Uncle Kracker

One Liner: Lite-rock semi-rapper with Kid Rock's help turned lite-country guy 

Wikipedia Genre: Country (?!?!)

Home: Nashville (but originally from Muscle Shoals, AL)

Poster Position: Small Type 
Saturday.

Thoughts:  This isn't the guy I thought it was, in my mind, I think I was thinking that this was Crazy Town with the song that stole from the Chili Peppers.  Instead, this guy is more in the neighborhood of lite-rock Sugar Ray.

Several of his top ten songs are not actually his songs.  #2 is a cover, but that is okay.  But #4 is a Kenny Chesney song that he appears on, #5 is by Moonshine Bandits that he appears on (and is freaking HORRIBLE), and #6 features Kid Rock and feels very much like a Kid Rock song.  Kid Rock is actually a really apt comparison for what this dude sounds like.  "Good to Me" very much sounds like one of those newer, classic-rock-biting Kid Rock tracks.

The big hit was 2000's "Follow Me," from his debut Double Wide.  264.6 million streams.

Wait, is that the Sugar Ray guy in that video?  Maybe that is why I conflated them.  Those teeth, the lite-rock jazziness, and the light AutoTune make this a brutal tune.  I'm sure some people have happy thoughts from it from back in the day, but that is not me.  His 2002 follow-up album boasts his second-most streamed tune, another lite-rock anthem with him covering Dobie Gray's hit "Drift Away" and using all of the tip frosting that he could afford at the salon.  133.4 million streams.

Gah.  I feel like someone wrote back to me when I made fun of UK being on this poster, saying that this cover was great.  I do not find it to be great.  The sight of him singing the word "doooooo" with his little lips pursed over his foul flavor saver is sending me to a bad place.  Nothing interesting about suck an exact copy of the original.  Like, did he actually add anything there?  I don't hear it.  The best part is that he has Dobie on there to add some actual soul to the song.

Kracker is actually Matthew Shafer, and before going out on his own he was in Kid Rock's backing group called Twister Brown Trucker.  He was born in Michigan, and Kid Rock was part of his lore: "With his brother Mike Shafer, he visited a nightclub in Clawson, Michigan, where a turntables competition was occurring. His older brother was competing against a then-unknown Kid Rock. Shafer soon became friends with Kid Rock. In 1994, Kid Rock asked Shafer to play turntables for his band called Twisted Brown Trucker. Shafer knew nothing of using turntables, but since his brother was an experienced DJ, he agreed. He only performed at live shows at the time, until he began recording for Rock's album, Early Mornin' Stoned Pimp; Shafer was a featured vocalist on some of the tracks."

Rock apparently produced that first album, so this is why I am hearing that in these songs.  The album went 2x Platinum, although it did not have any other charting singles.  The second album, with "Drift Away," only went Gold, although "Drift Away" set a record for most weeks atop the Adult Contemporary charts with 28 consecutive weeks.  That sounds about right.  After this, he apparently made friends with Kenny Chesney and went in a country direction with his future albums.  Nothing on 2004's Seventy Two & Sunny has more than 1mm streams, but 2009's Happy Hour has a hit in "Smile," with 15 million streams.

Total modern country stuff there, with awful lyrics and a drum machine.  "sing like a bird, dizzy in my head, spin like a record, crazy on a Sunday night."  Feels like something that the Nashville writers tried to get anyone else to use, and they all thought it was too cheesy, until Kracker finally came along.  The amazing thing is how many people in the YouTube comments LOVE these songs.  The backing music is lite-rock schlock of the worst order, and the lyrics are so derivative and bad.  I just don't get it.  Maybe I need to go into songwriting.  "You're cool, you're hot, you're nice, you're sweet, you're my baaaaaabeeeee, oh yeah!"  HIT RECORD RIGHT THERE!!!

I tried the newest non-greatest hits album, 2012's Midnight Special, and it blows too.

I would prefer to stop listening to these songs, and will definitely do my best to avoid his show at the fest.  I'm probably being too harsh and people just like these songs because they're mellow and inoffensive and remind them of good times, but if I am trying to be objective and critical of them, then I can find a lot to dislike here.