Lenny (album)
Encyclopedia
Lenny is the sixth album and seventh recording by Lenny Kravitz
, released in October 2001 through Virgin Records America. It reached #12 on the Billboard 200
and #55 on the UK Album Chart. As of March 2008, Lenny has sold 724,000 units in the U.S, and approximately 3 million units worldwide.
The lead single, "Dig In", which reached #31 in the US, was the album's most successful song that helped Kravitz win his fourth consecutive Grammy Award
in the Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, while the song "If I Could Fall in Love" was featured in the Blue Crush
soundtrack and gave Kravitz yet another nomination in the mentioned category in 2003.
gave Lenny Kravitz a career revival, thanks to a really big hit with "Fly Away
," and he followed it with a hit, the cover of the Guess Who
's "American Woman
," which surely benefited from its presence on the blockbuster Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
. Then, he threw out "Again
" as a new track for Greatest Hits
(who sold over 3.000.000 copies worldwide), setting the stage for the return to form that's Lenny." Kravitz has joined the ranks of Michael Jackson
, Prince
, George Michael
, writing, arranging, producing and performing every song on the album, creating a minimalist one-man show of acoustic and electric guitars, live percussion and drum programming.
- where Lenny does toss a wah-wah
solo into the mix. The rich "If I Could Fall in Love
" and the first single (the gritty rocker) "Dig In
" are home to the kind of crunchy electric guitar
work, ultra-simple structures and super-catchy melodies that have become Kravitz staples. "Dig In evokes Sheryl Crow
at times—only with slightly less keen lyrical content." Yesterday Is Gone has a "Beatles feel, but it no longer feels like he's consciously trying to rewrite Tomorrow Never Knows
. Kravitz's neo-hippie sentiments abound on tracks like "God Save Us All" and "Stillness of Heart" ("I'm feeling incomplete/What am I buying/My soul is crying"). The stripped-down approach works well throughout the plaintive ballad Believe in Me, which sounds like a low-tech Seal
song." The amusingly Chuck Berry
-ish story line of the hard-charging Bank Robber Man, is based on a real-life incident in which the star was mistaken for a criminal and busted by Miami police officers last year. Do you think that I'm the one that did it/Just because I'm tan?/Just then the officer at hand said/'I don't give a damn that you are in a rock and roll band,' Kravitz sings, and for once the social commentary doesn't feel contrived."
, which assigns a normalized
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average
score of 69, based on 12 reviews, which indicates "generally favoravle reviews". Stephen Thomas Erlewine
wrote a positive review for Allmusic, commenting that "There may not be singles that are as immediately grabbing as "It Ain't Over 'til It's Over
," "Let Love Rule
," and "Are You Gonna Go My Way
," but there are no dull spots, either, and this easily stands alongside his first three albums as a set of classy, near-irresistible pop for listeners weaned on classic and college rock, which is a wholly welcome surprise." Tom Sinclair wrote for Entertainment Weekly
that "While it's hard not to wish that Kravitz's music was just a few degrees better than it actually is, he has improved over the years." Sal Cinquemani wrote for Slant Magazine
that "the singer's classic rock influence (and devoted recreation of it) is once again evident on Lenny, with tracks like "Yesterday Is Gone" and "A Million Miles Away" recalling the crisp harmonies of John Lennon
and the electric guitar riffs of Jimi Hendrix
." Billboard
wrote that "It's an invigorating, electric blend that is pushed over the top by lyrics that are smart and spiritual without ever pressing too hard." Blender
commented about "its 12 tracks", writing that "they are unusually raucous and raw, as Kravitz finds a comfort zone with turbocharged punk and arena rock." Rolling Stone
perceived that "Nothing on Lenny can match "Again
," but he gets close sometimes, lumbering with a meatball sense of purpose that's all his own." While Q Magazine concluded that "As before, it's a heady swirl of rock
, soul
and hippy lyrics. However, it feels fantastic and, unless the record company is snoring soundly, it's full of hits."
except where noted -
Japan bonus CD (Acoustic):
Lenny Kravitz
Leonard Albert "Lenny" Kravitz is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and arranger, whose "retro" style incorporates elements of rock, soul, R&B, funk, reggae, hard rock, psychedelic, folk and ballads...
