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Rehab

Graffiti the World

(Universal Republic; US: 15 Jul 2008; UK: 15 Jul 2008)

I’m not sure if the camouflage cover art on Southern rap-rock band Rehab’s Graffiti the World is a reference to the battle they’ve fought to get this album to the masses or the chameleon character of the playlist. Graffiti was originally released in 2005 and this 2008 version has only three new tracks, notably “Bartender Song” which was a slow growing digital juke box hit after the original version caused Rehab’s previous label Epic to re-release the song as a single under a different name. My assessment is that Rehab’s genre musical-personality disorder is rooted in the rap-rock of the late ‘90s and suffers from similarities commonly heard in the barroom anthems of Kid Rock, albeit with a softer more hopeful socio-moral message best understood on title track “Graffiti the World”  or “Last Tattoo”. Rehab boldly questions the world around them by trying to be honest about their substance abuse recovering ways. But trying to tackle so many genres and not mastering any is not good for any music fan’s sonic sobriety.

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Based in Chicago, Chris is also the author/publisher of Live Fix Blog (www.livefixblog.com), a merging of his Popmatters and other music-based writings (reviews, interviews, features) exploring fan behavior, social media, community and artist performance in live concert culture.


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