Lenny Kravitz
Are You Gonna Go My Way
| |
Multi-instrumentalist, singer/ songwriter, Adonis types aren't often long on modesty, so when this cocky duo arrived in the late '80s, accusations of hubris, artistic theft and naivete predictably flew. What the quibblers discounted was that this righteous pair might possess actual talent -- which they decidedly do. Lenny Kravitz and Terence Trent D'Arby kicked hard in '93, making inroads into the rainbow coalition first tapped by Jimi Hendrix, Sly and the Family Stone and Prince. The inspired John Lennon-funk juxtapositions Kravitz first minted on "Let Love Rule" (1989) and then polished with "Mama Said" (1991) ring solid with "Are You Gonna Go My Way," a disc that echoes sounds from psychedelia
Read More and Philly soul to reggae and hard-core R&B. Rather than hiding his extensive '60s-'70s influences, Kravitz exults in them, and his luv & peace (& sex) lyrics, powered by obvious earnestness, sound retro only to the hopelessly jaded. "Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby" (1987) was a mouthful, but its ambitious music backed the claim up. Stronger still was its successor, "Neither Fish nor Flesh" (1989), an album so strange and encyclopedic in its pop-to-soul references that it scared off all but D'Arby's fan club. "Symphony or Damn," h
|
