Lenny Kravitz

The title of “retro rocker,” which Lenny Kravitz has held for years, certainly should elicit some skepticism, if only because the boundary between “retro” and simply “unoriginal” is not always clear. Fortunately, new record “It Is Time for a Love Revolution” evokes no such ambiguity. Despite his progressive album title, Kravitz proves that he is one of the most blatantly derivative, not to mention boring, artists recording today.

Take, for example, lead single “I’ll Be Waiting,” in which Kravitz sings while playing the same three piano chords over and over. The verses are sappy, uninspiring, and sure to appear on many 14-year-old girls’ MySpace pages. The chorus, however, is the worst part. The lyrics are shamelessly lifted, almost word for word, from The Spinners’ seminal 1972 love song “I’ll Be Around.” (“Whenever you call me, I’ll be waiting / Whenever you need me, I’ll be there.)

The rest of the songs aren’t too different. Every track is clearly an emulation of an older, better artist. Whether it’s Paul McCartney (on “A New Door”), Tom Petty (“I Want To Go Home”), Prince (“Will You Marry Me”), or Jimi Hendrix (“Bring It On”), none of these homages are remotely memorable. Kravitz’s compositions are sheer mimicry, adding nothing to the styles he imitates.

It’s not that Kravitz is a bad musician; he’s just incredibly uninventive. This is apparent in his lyrics even more than in his music. The album is full of eye-rolling, head-slapping moments. It does, however, raise some thought-provoking questions. “Did he just rhyme ‘inside’ with ‘outside’?” and “Is ‘my heart burns just like a flame’ the best simile he could think of?” With moments like these, it’s hard to take the record seriously.

While once lauded for his anthemic appeal, Lenny Kravitz seems to have lost most of his prowess. It couldn’t have gone the way of his libido—the rocker recently announced his three-year abstention from sex—because Kravitz hasn’t produced anything close to an anthem in a long, long time. “Are You Gonna Go My Way,” Kravitz’s 1993 hit, was debatably a stadium-rocker, but only because he hadn’t yet recycled the song on each of his succeeding albums. “Where Are We Runnin’?,” from 2004’s “Baptism,” was his best recent shot, but only because the “oo-ee-oo”s in the chorus stuck in listeners’ heads for longer than they should have.

What Kravitz needs to eventually realize is that “catchy” is not a synonym for “repetitive.” On “I Love the Rain,” Kravitz chants the song title over a sloppy reinterpretation of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” It’s simply not compelling. Indeed, none of the album’s tracks reveal any of his fabled lyrical skill.

The album does have a couple half-decent songs, but they’re not without significant flaws. Opener “Love Revolution” is fast-paced and catchy, but the echo effects used on the vocals seem out of place for a garage rock song. The album’s most exciting track, a Stones-y rocker titled “Back In Vietnam,” is either an overused analogy for the war in Iraq or proof that Kravitz is so devoid of ideas that he’s begun borrowing political topics, not just guitar riffs, from the ’60s and ’70s. Kravitz has shown that he knows classic rock inside and out, but it may be unreasonable to expect anything new from him.

—Reviewer Jeff W. Feldman can be reached at jfeldman@fas.harvard.edu.