To call A Public Disservice Announcement an album with mass appeal doesn’t quite do it justice.

The new album from Tommy Lee’s newly re-formed Methods of Mayhem isn’t just a record that’s written for the people, it was quite literally written by the people.

Using the website The Public Record, an interactive music community site conceived of by producer Scott Humphrey where people can share their song ideas and collaborate with one another online, the band worked with fans to write the album, submitting the basic framework of a song and allowing anyone who wanted to the opportunity to add his or her ideas to the song.

After choosing the best ideas from over 10,000 submissions (and giving the fans credit where credit was due), and adding guest spots from artists like Chino Moreno (Deftones), Deryck Whibley (Sum 41), and Chad Kroeger (Nickelback), A Public Disservice Announcement was born.

The rub is, the very thing that makes the album interesting conceptually ends up giving a kind of directionless feeling.

The album spans a vast array of genres, covering rap-rock (“Drunk Uncle Pete”), nu metal (“Fight Song”), and dance-rock (“All I Wanna Do”).

While all of these styles are pulled off competently, it leaves the album with a kind of “too many cooks in the kitchen” vibe, feeling more like a collection of assorted singles than a cohesive record.

On the flip side of that, it’s good to see Lee changing with the times and branching away from the sound of the platinum-selling Methods of Mayhem, letting fans breathe easily knowing that while the album may sound like many things, it doesn’t sound like rap-metal circa 1999.