This ‘History’ Turns Out Crude and Rude

Kid Rock is the inevitable byproduct of a testosterone culture that celebrates crude masculinity. Like a bad beer commercial, the Detroit rapper mines all of the predictable tropes of lumpen maleness--sex, hunger, money, more sex--in a sound that splices clunky metal riffs with ham-fisted hip-hop beats. Add to that Rock’s annoying gangsta mack image, and you’ve got an unstoppable retail machine that sold more than 2 million copies of his 1998 release, “Devil Without a Cause.”

This compilation of old, independently released tracks, previously unreleased material and a couple of new recordings should appease fans of Rock’s crude metal-hop. Over remedial hooks and lumbering beats, Rock spews his puffed-up boasts like buckshot in songs whose titles (“American Badass,” “Born to Be a Hick”) betray their devotion to silly, redneck posturing.

*

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent). The album is due in stores Tuesday.