CD Review: Kid Rock – Rock N Roll Jesus
by Antony Bailey for Country Music News International
1.Rock N Roll Jesus
2.Amen
3.All Summer Long
4.Roll On
5.So Hott
6.Sugar
7.When You Love Someone
8.New Orleans
9.Don’t Tell Me You Love Me
10.Blue Jeans And A Rosary
11.Half Your Age
12.Lowlife (Living The Highlife)
Do you ever take trips down memory lane and listen to heavy hitting anthems and blasts from the past? Well, in this case, Kid Rock’s Rock N Roll Jesus studio album is packed with adrenaline and is only a few months from reaching its fourteenth birthday. It is their most successful album to date, and I would say every song on the album is timeless and hasn’t aged a day. The album has a bit of everything included rapping vocals on the ‘’Sugar’’ track. ‘’Rock N Roll Jesus’’ feels a little more like judgement day in the sense that It is confrontational, gets the pulse racing, and packs a punch rhythmically whereas the use of the Wah pedal for the guitar part adds more embellishment and decorates the song to give it more of a Rock n Roll feel. The album sounds as fresh and as modern as it did when it was originally released more than a decade ago and needs no revival. ‘All Summer Long’ initially released as a single and the third track to appear on the EP is perhaps the first song that comes to mind. It is a song inspired by ‘’Sweet Home Alabama’’ by Lynyrd Skynyrd and ‘’Night Moves’’ by Bob Seger.
The album showcased the bands’ ability to switch it up as the fluctuation in dynamics, timbre, tempo, and instrumentation offers more variety and range to the album. I personally listened to the album as a teenager growing up and is one that I will never get tired of revisiting from time to time. I always felt as though I had been transported across the pond to the deep south each time, I listened to a Kid Rock record. The album itself successfully made its way into the U.S Billboard 200 chart and was nominated for ‘Best Rock Album’ as well as ‘Best Vocal Performance’ for ‘’All Summer Long’’ at the 2008 Grammy awards after being originally released as a single.
There were however some disputes regarding royalties upon the release of the album as it was not available to purchase on iTunes. Nonetheless, the album has lasted the test of time and I have no doubt we will all be singing ‘’Sweet Home Alabama All Summer Long’’ and have it stuck in the back of our heads for some years to come.