Critical

Upon its release, Born Free received positive reviews from most music critics. At Metacritic

Metacritic

Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

, which assigns a normalized

Standard score

In statistics, a standard score indicates how many standard deviations an observation or datum is above or below the mean. It is a dimensionless quantity derived by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing the difference by the population standard deviation...

 rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average

Weighted mean

The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...

 score of 67, based on 8 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".

Allmusic praised Born Free, saying it "goes a long, long way toward keeping that heartland flame burning bright: it’s familiar yet fresh, and song for song it’s the best album Kid Rock has cut since "Devil Without a Cause." This album was number 16 on Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

's list of the 30 Best Albums of 2010.

Personnel

• Kid Rock
  Kid Rock
  Robert James "Bob" Ritchie , known by his stage name Kid Rock, is an American singer-songwriter, musician and rapper with five Grammy Awards nominations...
  
   - lead vocals, guitar
• Marlon Young
  Marlon Young
  Marlon Young is a guitarist from Pontiac, Michigan who became the new lead guitarist for Kid Rock's Twisted Brown Trucker Band in 2007. He was in Kid Rock's live band in 1996. He left in 1997 and was replaced by Jason Krause so he could pursue his own goals. He become lead guitarist for the band...
  
   - lead guitar
• David Hidalgo
  David Hidalgo
  David Hidalgo is an American singer-songwriter, best known for his work with the band Los Lobos. He is also a member of the supergroup Los Super Seven and of the Latin Playboys, a side project band made up of some of the members of Los Lobos...
  
   - guitar
• Matt Sweeney
  Matt Sweeney
  Matt Sweeney is a guitarist, vocalist, and producer who has worked with various musicians and groups.-Biography:Sweeney's high school band Skunk released two albums on Twin/Tone records...
  
   - guitar, bass guitar
• Chad Smith
  Chad Smith
  Chad Smith is an American musician, best known as the longtime and current drummer of Red Hot Chili Peppers. Smith is also the drummer of the hard rock supergroup Chickenfoot which includes Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani, and Michael Anthony, former Deep Purple vocalist Glenn Hughes' backing band and...
  
   - drums, percussion
• Benmont Tench
  Benmont Tench
  Benjamin Montmorency Tench, III is an American keyboardist best known as a founding member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.-Early years:...
  
   - keyboards, piano

Additional personnel

• Bob Seger
  Bob Seger
  Robert Clark "Bob" Seger is an American rock and roll singer-songwriter, guitarist and pianist.As a locally successful Detroit-area artist, he performed and recorded as Bob Seger and the Last Heard and Bob Seger System throughout the 1960s...
  
   - piano on "Collide"
• Sheryl Crow
  Sheryl Crow
  Sheryl Suzanne Crow is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, musician, and actress. Her music incorporates elements of rock, folk, hip hop, country and pop...
  
   - vocals on "Collide"
• Zac Brown - vocals on "Flying High"
• T.I.
  T.I.
  Clifford Joseph Harris, Jr. , better known by his stage name T.I., is an American rap artist, film and music producer, actor and author. He is also the founder and co-chief executive officer of Grand Hustle Records....
  
   - vocals on "Care"
• Martina McBride
  Martina McBride
  Martina McBride is an American country music singer and songwriter. McBride has been called the "Céline Dion of Country Music" for her big-voiced ballads and soprano range....
  
   - vocals on "Care"

Charts

Chart (2010)	Peak position
Canadian Albums Chart Canadian Albums Chart The Canadian Albums Chart is the official album sales chart in Canada. It is compiled every Wednesday by U.S.-based music sales tracking company Nielsen Soundscan, and published every Thursday by Jam! Canoe and Billboard, along with its sister charts the Canadian Singles Chart and the Canadian BDS...	11
European Top 100 Albums European Top 100 Albums The European Top 100 Albums chart is the European adaptation of the Billboard 200 albums chart. It was created in March 1984.The European Top 100 Albums, commonly referred to as Eurochart Top 100 Albums shows the sales of an act in 19 European countries based on IFPI data.The European Top 100...	25
German Albums Chart	9
German Downloads Chart	3
US Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...	5
US Billboard Top Rock Albums	1
UK Albums Chart	139

Year-end charts

Chart (2010)	Rank
German Albums Chart	92