Uncle Kracker (Atlantic)
I didn't get paid enough to review Uncle Kracker, protege and self-proclaimed best friend of Kid Rock, who produced the album and co-wrote nearly every song.
I did begin listening with an unbiased ear. The first track, a melodic, harmonica-inspired rockabilly ballad, is well choreographed mood music, like a song playing in the background that you suddenly become aware of during a lull in an agreeable conversation. But further songs - from hick-hop to country - quickly reveal shortcomings, namely a programmed drum track and the shoddy patchwork of studio musicians. Couplets are more concerned with rhyming than coherence and the lyrics ultimately ring hollow because Uncle Kracker is singing about a subject of which he knows little: fame.
In fact, like many consumer purchases gone sour after reading the fine print, this CD's liner notes reveal the whole album was conceived in Kid Rock's tour bus. Heaven, for example, was recorded 'somewhere in Salt Lake City next to some bar I couldn't drink at because I wasn't a member'. The backseat bus-child Double Wide, however, remains an underdose of legitimacy.