Day 87: "Let It Rock" – Kevin Rudolf feat. Lil Wayne, In the City , 2008After writing about Cash Money rock icon Kevin Rudolf yesterday, I received a surprising amount of feedback (i.e. like, three tweets) from the Real Rudolf Heads, pointing out that, in fact, Lil Wayne and Kevin Rudolf had made a more famous song than the one I'd never heard of. This was not news to me because the more famous song in question, "Let It Rock," is in fact the one Kevin Rudolf song I have heard of. But as long as we are talking Rudolf—and hey, it's that time of year—we might as well talk about the whole Rudolf/Wayne oeuvre.Let me begin by saying this in no uncertain terms: This song is also bad, although in slightly different ways than the bad Kevin Rudolf and Lil Wayne song I posted yesterday. For one thing, although Kevin Rudolf yells "rock!" after each one of Lil Wayne's lines naming women he's slept with—which would lead the neophyte listener to assume that this song rocks very hard—this song actually rocks less than the other one. What? I can picture you asking. How can a song called "Let It Rock" and featuring a minimum of two (2) cool bandanas in the video performers' back pockets not rock exceedingly? Doesn't Kevin Rudolf smash his MF guitar in the video? Great questions. The answer is: Actually, I don't know. I guess this song rocks as much as anything else does. I mean, the Foo Fighters never made a song where you can just yell "rock" randomly every few seconds and get the lyrics right. There are, technically speaking, guitars. And it seems possible that this song is solely responsible for the existence of Grammy-winning rock act Imagine Dragons. Most importantly, Lil Wayne, a true rock star, flashes the rock devil horns in the video due to his extreme rockness.In the video, Wayne wears a neon yellow Carlton Banks T-shirt from Urban Outfitters, which is perhaps the iconic UO shirt and is possibly the most 2008 outfit imaginable. I went to a college named Carleton—when this song came out—and the UO Carlton shirt was also an unofficial form of college gear during my time there because, get it, visual pun. Anyway, I'm glad that my old roommate's laundry shirt is immortalized in this Lil Wayne video, which, come to think of it, is a pretty good metaphor for what this Kevin Rudolf song sounds like. I mean, Lil Wayne raps that he's "dirty like socks that's on the ground," which is both kind of a good line and kind of a dumb one, which in turn is kind of the spirit of rock personified, which is also the spirit of Lil Wayne personified, which is actually a pretty good argument for why Lil Wayne is a rock star.He also has a Wayne's World line, and that movie is pretty rock. And he says, "panties drop, and the tops, and she gonna rock 'til the camera stop." Kevin Rudolf, however, is not nearly as rock 'n' roll as Wayne, even though he does seem to enjoy the dang guitar. It turns out that being rock has nothing to do with having a guitar and everything to do with, uh, saying stuff. Rock on, fellow rockers.Follow Kyle Kramer on Twitter.
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