Cocky gave Kid Rock more country credibility with the hit duet with
Sheryl Crow, "Picture", but at its heart,
Cocky is a pure hard rock album. No pretention, just a classic rock-loving alcoholic pothead Midwestern rancher-turned-musician writing songs about the power of rock and roll, the loneliness of fame and the community of his creation -- a redneck paradise where bikers, hip-hoppers, hillbillies and middle class are united against the politically correct leftists and right-wing fanatics that hate Kid Rock and everything he stands for, let alone rock-n-roll.
That said, if there's a drawback to following up a classic like
Devil Without a Cause, it's the prospect of coming up short compared to such an incredible rock masterpiece. The savvy businessman Kid Rock is, he knew that to keep his growing fambase, he'd have to craft something sonically similar to his breakout album, so after writing 75 songs and recording 30 of them, the programming on this CD plays out like
Devil II: it's trying to be everything you loved about the last album, but more. It actually starts off with two back-to-back rock anthems, both of them (Trucker Anthem and Forever) sounding like spiritual rewrites of "Bawitdaba", as if it's trying to be double the
Devil. "Picture" and "Lonely Road of Faith", the album's country songs, share similar lyrical themes to "Only God Knows Why". The Southern rock sound dominates this album, whereas it was merely an underlying element of his musical fusion on
Devil. But luckily the songwriting approach works here and there's some new tricks up Bob Rotchie's sleeves, too: "Baby Come Home" is a straight-up blues song, and it's one of his best. There's a lot of great tracks here.
Collaboration-wise, it's hard to top the Eminem guest spot on
Devil, and Kid Rock doesn't even try to.
Snoop Dogg is here to trade off West Coast sex rhymes on the last track, which is fun but significantly less substantial than the rest of the album.
Uncle Kracker actually delivers the first verse on the album. And for the sake of being random, David Spade turns up on one track to make fun of Kid Rock for not being hard enough and sounding too country, leading the song to change into a heavier Southern rock sound (it's something Mike Judge did for Kid Rock's concerts with a Beavis & Butt-head cartoon to introduce "Bawitdaba").
There's also some cool blue-eyed soul elements on "What I Learned Out on the Road" and some legit heavy metal. Kid Rock again plays pretty much all of the instruments on the album, showing off his talent, and while it does fall short in comparison to
Devil and the Snoop Dogg track will probably offend most politically correct and right-wing listeners, especially with Kid Rock's verse about double-teaming an airline stewardess with former president Bill Clinton, there is a lot of solid material on this album, and generally has some strong growth in Kid Rock's Southern rock mixed with punk rock mixed with hip-hop mixed with hard rock style.
