KID ROCK: BAWITDABA (1998) Kid Rock kicked around for years before he had an unexpected success in 1999 with his fourth album, Devil Without a Cause. Bawitdaba was the reason why. Before that song, rap-rock was really better in theory than in practice. For nearly a decade, groups had hacked out a rather anemic blend of metal riffs, hip-hop beats, and wack raps. At times, some got closer to nirvana than others -- certain critics will argue to the death that Rage Against the Machine was a cathartic blast of noise -- but nothing hit like Bawitadaba. The reason? Its a rock song -- a behemoth, actually, towering above any other hard rock of the last portion of the 90s. Kid -- and his name is Kid, as he reminds us over and over again in the song -- raps, but his band, the Dirty Brown Trucker Band, doesnt pay that any mind. They rock, rock harder than anyone had in years. But Bawitadaba isnt even a triumph of riff over matter, its an organic onslaught of sound. Kid Rock had never been as clever on record as he was here -- the shout-out to all my heroes in the methadone clinics, the half-pints of love and the fifths of stress, and the exhortation to get in the pit and try to love someone are all subtle masterpieces of pop culture riffing.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 17:39:59 +0000
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