Ted Nugent, The Music Made Me Do It, 2018

Ted Nugent, The Music Made Me Do It, 2018

By: Erreh Svaia

Rock N Roll Animal

Please add Ted Nugent in that long list of uncomfortable characters like Varg Vikernes, Luis Rey and Kanye West, who despite their nefarious personalities are capable of creating first class music that we are incapable of ignoring, and that is that many of musicians of Nugent's age would kill for continuing to create music of this level of intensity and passion, Nugent reminds me of Marty McFly of Back to the Future shaking his guitar wildly in a version of Chuck Berry on steroids, more eager to satisfy his need to unleash thunderstorms that looking to please your audience, but in the end, that madness and courage are those who end up making The Music Made Me Do It, such a musical feast, we must not go beyond the topic that gives the album its name and that is also responsible for opening it, to realize that rock n roll is a religion capable of redeeming people like Nugent despite his tragic devotion to someone like the sinister Donald Trump, powerful riffs that fall as a heavy cascade and a phenomenal mastery of the guitar in all its extension with a superb work in the rhythm section that manages to give a more solid themes.

The Music Made Me Do It is the number 15 album of Nugent who has been able to sell 40 million albums throughout his career (started in the 60s), known as the Motor City Madman, Nugent gives us another one of those powerful discs that seem more like a long and endless "jam" in the style of the previous ones like Shutup & Jam! (from 2014) that followed precisely this formula of a hard rock of little previous planning and a lot of immediate action, this time in a trio format with drummer Jason Hartless and bassist Greg Smith, Nugent on guitar sounds like a real madman, It is enough to listen to his handling of the six strings at the beginning of Where Ya Gonna Run to Get Away from Yourself, another desperate rock anthem that refuses to stand still or grow old and that continues to advance like a train without brakes in the style of people like already mentioned Berry, or the great Bo Diddley.

There are some disturbing topics, such as the ode to arms described in Cocked, Locked & Ready to Rock that only shows a Nugent quite a fan of weapons at times, but with a vocation towards rock n roll undisputed, with guitar lines that many would kill to have in these days, a kind of metaphor between the firearms that Nugent has defended publicly (for personal defense) and his electric guitar, which manages to turn into a true weapon of mass destruction taking advantage of the versatile accompaniment of Hartless and Smith, who undoubtedly inject a powerful dose of versatility into Nugent's sound blasts, while for Bigfundirtygorveenoize things seem to start coming out of control completely, which is good in Nugent's case, perfectly well supported by his musicians of accompaniment, while Nugent travels to the roots of the same rock n roll in a furious, unstoppable, primitive but Rutable from beginning to end, in a kind of sonic chaos that becomes a satisfactory experience that Nugent manages to use in his favor.

In I Love Ya Too Much Baby, Nugent is accompanied by the vocalist Alyssa Simmons, who manages to give the song a Southern touch very much in the style of the legendary Black Oak Arkansas, in a combination of Nugent's demented vocals and the robust and sonorous voice of Simmons, while later we have a modified version of the classic Cat Scratch Fever, renamed here as BackStrap Fever, but hey, here it's about enjoying the revitalization of the theme and leaving the lyrics aside.

Probably my favorite theme of the album is I Just Wanna Go Huntin, where Nugent and company manages to combine those guitars like sharp knives and an unforgettable melody that serve as the perfect frame for a very personal theme for Nugent, part of his personal philosophy and love by the hunt and his disdain for drugs that only reaffirms the kind of iconoclastic character that Nugent is, and that although politically can be quite uncomfortable, musically he is an experienced man who can be counted on to hit the target in each one of the songs, The Music Made Me Do It is a spectacular album, with themes that move forward and that do not try to revive Nugent's musical past, Ted keeps looking forward and keeps moving, continues to build a day by day race and is far from becoming a mere act of nostalgia, Ted Nugent leaves here a clear example of how adult musicians still can have a formidable career ahead, if they choose so.