attempt possible. It's barely its own song. All Music Guide's review makes it sound like the entire album is like this.

That makes me sad.

The guy started out as a bad License to Ill-era Beastie Boys ripoff, up to one of the better party rock makers of the late 90s, to a totally respectable, predictable and reliable southern rocker... And now I'm not even sure if he should be taking credit for his own songs.

Kid Rock, I have mixed feelings about your music.

*"Only God Knows Why" predates Kanye West's use of autotune to make a rapper sound like a robot for an "emotional" outpouring. Think about that. Your mind: Blown.

**Can we all agree that Kid Rock's '00s are about equal to Motley Crue's 90s? I think so.