, released in October 2001 through Virgin Records America. It reached #12 on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
and #55 on the UK Album Chart. As of March 2008, Lenny has sold 724,000 units in the U.S, and approximately 3 million units worldwide.
The lead single, "Dig In", which reached #31 in the US, was the album's most successful song that helped Kravitz win his fourth consecutive Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
in the Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, while the song "If I Could Fall in Love" was featured in the Blue Crush
Blue Crush
Blue Crush is a 2002 surfer film directed by John Stockwell and based on the Outside magazine article "Life's Swell" by Susan Orlean. Starring Kate Bosworth, Michelle Rodriguez, Sanoe Lake, and Mika Boorem, it tells the story of three friends who have one passion: living the ultimate dream of...
soundtrack and gave Kravitz yet another nomination in the mentioned category in 2003.
Album background
Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote for Allmusic that "55 (Lenny Kravitz album)
5 is the fifth studio album by American rock musician Lenny Kravitz, released on May 12, 1998 by Virgin Records America.The album contained hits such as "Fly Away," and "I Belong to You", which helped Kravitz to expand his success in Europe...
gave Lenny Kravitz a career revival, thanks to a really big hit with "Fly Away
Fly Away
-Albums:* Fly Away , the 2007 last studio album by the German group Banaroo* Fly Away , the 2001 first album by Corrinne May* Fly Away , the 2003 debut album of Christian rapper Paul Wright...
," and he followed it with a hit, the cover of the Guess Who
Guess Who
Guess Who may refer to:*The Guess Who, a rock band from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada*Guess Who is a 1972 album by B.B. King*Guess Who , a Romanian hip hop artist*Guess Who?, a 1980s guessing game made popular by the Milton Bradley Company...
's "American Woman
American Woman
American Woman is the seventh album by Canadian rock band The Guess Who, released in 1970. It peaked at #9 on the Billboard Pop Albums charts...
," which surely benefited from its presence on the blockbuster Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, released in 1999, is the second film in the Austin Powers series that began with 1997's Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and continued with Austin Powers in Goldmember. The film was directed by Jay Roach, co-written by Mike Myers and screenwriter...
. Then, he threw out "Again
Again (Lenny Kravitz song)
"Again" is a single by rock musician Lenny Kravitz, released on his 2000 Greatest Hits album. The song is a mid-tempo rock ballad song and won Kravitz a Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance in 2001, a feat he had already achieved twice consecutively, with "Fly Away" and "American Woman"...
" as a new track for Greatest Hits
Greatest Hits (Lenny Kravitz album)
Greatest Hits is a greatest hits album by American rock musician Lenny Kravitz, released on October 24, 2000 . The album featured an unreleased track for promotion called "Again" which became a huge hit, reaching number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, following a very successful string of hits from the...
(who sold over 3.000.000 copies worldwide), setting the stage for the return to form that's Lenny." Kravitz has joined the ranks of Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
, Prince
Prince (musician)
Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...
, George Michael
George Michael
George Michael is a British musician, singer, songwriter and record producer who rose to fame in the 1980s when he formed the pop duo Wham! with his school friend, Andrew Ridgeley...
, writing, arranging, producing and performing every song on the album, creating a minimalist one-man show of acoustic and electric guitars, live percussion and drum programming.
Music
The opening track, Battlefield of Love, is built around a rudimentary guitar riff worthy of Grand Funk RailroadGrand Funk Railroad
Grand Funk Railroad is an American rock band that was highly popular during the 1970s. Grand Funk Railroad toured constantly to packed arenas worldwide. A popular take on the band during its heyday was that, although the critics hated them, audiences loved them...
