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Release Date: June 3, 2008 Label: VH1 Classics Grade: C+

Fresh off the second season of Rock of Love, the show in which former Poison front man Bret Michaels discovers the desperate lengths girls will go to to be one of his groupies, comes Rock My World, the twelve-track CD which takes its title from the episode-ending congratulatory statement made to each girl who got to stay around and sex up Michael's life for another week.

The sounds of the album are varied, with a rare few sounding like the Bret Michaels of old. The set opens with "Go That Far," which both in vocals and guitars sounds as if it was lifted straight from glitter-glam group Dr. Zhivegas, right down to the St. Louis style accents on all the words rhyming with "far." This is also the song that is excerpted to provide the theme for Rock of Love.

"Driven" shifts through a variety of styles, opening with a bluesy set of verses before transitioning through a rock bridge into an old-school chorus and a lengthy guitar solo. The thing about "Driven," however, is that the lyrics don't seem all that original. Cars, girls, sex -- classic ingredients, but let's do something with them that doesn't sound like something we already heard on a B-side.

Now, with "Fallen," Michaels starts to put out music that's right in his wheelhouse. This is "Every Rose Has its Thorn" territory -- a lyrical ballad with just the right everything in it. The only thing about it that worries me is that I can too easily hear it being played by those coffeehouse acoustic singers with soft breathy female voices and a fascination for falsetto notes. Expect them to cover this one extensively.

Maintaining the momentum, Michaels' "Raine" takes us back to the 80s, vocally and musically, right down to the chorus-ending (albeit unoriginal) play on words with the girl's name: Through the years, through the pain / Times of heartache, times of change / I'll be your sun, you'll be my Raine.

All the momentum is lost, however, when we slam into "Bittersweet," one of those "boy loses girl to best friend" themes delivered in an angsty rapid-patter sound that one associates with punk garage bands. Good musicianship, but the lyrics are trying too hard to be trendy to a younger crowd twenty years ahead of Michaels. "Strange Sensation" also falls into this category with an indy rock sound, but does it with so much more flair that it's enjoyable as opposed to "Bittersweet"'s skip-over-this quality.

Michaels isn't done with the garage band approach, however. His "Menace to Society" is yet another frenetic young-man's anthem about raging against "the man."

Thankfully, there's more good stuff on this album, with classic Michaels style on songs like "Start Again," "Right Now, Right Here," and "Songs of Life." However, when the best song on the album is "All I Ever Needed" -- a re-release from Michaels' Freedom of Sound, sung with country singer Jessica Andrews -- you have to wonder if the producers were trying to pump up the sales potential (obviously the 2008 remix of "It's My Party" not being enough of a draw).

Overall, Rock My World is more of a Rock My Neighborhood, with enough good songs to balance out the forgettable.