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Toby Keith
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Rod Stewart
If it weren’t for the cover photo and Stewart’s name on the CD cover, “Still the Same…Great Rock Classics of Our Time” could pass for a Ronco collection of oldies as performed by sound-alike artists. The title alone is enough to suggest a cheap, lazy and monetary-based package. The content does nothing to alleviate this impression, either. I could say that this is the last straw, but Stewart established his artistic indifference decades ago, sometime around “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy.”
The truth nowadays is that Rod Stewart is to popular music what the interstate is to a road trip; bland, predictable, overly familiar and safer than the road less taken. Here is a guy who once fronted one of the best rock and roll bands of all time (Faces), and released gloriously eclectic and challenging solo albums. Sometime around 1974, though, the muse left him, or maybe the creativity of Ronnie Lane and Ronnie Wood are what left. Once his affiliation with that band became history, so did Stewart’s sense of artistry. Ever since, he has been shilling second-rate material to an audience that demands virtually nothing from him. As a consequence, that is more or less exactly what he has offered in return. The less demanding his material, the more that some people seem to love it.
It’s a formula that works great for the man, and I don’t want to begrudge him any of his fame or fortune. McDonalds sells a lot of hamburgers, Budweiser sells a lot of beer, and Rod Stewart sells a lot of records. All of them manage to do this by extracting ‘flavor’ from the ingredients list and avoiding anything else that could make their product distinctive.
If you think that Stewart’s collections featuring songs from the great American songbook were brilliant, then of course you will enjoy an album where he carbon copies rock artists who once may have been copying him. At least Sam Cooke preceded Stewart and could provide genuine inspiration, but Bonnie frikkin’ Tyler’s “It’s a Heartache?” It’s more like a travesty. If you feel compelled to defend this collection, then please tell me what Stewart adds to John Fogerty, Bob Seger, and Elvin Bishop’s material? Is there one good reason on God’s green earth why you would prefer Stewart’s connect-the-dots cover of “Day After Day” over Badfinger’s beautiful original version? He sounds like a bad jukebox in a biker bar. I am telling you that this record sucks, but you probably think I’m being elitist, so go ahead. Next time you’re buying Cheerios at K-Mart, pick up a copy. If the CD doesn’t offend you, then you can get in queue to hear Stewart as he sings the phone book, too, but I for one will not be standing in that line.
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