Lenny Kravitz
Are You Gonna Go My Way

THE REVIEW

The right man at the right time.

In the early 90s, there was a feeling that the public was looking for a new black music hero to crown; the promise of Terence Trent D'Arby had not been fulfilled, Jackson's career was starting to be overshadowed by the first heavy rumors, and even Prince seemed to have forgotten his genius from the 80s when Lenny Kravitz arrived on the scene, the man who seemed destined to save black rock.

With long dreadlocks, a glam look, and the poses of a seasoned star, Kravitz seemed tailor-made to become a rockstar… he cited Hendrix and Lennon among his masters, he recorded albums using only vintage instruments and equipment to achieve a syncopated and dirty sound (which in the midst of the grunge era didn't sound out of place), almost as if he came directly from the 70s.
By '93, he had two notable albums to his credit ('Let Love Rule' and 'Mama Said') which achieved a good deal of public (and especially critical) success, as well as a controversial and much-discussed collaboration with Madonna on the track Justify My Love, but that year his career took a turn with the release of 'Are You Gonna Go My Way' which transformed him into a star.

The album was propelled to success by the rocking and aggressive title-track entirely built on a single powerful and catchy guitar riff, which has perhaps remained his most famous track… the rest of the album, highly enjoyable (although slightly inferior to the previous ones), sees Kravitz skillfully navigate, with not a little cheekiness, between different genres all contaminated by his black attitude. Here he is mimicking (in his own way) the soul fathers in tracks like Black Girl and Sugar (the latter resembling the previous hit It Ain't Over Till It's Over) or tinging his rock with psychedelic colors (My Love), demonstrating guitar skills in Sister (a long ballad very 70s, slightly soporific) and flirting with reggae (Eleutheria… not very successful). Two more singles were extracted from the album, the heartfelt "space" ballad Believe and the delicate Heaven Help, which consolidated its success.

Success and fame would become the Achilles' heel for Kravitz who, after the semi-flop of the subsequent "Circus" (dark and underrated), would pursue (and achieve again with greater intensity) making quite a few compromises, excessively smoothing his music, being too concerned with his image as a sex symbol, completely losing freshness and especially that paradoxical originality in re-proposing old musical styles that had brought him to the forefront.