The soundtrack for
Howard Stern's cinematic debut
Private Parts was bound to be a hodge-podge of styles designed by marketers to reach the most listeners, but it's still surprising to hear how uneven the album actually is. Divided between contemporary hard rock and classic hard rock interspersed with snippets of dialogue from the film, the album never really builds up speed. Half of the new songs are worthy -- particularly
Porno for Pyros' "Hard Charger," which is more focused than anything they've previously released, and
LL Cool J and
the Red Hot Chili Peppers' collaboration, "I Make My Own Rules" -- but there is also dreck like
Ozzy Osbourne and
Type O Negative's awkward cover of
Status Quo's "Pictures of Matchstick Men." The classic rock -- "Smoke on the Water," "I Want You to Want Me," "Cat Scratch Fever," "Jamie's Cryin'," a live "You Shook Me All Night Long" -- is good, but almost too familiar. Still, no one is going to
Private Parts for creativity, and it delivers what it promises -- good, old-fashioned hard rock with lots of attitude. It's a lot like listening to an AOR morning show, as a matter of fact. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine