No love for Lenny
I'm always happy to see an old friend succeed. While we haven't been in touch in a while, I was excited to see Michaelangelo Matos' review of Lenny Kravitz' new album in this week's Onion. Michael's really made the big time when it comes to his career as a rock critic. He's written for Rolling Stone, Spin, Village Voice, City Pages, and the Seattle Weekly, just to name a few. I will never forget our days as editors of the Richfield Senior High School Spotlight newspaper. Paste-up days were especially memorable, as was the pizza review we did in which Michael arranged for the delivery/pick-up of pizzas from several local pizza joints and we all stood around eating them and giving our not-so-serious comments. I like to think I had something to do with his success - I remember telling him that actually being a rock star was probably not in his future, but writing about rock certainly could be. Never one to mince words or spare his opinion, here's his take on Lenny's latest:
Well, there go the rumors that with each album, Lenny Kravitz was going to jump ahead three years stylistically, catching up with the present some time around 2008. From its title on down, It Is Time For A Love Revolution is spiritually interchangeable with his debut, 1989's Let Love Rule. Think about that: Lenny Kravitz has had a longer stint as an oldies act than most actual oldies acts. And in spite of a couple of bright riffs (the chunky "Love Revolution," the space-soul of "This Moment Is All There Is"), Love Revolution contains some of his hackiest work yet (which is really saying something), from the ponderous refrain of "I Love The Rain" back to "Love Revolution" itself, on which Kravitz overdubs himself in breathy "soulful" mode over his rockin' chorus, just to cover the bases. He's also got zip to say, most gratuitously on "Back In Vietnam," the most nuanced Iraq commentary since 10th-grade lunch hour. Kravitz used to catch hell for sounding like other people. Now people can make fun of him for sounding like himself.
A.V. Club Rating: C-