- where Lenny does toss a wah-wah
Wah-wah
Wah-wah is an imitative word for the sound of altering the resonance of musical notes to extend expressiveness, sounding much like a human voice saying the syllable wah. The wah-wah effect is a spectral glide, a "modification of the vowel quality of a tone"...
solo into the mix. The rich "If I Could Fall in Love
If I Could Fall in Love
"If I Could Fall In Love" is the fourth single by American rock musician Lenny Kravitz's 2001 sixth self-titled studio album Lenny, released on December 24, 2002 by Virgin Records America...
" and the first single (the gritty rocker) "Dig In
Dig In
"Dig In" is the lead-single by Lenny Kravitz from his sixth studio album, Lenny. It was released in October 2001. It was used in promos by the National Basketball Association for the 2002 NBA Playoffs, as well as the ending theme for the film Returner....
" are home to the kind of crunchy electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
work, ultra-simple structures and super-catchy melodies that have become Kravitz staples. "Dig In evokes Sheryl Crow
Sheryl Crow
Sheryl Suzanne Crow is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, musician, and actress. Her music incorporates elements of rock, folk, hip hop, country and pop...
at times—only with slightly less keen lyrical content." Yesterday Is Gone has a "Beatles feel, but it no longer feels like he's consciously trying to rewrite Tomorrow Never Knows
Tomorrow Never Knows
"Tomorrow Never Knows" is the final track of The Beatles' 1966 studio album Revolver but the first to be recorded. Credited as a Lennon–McCartney song, it was written primarily by John Lennon...
. Kravitz's neo-hippie sentiments abound on tracks like "God Save Us All" and "Stillness of Heart" ("I'm feeling incomplete/What am I buying/My soul is crying"). The stripped-down approach works well throughout the plaintive ballad Believe in Me, which sounds like a low-tech Seal
Seal
Seal commonly refers to:* Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals many of which are commonly called seals* Seal , a device which helps prevent leakage, contain pressure, or exclude contamination where two systems join...
song." The amusingly Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
-ish story line of the hard-charging Bank Robber Man, is based on a real-life incident in which the star was mistaken for a criminal and busted by Miami police officers last year. Do you think that I'm the one that did it/Just because I'm tan?/Just then the officer at hand said/'I don't give a damn that you are in a rock and roll band,' Kravitz sings, and for once the social commentary doesn't feel contrived."
Reception
Initial critical response to Lenny was positive. At MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a normalized
Standard score
In statistics, a standard score indicates how many standard deviations an observation or datum is above or below the mean. It is a dimensionless quantity derived by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing the difference by the population standard deviation...
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average
Weighted mean
The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...
score of 69, based on 12 reviews, which indicates "generally favoravle reviews". Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine is a senior editor for Allmusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for Allmusic, as well as a freelance writer, occasionally contributing liner notes. He is also frontman and guitarist for the Ann Arbor-based band Who Dat?Erlewine is the nephew...
wrote a positive review for Allmusic, commenting that "There may not be singles that are as immediately grabbing as "It Ain't Over 'til It's Over
It Ain't Over 'til It's Over
"It Ain't Over 'til It's Over" is a song recorded, written, and produced by American musician Lenny Kravitz for his second studio album, Mama Said . Released as the album's second single in May 1991, the song is a mid-tempo ballad, musically inspired by Motown, Philly soul, and Earth, Wind & Fire...
," "Let Love Rule
Let Love Rule
Let Love Rule is the debut album of American rock musician Lenny Kravitz, released on September 19, 1989 by Virgin Records America. Then-wife Lisa Bonet wrote the lyrics to "Fear" and co-wrote the lyrics on the song, "Rosemary"....
," and "Are You Gonna Go My Way
Are You Gonna Go My Way
Are You Gonna Go My Way is the third studio album by American rock musician Lenny Kravitz, released on March 9, 1993 by Virgin Records America. It was recorded at Waterfront Recording Studios, Hoboken, New Jersey...
