The Black Crowes

By Your Side

Wll the real Black Crowes please stand up?

Review Score:

(6/10)
Being a native of Atlanta, and being a sucker for good hooks, wailing vocals, and attitude-laced rock-and-roll, I hustled out to my local entertainment superstore to purchase the new Black Crowes album. On the way back home, I pumped it through my stereo, and imagined how little this record would change if Mick Jagger had sung vocals. Yes, I like Chris Robinson's voice a lot, but the whole record is so....so....STONES. Ever since I bought the record, I haven't been able to shake the scenario: record company execs saunter up to the Crowes and tell them, "hey, all they ever play on the radio is "Hard to Handle" and "Twice as Hard". Why don't you boys do more of that?" Well, they did. This record parallels "Shake Your Money Maker" closely. It's more of the bar room, pool table, late-night kind of rock and roll that they made originally on SYMM. And I don't particularly care for it. My favorite Crowes albums are "Amorica" for its rawness, its soul, and its damn-the-torpedoes attitude, and "Southern Harmony" for they way it paints a picture in my mind of sickness, diesase, and moral depravity. They were taking CHANCES back then, and I for one enjoyed it. "Gone" and "High Head Blues" are two of my favorite Crowes moments. On these two records, it didn't seem as though they were purposefully trying to shake the whole "Stones" moniker, but the music on these two albums showed a band ready to move on for its own sake -- whatever the critics called them. Oh, and I rather liked Three Snakes and One Charm. So there. Anyway, By Your Side seems to be an idea conceived by record execs to turn the Crowes back into the new Stones. Like somebody somewhere knew that this record would be a sure-fire way to bring the Crowes back to the national spotlight and away from those banal "Where Are They Now?" specials on VH1. Well, it's gonna work, but as "Amorica" suggests, I'm not entirely sure that the Crowes WANT to be the Stones. Okay, yada yada yada. I've said my piece. Oh yeah -- the record still rocks.

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