I'd Rather Play You on My TV

Tommy Lee might as well be the male counterpart of Paris Hilton. Yeah he has a steady job, but let’s be honest, he’s always been more famous for who he’s dated and his extra curricular activities rather than any of his music especially since the hair-metal was killed by grunge. Trying to find a niche in music since he originally split from Mötley Crüe, Tommy has everything including trying to ride the rap-metal craze of the late 90’s, not with much success. Tommy is back with a new album, Tommyland: The Ride, riding in on the wave of mellow rockers such as Nickelback. Oh, and not so coincidentally, the album coincides with his new reality series. Well he needs to keep up with Paris.

The album start off on a bad foot when I actually thought that the song was skipping, but it took me a while to realize that the song was supposed to sound like that. Good Time then diverts into what amounts to a post-Fly Sugar Ray song. Well except Mark McGrath is a better singer. The songs on the album defiantly sound better when Lee hands off the vocal duties to his all-star friends. And by all-star, I mean people who are less than five years away from appearing on The Surreal Life. The dude from Fuel helps out on Sister Mary, the dude from Nickelback lends a hand to Tryin’ to be Me, Tommy duets with Dirty Harry on Makin’ Me Crazy, and Nick Carter (yes from the Backstreet Boys and ironically former boy toy of Paris) makes an appearance during the surprisingly sweet Say Goodbye. Tommy really can’t bring in the quality of acts that Santana can on his recent star studded albums.

The Madden brothers of Good (well let’s be honest, Mediocre) Charlotte, the dude Sum41 (you know, the one who also dated Paris), and Dave Navarro appear on the most unintentionally funny song in a while, Tired. The song sounds like a diversion of GC’s Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous with lyrics like, “Tommy got tired of Pamela, Ed got tired of Salma, Puffy got tired of JLo and Ben did too.” But the song is much funnier than anything GC can do. And I’m sure Ed, Puffy (although my sources tell me it’s just Diddy now, but you can’t fault Tommy for not keeping up), Ben, and Hef (who gets namedropped later) are all wondering, “Why are you dragging us into your drama?” In the end, Tommy is still trying to find his voice, but apparently until then, he is content with biting other people’s style.

Song to Download – Makin’ Me Crazy (unless you want a good laugh, then check out Tired)

Tommyland: The Ride gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.