Ted Nugent
Shutup & Jam

Ted Nugent is a fool. A real idiot. A jackass! And I wouldn't want to have anything to do with him if I had the choice to avoid it. Honestly, I really hate Ted Nugent and his entire world of gun favouring, narrow minded views and undemocratic opinions. However, it's not my opinion to review the person Ted Nugent so my contempt for him has to be put aside when I'm to review this and the rest of his albums because here we have the fourteenth studio album by this jackass and my review on the music on it.

'Shutup & Jam' is a scaled down hard rock album on twelve tracks with a thirteenth reprising one of the twelve in a bluesier version. Ted has also brought a couple of friends with him for this album, like Sammy Hagar that adds vocals to on one of the songs and there's also a band - a kind of "the usual suspects" - Huey, Dewey and Louie (or whatever they're called - check the credit list on the left but they've all been there with Mr Nugent before). Together, they make an album with a sound I haven't heard for at least 30 years. And it's an album I can't understand because it sounds really "unproduced" and I just can't work out if that's on purpose or not.

Well… the opining track is totally crap but after that the album gains a bit quality with the ridicules song Fear Itself that actually has a pretty nice flow. It continue to improve a bit until it reach tracks like I Love My BBQ and Do Rags And A .45 as well as the twelth track Trample The Weak Hurdle The Dead because there it completely looses it. The lyrics are completely shit all over the album and unfortunately Mr Nugent has given them a just as central role as on all his previous album. It's like he's so delusional that he thinks he writes good lyrics! "My name is Ted Nugent and I always tell people how great I am on my albums. I get sexual transmitted deceases from having unprotected sex, yeah! That's how great I am! I have an ego as big as Nevada".

So the lyrics are shit but the music is actually pretty good in some of the tracks. It's scaled down and pretty rough, and it almost sounds like the album is recorded in one continuous shot. All of this could have meant it was an artistic, musical and kind of impressive… had they only been slightly more musical… and artistic. As it sounds now it only sounds slipshod. And that might work together with the music but to be honest the production (and lyrics) are unworthy the music.

I don't think I would have liked it much more if I had felt it was done this way on purpose and had an artistic idea but that had at least probably made it feel better. As it is now I just don't see that. Nugent doesn't strike me as someone who experiments and tries innovative ideas - when I hear this album I just feel that Nugent doesn't seem to have a clue on what he's doing, he's just done what he liked to do without a bigger plan and that resulted in this album. But there are too many flaws in the material to make it feel well made. It feels like he's tried but this was all he could do and honestly this just feels poor for a man that's been in the music industry for forty years! If this is the best he got then he shouldn't just shut up politically but also musically.

I think Ted Nugent should listen to his own title… Shut up and jam - yeah, that's what he should do. Go back and jam and shut the fuck up while you practice and becomes a better musician. Ted Nugent has released enough mediocre albums now and I just don't see why anyone would care anymore. At least I have since long lost interest, if I did care from the beginning? Some of you might think that I only say these things because I dislike Mr Nugent but the reason why I made that clear from the beginning was because I wanted to put all cards on the table so it shouldn't be any discussion about it. Yes, I do see Ted Nugent as a real idiot but no, it's not him I'm reviewing. It's the music. And the music on this album… well, that's just not particularly good.

HHHHHHH