24 July 2008
“George W. Bush music” is what a friend of mine once called Kid Rock’s ‘All Summer Long’. I must admit, that’s a great quip. The record? No so great.
If you had forgotten ‘All Summer Long’—and apologies for reminding you—its load-bearing parts are the guitar riff from ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ and the piano riff from ‘Werewolves Of London’. Apparently there’s also some of a track called ‘Night Moves’ by Bob Seger, whose name I can only say or hear in Phil Lynott’s Dublin accent from a song intro he does on Thin Lizzy’s Live And Dangerous. What does Kid Rock contribute? Well, the words are his, including the chorus rhyme of “things” with “things”. The video (below) is replete with narrow-gauge Americana like stars-and-stripes set design, Deep South paddle-boats, and lingering shots of girls in a gamut of skimpy swimwear that includes a Confederacy-flag bikini.
So, the whole ‘All Summer Long’ enterprise—’70s rock borrowings, nostalgic lyrics, flag-waving (and -wearing) video—is cravenly US-conservative and mainstream-unimaginative, hence my friend’s witticism above. That said, I shudder to think what ‘Donald Trump music’ would be like: maybe we got off lightly in the ’00s. Oh, the nostalgia.
