''First Kiss'' is the tenth studio album by American singer and songwriter Kid Rock. The album was released on February 24, 2015, through

Warner Bros. Records Warner Records Inc. (formerly Warner Bros. Records Inc.) is an American record label. A subsidiary of the Warner Music Group, it is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded on March 19, 1958, as the recorded music division of the ...

and Top Dog Records, and is his first and only with Warner Bros. after leaving sister label Atlantic Records in 2014.

Critical reception

''First Kiss'' received mixed reviews from music critics. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from critics, the album received an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7 ...

score of 61, which indicates "generally favorable reviews", based on 9 reviews. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

said, "It's a bit bumpy and sometimes sleepy but it finds old Bob Ritchie settling into his comfort zone, knowing that he's in it for the long haul." Anthony DeCurtis of ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

'' said, "''First Kiss'' presents few surprises, mostly because Kid Rock's journey from abrasive rap metal to unreconstructed heartland rock has landed him in a sweet spot: big guitars, big drums, big choruses and gravelly vocals." Richard Bienstock of '' Billboard'' said, "''First Kiss'' is hardly his most adventurous project, but it is perhaps his most easygoing, tuneful one. The production is crisp and clean, the guitars are sparkling, the vibe is rollicking but relaxed. He sounds better here than he has in a long time."

Commercial performance

The album debuted at number two on the ''Billboard'' 200, with sales of 137,000 copies in the United States. As of December 2015, ''First Kiss'' has sold more than 354,000 copies in the United States. The album also debuted at number two in Canada on the Canadian Albums Chart, with sales of 8,000.

Track listing

All songs were produced by Kid Rock, except "First Kiss" and "Drinking Beer With Dad" were produced by Kid Rock and Dan Huff.

Personnel

Kid Rock

* Robert James Ritchie Sr. - drum programming, drums, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, keyboards,

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

, piano, shaker, synthesizer,

tambourine The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though ...

, background vocals, wah wah guitar

Additional personnel

Hornists

*Rayse Biggs -

horns Horns or The Horns may refer to: * Plural of Horn (instrument), a group of musical instruments all with a horn-shaped bells * The Horns (Colorado), a summit on Cheyenne Mountain * ''Horns'' (novel), a dark fantasy novel written in 2010 by Joe Hill ...

Dave McMurray Dave McMurray is an American jazz musician. His primary instrument is saxophone. Early life and career McMurray grew up on the eastside of Detroit. The son of a working-class family, he received a scholarship through Horizons Upward Bound to a ...

- horns

Backing vocalists

*Barbara Payton - background vocals *Herschel Boone - background vocals *Jessica Wagner-Cowan - background vocals *Laura Creamer - background vocals *Russell Terrell - background vocals *

Shannon Curfman Shannon Marie Curfman (born July 31, 1985, Fargo, North Dakota) is an American blues-rock guitarist and singer. Career She came to prominence in 1999, at the age of 14, with the release of her first album, ''Loud Guitars, Big Suspicions'', whi ...

- background vocals *Shaun Murphy - background vocals *Stacy Michelle - background vocals

Drummers

*Dorian Crozier *Richard Millsap

Others

* Jimmie Bones -

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

, background vocals *

Rob Mathes Rob or ROB may refer to: Places * Rob, Velike Lašče, a settlement in Slovenia * Roberts International Airport (IATA code ROB), in Monrovia, Liberia People * Rob (given name), a given name or nickname, e.g., for Robert(o), Robin/Robyn * Rob ( ...

- conductor, string arrangements *

Larry Franklin The Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal involved Lawrence Franklin passing classified documents regarding United States policy towards Iran to Israel. Franklin, a former United States Department of Defense employee, pleaded guilty to several espi ...

- fiddle * David Huff - drum programming *Marlon Young - bass guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar

Guitarists

Dan Dugmore Dan Dugmore is an American session musician known primarily for playing the pedal steel guitar Born in 1949, Dugmore was raised in Pasadena, California. Influenced by the Flying Burrito Brothers, he learned to play steel guitar after Flying Bur ...

- steel guitar *

Dann Huff Dann Lee Huff (born November 15, 1960) is an American record producer and songwriter. For his work as a producer in the country music genre, he has won several awards, including the ''Musician of the Year'' award in 2001, 2004, and 2016 at the Co ...

- acoustic guitar,

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gu ...

, mandolin *Ed Jurdi - electric guitar, slide guitar *Gordy Quist - electric guitar *

Adam Shoenfeld Adam Shoenfeld (born April 29, 1974) is a professional guitarist, songwriter and producer based in Nashville, TN. Primarily focused on modern country music, his guitar playing has been featured on over 200 albums, and is closely associated with Bi ...

- electric guitar *Nathan Young - electric guitar

Pianists

*Charlie Judge - accordion, organ, piano *Trevor Nealon - organ, piano, electric piano

Violists

*Vivek Kamath -

viola ; german: Bratsche , alt=Viola shown from the front and the side , image=Bratsche.jpg , caption= , background=string , hornbostel_sachs=321.322-71 , hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded by a bow , range= , related= *Violin family ...

*Shmuel Katz *Remi Pelletier

Violinists

*Larry Frautchi -

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

*Lisa Kim - violin *Hyunju Lee - violin *Liz Kim - violin *Joanna Maurer - violin *Annaliesa Place - violin *Sharon Yamada - violin *Jung Sun Yoo - violin *Suzanne Ornstein - violin *David Southern - violin

Cellists

*Mihai Marica -

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G ...

*Alan Stepansky - cello *Wendy Sutter - cello

Bassists

Jimmie Lee Sloas Jimmie Lee Sloas is an American session musician, producer, and songwriter, who plays bass guitar. History Jimmie Lee Sloas, born in Ashland, Kentucky, grew up in Fairborn, Ohio and Isonville, Kentucky. His father, Dave, was a member of the po ...

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

*Darrel "Peanut" Smith - bass guitar

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

References

{{Authority control 2015 albums Blues albums by American artists Country albums by American artists Rock-and-roll albums Swamp rock albums Kid Rock albums Warner Records albums