Rock n' Cock

 

I find both Kid Rock and the reaction to him tremendously depressing.

Nowadays, every time Robert Ritchie, aka "Kid" Rock, says or does something stupid, right-wing, or generally symptomatic of a hopeless alcoholic indulging his worst instincts with nobody telling him no, I hear the usual chorus of "Kid Rock makes music for people who know how much cold medicine makes meth" or less clever versions of "That guy was never talented." It's sad that this is the consensus nowadays, because it used to be the other way. Even among critics, Kid Rock was praised as a musical talent circa the late '90s, and it's because he WAS.

I saw him live twice. I could see an evolution happening between the two times, but both were amazing shows. And at the time, politics wise, he was bragging about hanging out with Bill Clinton and Run DMC, so no, he wasn't always making music for right-wing bigots. The first time it was very much a young people's show -- the Devil Without a Cause/American Badass rap-metal stuff. He played multiple instruments himself, including turntables. By today's standards, his presentation of himself as a pimp with stripper-like pole dancers might be considered problematic, but at the time, it wasn't.

The next time I saw him was after Cocky -- still a good album, but he was evolving away from hip-hop, with more slow songs and retro rock n' roll. The audience was older, too -- people who looked like they could have been groupies and roadies for Motley Crue in the '80s. His fans were growing up, but fewer younger ones were coming aboard.

I still love the Kid Rock albums I have from that period. His primary theme was a defiant "This is who I am, and I'm being myself, and fuck off if you don't like it!" It was anthems for people who felt different, and his crew of misfits like Unkle Kracker and Joe C seemed to emphasize a kind of diversity, if not the kind people necessarily think of.

The problem is that "Fuck you I am me!" coming from a young person rings very different than coming from an old one. Consider also the pundits who say "I'm still a liberal! I've never changed my views in 30 years!" My dude, that's the classic definition of a conservative. Liberals DO change their views with new information. Kid Rock became the establishment -- having the president record an intro to your shows is the epitome of that, even if the president is supposedly an outsider -- and he still acts like he's an underdog.

And yes, pause to acknowledge what everyone's going to say -- Robert Ritchie grew up wealthy on a large estate, and is not from the South he appears to love so much. That doesn't make him untalented; in the field of rock-rap fusion artists, he was one of the greats. It started to go downhill, I think, when he began hanging out with Hank Williams Jr, of whom he was always a fan. They even did some decent duets together, but recall the old phrase that when you dance with the devil, the devil don't change -- the devil changes you. Hank Jr, who rewrote older songs into "This is Bush-Cheney Country" and "The McCain-Palin Tradition," used to be the designated dumbass right-wing musician who could be counted on to act as neanderthal as possible in the run-up to elections, though he fell off the radar after he pushed it too far and compared Obama to Hitler on Fox News. His new protegee happily picked up the slack. A former alternative music superstar who hung out with drag queens became a transphobic redneck bigot.

I should note I enjoy some of Hank's music, but I'm fully aware of who he is. Even in my high school days he was the favorite musician of the nastiest hill folk in the Smoky Mountains.

When people who should know better say Kid Rock was never talented, it's like when people say they never liked Joss Whedon anyway after it came out what a jerk and womanizer he was. Talented people can be bad. You're not more virtuous because you hated them first. Odds are at least one rock star you like fucked underage groupies. And when somebody you love inevitably turns out to be bad -- oh, it WILL happen -- you mustn't pretend they were good or justify them because YOU liked them.

The fact that you missed Kid Rock's great musical period is a shame. But so is what he has become. I'm keeping my CDs, because I paid for them long ago. And I'll consider him yet another reminder of my youth dying out.