Lenny Kravitz – Let Love Rule – De recensies

Recensies

Dit artikel bevat een aantal recensies van Lenny Kravitz’ debuutalbum Let Love Rule. De Nederlandstalige worden eerst getoond, gevolfd door de Engelstalige.

Nederlandstalig (Nederland)

Lenny Kravitz – Let Love Rule recensies – Algemeen Dagblad 28-09-1989 & Volkskrant 19-09-1989 & Limburgs Dagblad 06-10-1989

Nederlandstalig (België)

HUMO, 28-09-1989

Review: Lenny Kravitz – Let Love Rule

Door Frank Vander Linden

++++

Wonderlijke wereld. We schrijven september ’89 en de Schepper (eigenlijk: Virgin Records America) stelt aan ons voor: uit Los Angeles DE ZWARTE COSTELLO!!!

Lach niet, want Lenny Kravitz staat u vanop de hoes van ‘Let love rule’ nu al bestraffend aan te staren. Brutaal smoelwerk, priemende blik. U krijgt het warm ? Wàcht tot u de muziek hoort.

‘Let Love Rule’ is het soort van debuutplaat dat alle vooroordelen en etiketjes moeiteloos uit de weg ruimt. En dan noemen we Kravitz maar Black Costello, want soms klinkt hij zo. Zeker in het titelnummer, dat niet toevallig ook dicht bij The Beatles (stijl-‘Come together’) aanleunt. Zeker ook in ‘I build this garden for us’, dat de formule vastlegt die de hele plaat lang kleine wonderen verricht : spaarzame bas, gitaar, drums (allemaal van Kravitz zélf), een warm vloeiend orgel en hier en daar wat opsmuk. Een demoklank, méér heeft Kravitz niet nodig, want zijn songs zijn uitstekend en zijn stem (vleugje Lennon, toefje Prince) grijpt naar de keel. Dit is soul zoals cocaïneneuzen als Bobby Brown ze nooit zullen maken: muziek uit de ziel, rechtstreeks vanuit Kravitz’ huiskamer in de uwe gepompt. Dit is ook pop in de warmste, meest opwindende betekenis van het woord: Kravitz swingt als Nick Lowe in ‘Mr Cab Driver’, steekt Hot Chocolate naar de kroon met ‘Fear’, laat de jonge Stones nazinderen in ‘Sittin’ on top of the world’ en combineert op verrukkelijke wijze Squeeze en Prince in ‘Does anybody out there even care’. Pure klasse, kortom, en wie denkt dat een muzikant hiervoor moet lijden, noteert dat de heer Kravitz onlangs in het huwelijk mocht treden met de enige echte Lisa Bonet. Het is ons niet bekend of hij dit jaar ook nog de Lotto wil winnen.

HUMO, 28-09-1989

Engelstalig

Rolling Stone, 07-09-1989

(double review, combined with Poi Dog Pondering album)

By Anthony Decurtus

The subject of hippies, conveniently enough, leads directly to Lenny Kravitz, the man who would be Prince. When established pop stars abandon a particular style and move on to another, a vacuum is created that other performers can seek to fill. So while Prince himself diddles with second-rate commercial projects like his songs for Batman, the charts fill up with second-rate imitators of his funk style.

To his credit, Kravitz does nothing quite so crass. Instead, he zeroes in on the Sixties psychedelic sound Prince jettisoned after Parade and, in a move that might in some oblique sense constitute originality, supplements it with the roughedged spareness that characterized John Lennon in his early Plastic Ono Band period. Kravitz’s obsession with control pays fitting homage to both his monomaniacal idols; he handles all lead and background vocals and plays guitar, bass, organ and drums on virtually every track on Let Love Rule.

As a lyricist, Kravitz lacks both Prince’s idiosyncratic flair and, God knows, Lennon’s fierce honesty and inventiveness. His fondness for the cliché (“Love is gentle as a rose/And love can conquer any war/It’s time to take a stand/Brothers and sisters join hands” is the title track’s opening verse) and overall heavy-handedness tend to reduce his ideas to blunt slogans.

As if compelled to self-destruct, Kravitz courts artistic disaster by continually evoking his betters. What saves him, oddly enough, in this brave, new postmodern world, is a tried-and-true rock & roll virtue: This boy can ignite a groove. He has the true musician’s knack for apt details, like the tambourine that lends sizzle to the choruses on “Mr. Cab Driver” and the deliciously grungy guitar tones that transform his simple chord progressions into sonic events.

Finally, Poi Dog Pondering and Lenny Kravitz, two hot up-and-comers with much to recommend them, do little to dispel the notion that 1989 is an ongoing journey through the past. […] and Kravitz’s hero worship (the past as golden age) are divergent spins on the same cultural cycle that is bringing us the Who, the Stones and any number of other reconstructed warhorses. The future looks fearsome and bleak, and in the face of difficulties that may well prove insoluble, the past seems inviting, indeed.

Rolling Stone, 07-09-1989

Los Angeles Times, 27-09-1989

RECORD REVIEW : A Naive, Nervy ‘Let Love Rule’

By Chris Willman

Kravitz is the hottest comer in the hippie wanna-be sweepstakes. His debut includes titles like “Flower Child” (an ode to wife Lisa Bonet) and overflows with enough exhumed peace and love to maybe make even Wavy Gravy choke. There are delusions of grandeur plenty in Kravitz’s debut, not just in the lyrics, but also in the such sources as Lennon (circa “Plastic Ono Band”) and Prince (psychedelic era).

This shocking derivativeness would be plenty irritating if–dang–he didn’t first derive from such great sources and then pull it off with such naive nerviness. Start with the drug-themed “Blues for Sister Someone,” which sounds like the Purple One screaming his own ravaged version of “Cold Turkey.”

There are moments here where he comes close to finding his own voice, or at least avoids someone else’s: “Mr. Cab Driver” is a fun, angry, minimalist rocker about what it’s like to be black and not be able to hail a taxi. Much here bodes that Kravitz may have a great album in him when he gets a little less young , puts the incense away and combines his idealism with a pragmatist work ethic.

Los Angeles Times, 27-09-1989

Chicago Tribune, 28-09-1989

Let Love Rule ***

By Greg Kot

It takes guts to open your debut album with a song titled “Sittin’ on Top of the World,” but that’s just what Kravitz does here. The funky arrangements and the Look-Ma-I-played-all-the-instruments approach will remind some of Prince, but Kravitz’s voice and swagger are closer to the retro-soul of Terence Trent D’Arby. Kravitz makes no secret of his love of ’60s-style pop, as evidenced by his Impressions-like take on “My Precious Love,” the Beatlesque cello and guitars on “I Build This Garden for Us” and the rip-snorting Hendrix riff employed on “Freedom Train.” Kravitz’s voice is ragged and sexy, and on the anthemic title track, it’s multitracked into a heavenly chorus. A very promising start.

Chicago Tribune, 28-09-1989

Los Angeles Times, 29-10-1989

By Chris Willman

*** LENNY KRAVITZ, “Let Love Rule,” overflows with enough exhumed peace and love to maybe make even Wavy Gravy choke. For most of the album, Kravitz is knocking off either Lennon or Prince. His shocking derivation would be plenty irritating if he didn’t pull it off with such naive nerviness.

Los Angeles Times, 29-10-1989

Robert Christgau, 12-1989

By Robert Christgau

LENNY KRAVITZ: Let Love Rule

For a black Jewish Christian married to Lisa Bonet who overoveroverdubbed his Hendrix-Beatles hybrid himself, not bad. But that’s a lot of marketing to live down.

B MINUS

Robert Christgau, 12-1989