(Translated from my original Italian text by Elena Castelli, ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)
Lenny Kravitz was from the beginning a singular figure in rock music: a Black musician like Jimi Hendrix, he boasted a multicultural background that few could match and an almost unique retro sensibility.
Lenny Kravitz, born in New York in 1965, the son of a Black television actress and a Russian-Jewish news producer, raised in Los Angeles (where his classmates included the future Slash and Maria McKee) and the Bahamas, made his mark with Let Love Rule (Virgin, 1989), on which he played guitar, organ, and drums. He emerged as a late representative of the Woodstock generation (or, more precisely, the Monterey generation), recycling the soul, funk, and rock fusion made famous by Hendrix, Sly Stone, and Prince (Let Love Rule, Mr Cab Driver), and the most baroque psychedelia of the 60s (I Built This Garden For Us), under the guise of hippie themes.
What made him famous was not so much the tracks from that album nor the follow-up Mama Said (Virgin, 1990), in which he moved with greater mastery from the Hendrix-inspired Stop Draggin' Round to the sweet soul of It Aint Over Till Its Over, from the Lennon-esque lament of Stand By My Woman to the violent single Always On The Run, but rather Justify My Love, which he wrote for Madonna in 1991.
Are You Gonna Go My Way (Virgin, 1993) tiresomely repeats the formula of his previous albums, oscillating between Hendrix-style rock (Are You Gonna Go My Way) and increasingly sensual pop-soul (Black Girl). New elements include hard rock like Is There Any Love In Your Heart and disco-style funk like Sugar. The album would nevertheless become his best-seller.
(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)
Circus (Virgin, 1995) marks Kravitz' zenith as a multi-instrumentalist,
but his vocal style at the border between Prince and Lennon is still tediously
derivative
(Don't Go And Put A Bullet In your Head, In My Life Today)
and his songwriting has never been amazing (and now that he has found a
spiritual life he can get really moronic).
What is amazing is the way he rips off the greats of rock and roll, from
Rolling Stones (Rock And Roll Is Dead) to
Led Zeppelin (Beyond The 7th Sky).
The latter, especially, are copied in every nuance of the album, so much so
that one feels this is a Led Zeppelin tribute of sorts.
The heavy funk Tunnel Vision is the standout, or the least
predictable song.
5 (Virgin, 1998) presents a reformed, "domestic" Kravitz, who dedicates
songs to his mother and his daughter (Thinking Of You and
Little Girl's Eyes) and mourns his failed marriage.
Live and If You Can't Say No are the tracks that sound like
Kravitz. Everything else sounds like a lame mainstream album.
The stunning single Again (2000) presents yet another Kravitz, with little or
nothing in common with the retro master and a lot in common with 1990s' alt-rock.
Lenny (Virgin, 2001) offers more of Kravitz's radio-friendly hard-rock:
Stillness Of Heart,
Battlefield Of Love,
God Save Us All (similar to Joe Walsh's Rocky Mountain Way),
and especially the anthemic Let's Get High.
The whole album flows smoothly and casually, mainly because it is difficult
to tell If I Could Fall In Love from Dig In or from
Bank Robber Man.
Baptism (Virgin, 2004) offers generic Kravitz-ian fare
(California, Minister of Rock 'N Roll) for unflinching fans.
It Is Time For A Love Revolution (2008) and
Black and White America (2011)
sound like exercises in ripping off the classics of hard-rock.
