A Miami police officer looked at Lenny Kravitz and saw a bank robber. The American rock musician wasn't robbing anything; he was just walking, and the cops moved in. That real-life mix-up became a song on his sixth studio album, and the record arrived on October 30, 2001, under the plain title 'Lenny'.
One man in the studio
Kravitz had reason to keep things personal. He wrote, arranged, produced and performed every track himself, handling the mixing as well. A small circle helped in the studio, but the album sounds like one man's head: acoustic and electric guitars, live percussion and drum programming all layered by Kravitz.
The first single, 'Dig In', climbed to number 31 on the Billboard Hot 100. More importantly, it earned Kravitz his fourth consecutive Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance. That streak meant critics and voters kept expecting him to deliver, and the new album had to justify the pattern.
Riffs, ballads and a Blue Crush soundtrack
The record showed range. 'Battlefield of Love' opens with a simple guitar riff in the spirit of Grand Funk Railroad, complete with a wah-wah solo. 'Yesterday Is Gone' nods to The Beatles, while 'God Save Us All' and 'Stillness of Heart' carry a neo-hippie mood. The ballad 'Believe in Me' strips things down to a minimalist arrangement. The album's reach went beyond its own tracklist. 'If I Could Fall in Love' later appeared on the soundtrack of the film 'Blue Crush', and the song brought Kravitz another Grammy nomination in the same male rock vocal category in 2003. That nod showed the album kept generating attention well after its release.
Then there is 'Bank Robber Man', the song drawn from the Miami incident. Kravitz took a humiliating moment and made it part of the tracklist. Across 12 songs, including 'A Million Miles Away' and 'Let's Get High', the album moved through psychedelic rock, pop-rock, alternative rock and hard rock.
Kravitz took a humiliating moment and made it part of the tracklist.
Chart positions and regional bonuses
Commercially, the record had a split personality. The record climbed to the 12th spot on the Billboard 200 and landed at 55 on the UK Albums Chart. In Japan, the release came with a bonus disc of acoustic versions of songs like 'Rosemary' and 'Can't Get You Off My Mind', plus a Stankonia remix of 'Again' featuring Outkast. The singles told a similar story of steady, if modest, success. 'Stillness of Heart' reached number 18 on the US Adult Top 40 and number 44 on the UK Singles Chart. 'If I Could Fall in Love' climbed to number 40 on the US Adult Top 40, giving the album a second radio presence.
Critics were mostly warm but not unanimous. Metacritic shows an average score of 69 out of 100. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic gave it 4 stars out of 5, and Q magazine matched that rating. Rolling Stone was slightly cooler at 3.5 out of 5. The album landed after a Greatest Hits collection and before the studio album 'Baptism'. Not every critic was kind. Drowned in Sound gave the album a harsh 1 out of 10, while Entertainment Weekly offered a B−. Still, USA Today was more generous with 3 out of 4 stars, and the album found strong chart positions across Europe, reaching number 5 in Germany, number 6 in Italy and Japan, and number 7 in the Netherlands. Blender and Spin were also in the middle, each giving the album a 3 out of 5 and a 6 out of 10 respectively. The record also reached number 17 in France, adding another European market to its run.
A quarter century after its release, 'Lenny' remains a strange entry in Kravitz's catalogue: a solo-built record that reached high on charts in Austria and Greece, yet barely cracked the top 50 in Britain. It is the album where a false arrest, a wah-wah riff and a Grammy streak all shared the same sleeve.