Home > Baltimore Music > CD Review > Kid Rock, "Rock n Roll Jesus"

Backstory: Besides a couple of brawls and one messy divorce, little has been heard from Kid Rock in the past few years. And it’s just as well: Rock’s white-boy rap-rock hits (“Cowboy”, “Batwitdaba”) sound dated, and his more recent country forays have come off as pedestrian. But the man’s got charisma…
 
Why you should care: …and he’s spread it all over “Rock n Roll Jesus,” a campy, classic rock–inflected return to form. Rock and his Twisted Brown Trucker bandmates still have the chops to alternatively tear it up (the grungy “So Hott”) and hang back (“New Orleans,” “Amen”), and they’ve seamlessly added a healthy dose of gospel and some horns to the mix, giving the record a far funkier groove than any of Rock’s old hip-hop records. As for the rapping, it’s thankfully gone, save for the atrocious or brilliant (depending on your point of view) “Sugar,” where Rock rhymes “paparazzi,” “Yahtzee” and “Nazi.” Oh, Kid!
 
Verdict: A little heavy on the ballads, and the lyrics only work if you buy into the Kid Rock mythos: telling off Pamela Anderson on the country-rocker “Half Your Age” does not make for a working man’s anthem. That said, any guy who can unabashedly sample “Sweet Home Alabama” and write an ode to both salvation and pot smoking (“All Summer Long”) deserves some kudos.
 
X-Factor: Besides Skynyrd, Rock also samples Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” on “All Summer Long.”

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