," but there are no dull spots, either, and this easily stands alongside his first three albums as a set of classy, near-irresistible pop for listeners weaned on classic and college rock, which is a wholly welcome surprise." Tom Sinclair wrote for Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
that "While it's hard not to wish that Kravitz's music was just a few degrees better than it actually is, he has improved over the years." Sal Cinquemani wrote for Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine is an online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York Film Festival.- History :...
that "the singer's classic rock influence (and devoted recreation of it) is once again evident on Lenny, with tracks like "Yesterday Is Gone" and "A Million Miles Away" recalling the crisp harmonies of John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
and the electric guitar riffs of Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
." Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
wrote that "It's an invigorating, electric blend that is pushed over the top by lyrics that are smart and spiritual without ever pressing too hard." Blender
Blender (magazine)
Blender was an American music magazine that billed itself as "the ultimate guide to music and more". It was also known for sometimes steamy pictorials of celebrities....
commented about "its 12 tracks", writing that "they are unusually raucous and raw, as Kravitz finds a comfort zone with turbocharged punk and arena rock." Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
perceived that "Nothing on Lenny can match "Again
Again (Lenny Kravitz song)
"Again" is a single by rock musician Lenny Kravitz, released on his 2000 Greatest Hits album. The song is a mid-tempo rock ballad song and won Kravitz a Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance in 2001, a feat he had already achieved twice consecutively, with "Fly Away" and "American Woman"...
," but he gets close sometimes, lumbering with a meatball sense of purpose that's all his own." While Q Magazine concluded that "As before, it's a heady swirl of rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
, soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
and hippy lyrics. However, it feels fantastic and, unless the record company is snoring soundly, it's full of hits."
Track list
All songs composed by Lenny KravitzLenny Kravitz
Leonard Albert "Lenny" Kravitz is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and arranger, whose "retro" style incorporates elements of rock, soul, R&B, funk, reggae, hard rock, psychedelic, folk and ballads...
except where noted -
- "Battlefield of Love" - 3:14
- "If I Could Fall in Love" (Lenny Kravitz, Craig RossCraig RossCraig David Ross is an American guitarist best known for performing and recording with Lenny Kravitz.-Biography:Ross was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. Craig Ross picked up the guitar at age 8, following a path that he hasn't deviated from since...
) - 4:21 - "Yesterday Is Gone (My Dear Kay)" - 3:52
- "Stillness of HeartStillness of Heart"Stillness of Heart", released on January 29, 2002, is a song written by Lenny Kravitz and Craig Ross, released on Kravitz's 2001 album Lenny...
" (Lenny Kravitz, Craig Ross) - 4:15 - "Believe in MeBelieve in Me (Lenny Kravitz song)"Believe in Me" is the third single by American rock musician Lenny Kravitz from his 2001 sixth self-titled studio album Lenny, released on April 23, 2002 by Virgin Records America.-Tracklisting:# "Believe in Me"# "Yesterday Is Gone "...
" (Lenny Kravitz, Henry Hirsch) - 4:41 - "Pay to Play" - 2:49
- "A Million Miles Away" - 4:32
- "God Save Us All" - 3:53
- "Dig InDig In"Dig In" is the lead-single by Lenny Kravitz from his sixth studio album, Lenny. It was released in October 2001. It was used in promos by the National Basketball Association for the 2002 NBA Playoffs, as well as the ending theme for the film Returner....
" - 3:37 - "You Were in My Heart" - 5:29
- "Bank Robber Man" - 3:31
- "Let's Get High" - 5:39
- "Again (Stankonia Remix featuring Outkast)" [Japan bonus] 4:09
Japan bonus CD (Acoustic):
- Rosemary 5:35
- Can't Get You Off My Mind 4:38
- God Is Love 4:28
- Flowers For Zoe 2:48
- A Million Miles Away 4:32
- God Save Us All 3:49
- Yesterday Is Gone (My Dear Kay) 3:56
- Stillness Of Heart 4:20
Singles
- "Dig In" #31 (US Hot 100), #7 (US Adult Top 40)
- "Stillness of Heart" #44 (UK Top 75), #18 (US Adult Top 40)
- "Believe in Me"
- "If I Could Fall in Love" #40 (US Adult Top 40)