Album Review: Kid Rock – First Kiss

Release Date: 24 February 2015
Label: Warner Brothers
Producer: Robert Ritchie
 
Kitch's Rating: 8.5/10

I’ve learnt over the years that there’s absolutely no middle ground with Detroit-area artist Bob Ritchie AKA Kid Rock. You either love him or you hate him. Count me in the former. I barely knew any of his music, other than ‘All Summer Long’ (which everyone seems to know, whether you like it or you don’t!) before a friend who went to school in Michigan got me into his music. It didn’t take me long to be very hooked. 

Everyone’s got their guilty pleasure, right? 1998’s Devil without a Cause is one of my all-time favourite albums. It finds strange company amongst Springsteen’s Born in the USA, Hootie and the Blowfish’s Cracked Rear View, Florida Georgia Line’s Here’s To The Good Times, AC/DC’s Back in Black and INXS’ X.

Say what you will about Kid Rock, but the fact is he’s up to his tenth studio album, and he’s sold a lot of music, moving from rap-rock in the late 1990s through a more classic rock/country sound in his latest albums. He does things his way, writes his own songs (often with his lead guitarist, Marlon Young) and makes no apologies for that. His underappreciated and under-publicised philanthropic work to help Detroit, Michigan get back to it’s feet has earned him a huge and passionate following in Michigan.

And elsewhere, too – because Billboard estimates that First Kiss is going to debut at #2 on the all-genre Billboard 200 charts for this week, and is on track to sell more than 120,000 physical record sales in it’s first week. So, obviously people do like him, despite what a lot of the comments in online reviews would have you believe. His longevity is astounding: this will be Rock’s eighth Billboard Top Ten album, and his first with Warner Bros after years recording for Atlantic.

Apparently Kid didn’t like his last album, 2012’s Rebel Soul, and set out to do better with 2015’s First Kiss. Funnily enough, I really enjoyed his last offering. ‘Let’s Ride’, ‘Rebel Soul’, ‘Mr Rock n Roll’, ‘Midnight Ferry’, the old-school ‘Cucci Galore’ and ‘Detroit, Michigan’ are on high rotation on my iPod. It reached #5 on the Billboard 200 chart. Not bad for a supposedly bad album.

When the title track from the new album was released, I was immediately hooked. ‘First Kiss’ is the best song from the album. Thematically, it reminds me of ‘All Summer Long’ and had the hint of the guitar riff from Bryan Adams’ ‘Summer of 69’. Or maybe a little of Bob Seger’s ‘Night Moves’.

As Rock is so fond of doing these days, the song harkens back to his formative days, and name-checks the sort of nostalgia that’s permeated both Rebel Soul and 2010’s Rick Rubin-produced Born Free. He mentions Tom Petty, his first truck, his first girlfriend, and more, in a song that is possessed of a catchy chorus that, try as you might, you can’t get out of your head. It’s almost another ‘All Summer Long’ without the Warren Zevon/Lynyrd Skynyrd mash-up.

The rest of the album is straight-ahead country-tinged rock, and there are a bunch of good tracks to get your ears wrapped around. As per usual, Kid isn’t shy to throw in his political and social commentary throughout.

On ‘Good Times, Cheap Wine’ Rock tells us all, proudly, that he hates Coldplay music (a fact that he mentions a few times; he seems to dislike the British band more than he ever disliked Radiohead) social media, and doesn’t like how the government is trying to take his guns away, in ‘Ain’t Enough Whiskey’. I don’t always agree with what he has to say, but I appreciate that he tells it straight up, with no gloss.

There are also a few emotional tracks scattered throughout, like ‘Drinking Beer With Dad’, which is another tale of the old days, of Rock sitting on the porch, sorting through the world’s problems with his old man. The haunting ‘Jesus and Bocephus’, in which he compares JC to Hank Williams Jr, seems like it could be sent straight to country radio. It’s organs, fiddles and a great vocal delivery, and a song that Rock would never have considered cutting in his younger days, when his angry anthems were all the rage.

Another standout is the Bob Seger-written ‘Say Goodbye’, which is a bonus track (and the last on the album) on the clean version of the album. The explicit version has a song ‘FOAD’ an acronym for ‘F!@k Off and Die’, and Seger’s touch takes the song to a new level.

Of course, Kid Rock hasn’t forgotten how to have a good time. ‘Ain’t Enough Whiskey’ finds the Kid at his best: loads of big guitar riffs, heavy drums, his trademark gravel-flecked voice, and some judicious use of gospel-type backing singers. There’s a definite leaning towards country-rock (which is all the rage in Nashville at the moment, thanks to the likes of Brantley Gilbert and Jason Aldean), and the Kid does it well. His long journey from rap-rock to mainstream country rock appears complete.

If you haven’t heard Kid Rock since the 1990s or early 2000s, give his new album a spin. It will change your perception of him completely.