There is no better embodiment of success than when America anoints a song as a monetized Jock Jam; you can go ask Jack White about his “Seven Nation Army.” Those are actions, not feelings tied to sensitive hipster critics and their fussy little blogs. It’s the public, speaking clearly with their debit cards.
You can also ask Lenny Kravitz, a myth-like rock legend, who barely tips out at 5 feet 9 inches, not quite Prince short but compact in boots. The rock veteran released his twelfth studio album, Blue Electric Light, this past May. It’s okay if you didn’t know. At age 60, he has a discography to go along with those six-pack abs, that’s forever indelible on the human memory. When it works. But in a lot of cases, you have to dig through some clunkers to get to the diamonds. Listen up, Lenny heads, I’m one of you. Here for LK all day.
It’s almost impossible to name another rocker from the 20th Century who combines big ’70s rock, FM radio bombast with Curtis Mayfield soul, Hendrixian flash, Stevie Wonder funk, Marvin Gaye falsetto. Who one second is crooning about peace and love, one world ideology, and then on a dime giving your girlfriend those “he with you or what?” intonations. He’s a bad dude.
But let’s put on our big boy pants—there are some very mid moments in this four-time Grammy Award winner for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance’s career. Lenny Kravitz is like Vegas, or better yet, the Oceans trilogy; they don’t always hit, but when they do, it’s timeless.
Before we get into the weeds, let’s speak the king’s english. As much as I still love “Eminence Front” by The Who before it became in-between music for sporting events or corporate selling-you-investments music—no really, I played the shit outta that DJing, I dare you to name another song off The Who’s It’s Hard album. You can’t. Why? Because the album sucked. Sorry that’s vulgar, but so is that record. Subpar for the group, and quite possibly a cash grab.
And here is my “give Lenny a damn break!” pitch. Along with The Who, there is Billy Joel, Van Halen, some Stevie Wonder in the ’80s, some cocained Elton John moments in the ’80s, Grateful Dead, R.E.M., The Clash, and even our beloved Beatles and Rolling Stones. All of these artists at one point in time had serious, and I do mean weighty and far-reaching, quality control stretches during their careers. Even Miles put out some clunkers, folks.
But everybody gets in a cosplay mood for Lenny, deciding to dress up as the quality control cop. It’s unfair. C’mon, to get top-level Lenny, you gotta let the other Lenny fire off some bad to questionable shots.
“Fly,” the 2024 remix of Lenny Kravitz’s 1998 hit “Fly Away,” was created after Quavo and other artists performed “Fly Away” as a tribute to Kravitz at the Black Music Collective’s Recording Academy Honors. The performance went so well that Quavo and producer Andrew Watt decided to record an updated version with Quavo rapping and Kravitz providing new vocals.
It’s the kids who will let you know, real quick, what’s got that “juice.” The original “Fly Away” almost didn’t make it onto Kravitz’s fifth studio album 5 from 1998. The record was done. But the tune was just an informal jam. Some studio riff that had legs in the moment. Songs like those are gifts passed down. Kravitz’s first thought was to release it as a B-side. However, a friend convinced him to include it on the album—it’s the blow-off-steam joints that become “whip out the phone, do it for the ‘Gram moments in concert.”
But those epic arrangements, rooted in bloated ego, that take months to record? Meh. See: clunkers.
At first Kravitz’s record label was skeptical, but they had a very quick change of mind as soon as they heard the song. Classic Lenny. Rock. Funk. Riff. Straight into into harmony chorus. Sheeiit. That’s elevated ear candy. Ever since Kravitz and Quavo did that cross-generational punch-up, “Fly”, remains hot in these streets, thumping on blast during televised college football games, and featured in Fortnite Festival and on Madden NFL 25. I like to refer to this version of the Black rock icon as Paid Lenny.
Like all of us, he got phases. It’s 1993’s Are You Gonna Go My Way, his eleven-song explosion of rock, funk, soul, reggae, and attitude—pulling the full Lenny—where we get his best-concentrated output of eight quality songs. The hit “Are You Gonna Go My Way” is his metaphorical way of saying, “y’all gonna let me in?”
It didn’t matter what corporate America thought. MTV, BET, THE BOX, VH-1 all had confusion about the idea of banking on another Prince. That album instead eliminated the middleman and just decimated music lovers by doing all the things. Packed up with compelling stadium rockers, Pink Floydian moon-dust tapestries such as “Believe,” funk-rock Led Zep-esque jams “Come On and Love Me,” the de facto gentle Curtis Mayfield arrangement “Heaven Help,” the possible Black Crowes southern rock punch-up “Is There Any Love In Your Heart,” the heavyweight Hendrixian soul-rock ballad “Black Girl.”
He even slips in a CSNY salute with the country twang meets Neil Young ripper of a solo “My Love” and then back on that 70s soul tip with “Sugar”; it’s an album that lays out all the colors, all Kravitz’s strengths, but even further in the retro wheel, these songs feel like they could be 45s or 7-inch singles, radio-ready hits, that don’t go over 4 minutes. So Lenny was swinging for the pop fences and made, as Keith Richards always tried to do with The Stones, a record you could tour.
Add to it his wardrobe. Scarfs taller than him. That whole red velvet shirt-cape vibe in the video for the title track, the one with the armholes, while he’s knocking you the fuck over with this guitar riff frequency. It doesn’t just work; it predicts that Led Zep-meets-Busta Rhymes fashion sensibility coming later in the decade. Nirvana’s In Utero was released in the same year—but both records came from opposite sides of the nebula. Kurt was literally dying in front of the camera while Lenny, a Black rocker—America doesn’t do too well by Black rockers—was trying to blow the eff up with his third release. When somebody tells you there are two Americas, get off TikTok and pay attention.
The first time—absolutely—I heard and saw “Are You Gonna Go My Way,” with a fully afroed-out jazz drummer, Cindy Blackman, moonlighting in this rock band to keep the lights on, she’s going full Keith Moon HAM, beating up those damn drums like they owed her milk money. Having a vigorous conversation with Sheila E.
It might have been rock, but it hit like Wu-Tang’s “Protect Ya Neck.” I did not peel my eyes away ’cause the music, the culture, the ferocity, it all changed. Up was down, brothers were killing it with guitars, white kids were jocking him like Hendrix. I was in. And I already had his debut Let Love Rule from 1989.
See, “Bobbito” Garcia, yep that one, tipped me off back in the day. Also known as DJ Cucumber Slice and Kool Bob Love, he was working artist and promotion for a little label called Def Jam. He was my 3rd Bass hook-up at the college radio station I was working for at the time. Even then Bobbito had eyes and ears all over NYC. So I always asked him after we got done on the phone with whatever he was schlepping my way from Def Jam, “What’s something you heard this week that’s dope?” And he told me: “Yo B, I saw this dude, kinda on some black hippie rock shit, just kill it. The dude’s name is Lenny Kravitz. Peep him.”
So I did, and consequently, the track off the debut that sold me on the entire vision wasn’t the peace and love joint, but some trademark Lenny situation. Rock-funk, dirty riff “Freedom Train” that felt like Sly Stone was awake and angry, coming back for his throne. From then on, I was checking for this dude. That whole fantastic ’70s guitar riffs thing, big drum energy, V-shaped axes, and—when he’s not shirtless—those retro-futuristic outfits.
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