Spun: Tommy Lee

By Jon Roe

Hey kids, welcome to Tommyland: the Ride, the third jaunt of Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee into solo-ville. Lee brings a lot of friends along for the trip, including Joel Madden from Good Charlotte and Nick Carter from the Backstreet Boys, but the songs are like those old wooden roller coasters, it’s tempting to ride them, but it’s the same tired old piece of machinery.

If you were looking for something similar to the Crue, then you’ll be sorely disappointed, as the album sounds more like a sampling of every current rock sub-genre than ’80s hair metal. On display are the cock-rock/neo-grunge/Nickelback scene with the song “Trying to Be Me,” and the soft-rock ballad scene with “Say Goodbye.”

The one stand-out on the album is the pop-punkish song “Tired,” if only because of the chorus with Joel Madden shouting out “Tommy got tired of Pamela/Ed got tired of Selma/Puffy got tired of J. Lo and Ben did too.” Not surprisingly, Tommyland, with its retreading of so many already-warn paths ends up sounding incoherent, much less like nothing special. Only Tommy Lee enthusists should venture into Tommyland, others should avoid it and pick up something good.

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