KID ROCK
Born Free

Has Pammie Anderson’s ex been listening to Jimmy Barnes recently? “Born Free” has a lot more in common with Barnesy’s blue collar solo work than with The Kid’s early rap albums, that’s for sure.

Following on from last year’s “Rock n Roll Jesus” (surely one self-aggrandisement to far, even for Kid?), “Born Free” takes him even further into the realms of radio friendly soft rock, replete with touches of country and soul – very much like Barnesy, especially on the title track, a dead ringer for our ex-Cold Chisel frontman - and even a few latter-day Bon Jovi-isms.

In fact you could make the case that Kid’s whole career parallel’s the average music fan’s: You start off getting into whatever is trendy and on the radio (In Kid’s case, rap music), you dig deeper into the underground of your chosen genre, then as you get older you slowly widen things up and take on board a lot of the classics that were before your time.

It sure doesn’t hurt that Kid has befriended Lynyrd Skynyrd, Slash and a bunch of other hard rockers – “Born Free” is more than anything else a Seventies sounding rock album, classy, soulful, rocking and expertly crafted. There’s also the by now obligatory Sheryl Crow duet (‘Collide’, also featuring another blue collar superstar, Bob Seger, on piano), a couple of country stars helping out (Martine McBride and T.I. on ‘Care’ and Zac Brown on ‘Flyin High’), and he will undoubtedly be able to almost retire on the royalties from TV and radio and every teenager getting ready for a party playing ‘God Bless Saturday’ to death!

Shane Pinnegar
3 ½