★★★★★
It'd be easy to dismiss Uncle Kracker's first full-length country album as yet another attempt by a pop/rock has-been trying to cash in on mainstream country music's popularity but like Darius Rucker, Aaron Lewis and, to a lesser extent, Kid Rock & Sheryl Crow, Uncle Kracker's 'switch' to country feels like a natural switch...
- www.roughstock.com
2012-11-29
★★★★★
A few years ago Kenny Chesney invited Uncle Kracker to duet with him on the summertime anthem "When The Sun Goes Down" and since then the Detroit-native has been on the country music radar but like his close friend Kid Rock, Uncle Kracker has always had a fondness for country and from the beginning of his solo career, which started with 2000's Double Wide, Kracker has been showcasing country influences on each record...
- roughstock.com
2010-12-07
★★★★★
Originally Kid Rock's turntablist, fellow Detroit freak Uncle Kracker tones down the MC/DJ role on his sophomore release, No Stranger to Shame, while Detroit blues, southern-rock, country and pop take their place. He croons instead of raps, and you've got to have cubes to cover Drift Away (now a duet with Dobie Gray). His original material rings with remembrance long after the last song ends, and he's placed himself square in the killing zone of Sugar Ray...
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-09
★★★★★
Despite the title of Happy Hour, his first album since 2004, all's not been happy lately for Kid Rock's ex-DJ: In 2007, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge following an unsavory incident at a North Carolina nightclub. Of course, Uncle Kracker's always believed in the power of positive thinking (or at least in the power of a case of Coors Light), so there's little here that hints at his recent troubles...
- ew.com
2010-08-27
★★★★★
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- spin.com
2010-08-25
★★★★★
Sure, he's family, but just what kind of uncle is Matt Shafer, a.k.a. Uncle Kracker? On Seventy Two & Sunny, he can be the kindly uncle, a pensive coot hanging out on the porch with the dawgs, watching the sun set. But get a few drinks in him and he turns into a brawling, Nascar-loving hillbilly peckerwood who best not be crossed: Uncle Sam on a bad day...
- www.blender.com
2010-08-22
★★★★★
No text for this review; see http://robertchristgau.com/xg/bk-cg90/grades-90s.php.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
We know ? what could be more nonessential than an album by the DJ sidekick of Kid Rock? But Uncle Kracker's Rock-produced debut, Double Wide, is an unexpected pleasure: a multi-textured melding of water-sprinkler pop, amiable rapping, free-flowing hip-hop, and blues-rock brawn that speaks more to Kid's similar-minded fusion than does The History of Rock...
- ew.com
2009-06-12
★★★★★
You'd never know it from his recent Best New Artist Grammy nomination, but Kid Rock has been around for more than a decade, peddling his blend of Southern-rock aggression and mack-daddy posturing to critics and audiences who were ambivalent at best and hostile at worst...
- www.avclub.com
2009-03-22