Blender, November 2003
Five Star Review! Ryan Adams has thrown off the trappings of underachievement and grabbed for the crown.
Japanese edition of the alternative singer/songwriter’s 2003 album features 16 tracks including the international bonus track, ‘Hypnotixed’, & the Japanese exclusive bonus track ‘Funeral Marching’. Lost Highway.
–This text refers to an alternate
Audio CD
edition.
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At this point, Ryan Adams must be wondering what it’s going to take to establish himself as a mainstream artist. He’s dated several movie stars (Winona Ryder and Parker Posey), written a song inextricably linked with a major event in our nation’s history (”New York, New York”), and released an album of relentlessly accessible rock songs (Rock N Roll). Still, Adams remains relatively ignored except by music critics and his cult of devoted followers. Since I have no intention of scrutinizing his dalliances with waifish actresses or offering social commentary on post-9/11 America, I’ll focus on the third topic - Adams’ recent rock album, Rock N Roll.
For an album that contains myriad potential radio hits, Rock N Roll sold rather poorly. Familiar, catchy hooks from the 1970s and 80s lurk within almost every song and perhaps therein lies the problem. By so ably aping his predecessors, Adams fails to establish his own voice as a rock musician. At times, Rock N Roll practically becomes Adams singing karaoke. “So Alive” is a great lost U2 song and Adams does a fine job singing it. Nevertheless, it’s a guaranteed number one single with Bono hitting those high notes instead of Adams. “Anybody Wanna Take Me Home” is straight out of the Smiths’ songbook, but Adams is less suited to providing vocals here - the song practically begs for Adams to concentrate on his guitar-playing and let Morrissey take over on lead vocals. “Shallow” is a not unpleasant hybrid of T Rex’s “Bang a Gong” and the Hollies’ “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress”, but doesn’t exactly scream originality. Most of the songs are good, but few can be considered great. Not surprisingly, the great ones are the songs that don’t obviously recall another artist - “Luminol”, “Note to Self: Don’t Die”, “Wish You Were Here”.
With his tendency towards the prolific and fondness for media coverage, Adams may yet attain the mainstream popularity he desires. As far as I can tell, he has two options. On the one hand, he could make a concerted effort to follow his more original musical instincts. The other option would be to start dressing stylishly while continuing to churn out mostly derivative tunes. The latter approach worked like a charm for another band, that is only half as good as Adams is, but of which Adams is inexplicably fond. The next time Adams decrees “This Is It”, I want him to be telling the truth.
I love Ryan Adams. Sometimes. I love Heartbreaker. I love much of Gold. I utterly love “Love is Hell”, and refuse to listen to it except as a complete album. I was resistant to getting this album, however, because of the negative press that it seemed to be garnering.
Well, the press can be pretty stupid sometimes.
This is not a difficult listen. This is not a symphony, an opera, a John Cage composition. This is exactly what it was labelled to be: Rock and Roll. Ryan has put together a collection of rollicking, hard rocking, fun music. Much has been made of the tips of the hat that he makes to other bands. Good for him. Music builds on itself, and right now people, many folks don’t even understand that they are standing on the shoulders of the proverbial giants. Ryan does. He name checks, riff checks, voice checks all the music he loves–check out “So Alive” for his brilliant love letter to Morrissey. People who are unable to give in to the joy, the abandon, the wild passion for real rock and roll that suffuses this album like the joy of breaking out of school on a snow day, a beach day, heck, any day…well, that is a shame. Don’t come to this album to heal your hurts. Don’t come to this album to find the next great advance a-la radiohead. Come for a good time, and you will get it in spades. Bravo, Mr. Adams, keep em coming. Just as fast as you can put them out, we’ll listen to them. Granted, we may make some of them into mix tapes…but hey, keep ‘em comin.