“My Oedipus Complex” alludes to the damage caused by an insensitive, workaholic father (“You never held me tight . . . All I was was an outlet for your stress”).
The rest of the album offers further evidence of domestic fallout, but in less cautionary terms. Kid Rock rails against police (“3 Sheets to the Wind”) and threatens to shoot anyone who gets in his way (“Prodigal Son”). Eight tracks glamorize substance abuse with specific vices ranging from LSD and marijuana, to malt liquor and cocaine. Dubious theology plagues “Dark and Grey” and “Abortion.” On the latter, the artist contemplates committing suicide in order to be reunited with his aborted son. He claims to be a porno flick and looks forward 8o casual sex with “hos” (“American Bad A–“). “Paid” includes a reference to oral sex with multiple partners. “Born 2 Be a Hick” slams southerners and includes a crack about incest (“[I] Go see my cousin Ellie Mae and get some good lovin”). So many obscenities fly you’d think Kid Rock was being paid by the f-word, which even appears in two song titles. Reflecting on his youth, he boasts of “dealing [drugs] and stealing everything in sight” (“Prodigal Son”), and urinating on his high-school diploma (“American Bad A–“). “Ya Keep On” claims, “I’m like Moses with the mic as my staff/ Layin’ down them Ten Commandments/Thou shalt not dis this Rock, g–d— it!” More than an hour of septic stuff.
This follow-up to Kid Rock’s equally perverse 8 million-selling debut is just plain awful. Avoid it.
