Rock Star City Life

"Rock Star City Life" is a song recorded by the American singer Lenny Kravitz and released on February 20, 2011, as the third single from his album Black and White America. The track was the last one recorded for the album.

Background

The song is a funky guitar composition written with rock-and-roll colors about Kravitz's admiration for a glamorous underage named Lolita.
Kravitz explained to Rolling Stone, "The process was longer than any other time I've made an album. I definitely prolonged it. There were points where I said, 'The album's done.' Then I'd go to Europe and be playing it in the car, and I'm like, 'No, I hear more stuff.' It's the first time that I've gone this far in shaping, reshaping, shaping, reshaping, shaping, reshaping. And the result is that I'm actually 100 percent satisfied with every millisecond of the album."

Reception

Ryan Reed of Paste stated, "Unfortunately, Kravitz’s whiter side proves far less interesting. The rollicking "Rock Star City Life" is catchy in a commercial kinda way—you certainly don’t feel good about singing along. The lyrics are generic, even if every detail of the production and arrangement is immaculately groomed." James Montgomery of MTV called the song "a down-and-dirty ode to excess".