Sea Hag's Ultra Fabulous 2007 Music Review : Ryan Adams

Ryan Adams

Easy Tiger

Oh, Ryan Adams, how I want to jump your crazy-ass bones and then dump you just so you'd write a song about it the next day.

So it came as a surprise to... well, no one that Ryan Adams had been doing heroin and coke and drinking heavily for a long time, and that he went through rehab or some shit and was now sober. I know this is going to sound awful, but I always cringe a little on the inside when I hear that a favorite musician of mine has decided to get married/have a baby/clean up because generally their music always changes for the worst. I don't want you to be happy, damn it! I want you to be strung out and writing songs about that one girl who broke your heart!

One of the reasons I like Ryan Adams, besides the fact he's a nutty, bratty larger-than-life genius, is that he's not afraid to wallow around in his own misery and produce some incredibly dark work, such as my favorites "The Shadowlands", "Blue Sky Blues", "Elizabeth, You Were Born To Play That Part", "La Cienega Just Smiled" or "Peaceful Valley", which has these cheerful lyrics:

All my life I've loved for forgiveness
But I can never seem to get enough
All my life I've been rocked into the darkness
With a gun to my head
Trying to find a peaceful song
Trying to find a peaceful song
To sing when everything goes wrong
Till the peaceful valley calls me home

But Ryan Adams' new album isn't full of the funeral-dirge ballads that I like the best, but it's not a bad album either. He's certainly put the 'country' back in 'alt-country' for this one, and though it's mostly good I'm just not a huge fan of the twangy stuff. But his vocals are very silky and pretty, his lyrics are always good, and the production quality of the album is fucking amazing.

The first single that was released off of this was "Two" which I think had Sheryl Crow doing background vocals. Why do people like her so much? She's an average singer and songwriter at best. Yeah, I know she just had breast cancer but my sympathy does not make her any more talented to my ears. Anyway, it's an OK song, it does smack of someone trying to garner playtime on an adult contemporary listening station though. There's much better stuff on the album, and if you dig country music I think you'd like this one a lot.

Recommended songs:

"Oh My God, Whatever, Etc."

"Off Broadway"

"Everybody Knows"