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CD: Lenny Kravitz - Black and White America

Veteran rocker runs out of retro steam

by Russ CoffeyFriday, 19 August 2011

Kravitz: thumbing through the Black-American songbook

In 1989 when Lenny Kravitz released his debut Let Love Rule people complained that he had failed to quite master the Sixties influences that cut through it. They were wrong. That year it made Kravitz the most exciting black/white crossover artist since Prince. Since then, his path has been mainly a little more straightforward - maybe a little retro, but still consistently stirring. However with Black and White America Kravitz has again thumbed back through his Black-American songbook to find new styles with which to score his treatise on 21st-century race relations. Is it as good as Let Love Rule? Simple answer, no.

After a few promising syncopated instrumental bars, the voice comes in and suddenly it's mediocre at best. When you try to work out what exactly is wrong, it emerges that it’s not the music per se that’s to blame. The real problem with this record comes from a heaviness of touch. That's fine where Kravitz is being an earnest rocker, but it's no good when he’s having a go at being George Clinton or a funky Gil Scott-Heron. Possibly if Kravitz were a better lyricist he might have got away with it. However, he starts with “Martin Luther King/ He had a vision/ And that’s a fact/ He died so we could see/ That was his mission/ So don’t look back” and, regrettably, things don’t get much better thereafter.

The album works best when Kravitz is rocking, and the horns simply provide colour. There’s nothing wrong at all with the storming “Come on Get It”, or indeed the thumping “Everything”, and the single “Stand” is sure-fire FM-radio hit material. Sometimes things even work beyond the comfort zone. “Looking Back on Love” shows Kravitz at his most soulful. But the ersatz stylings of “Superlove” and “Liquid Jesus” simply fail to convince. And where Kravitz tries to get down with the kids with Jay Z and DJ Military (“Boongie Drop”) the result is pretty horrible.

Diehard Kravitz fans will no doubt disagree with everything above. Less partisan listeners, however, might want to approach this offering with a degree of caution.

Watch the video for Lenny Kravitz's "Stand"

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