Ryan Adams

On to a totally different subject today...music. Funny how I pretty much only discuss my very liberal politics and music on here. After the election I'll definitely make an attempt to branch out a bit more. Onto Mr. Adams...

Admittedly, my opinion of Ryan Adams over the years has ranged from "Greatest songwriter of our time!" to "What the hell is this guy thinking?". The last few years has pushed me further and further towards the latter. His latest effort, although it isn't a solo album, continues to push him down the path of complete irrelevance as far as I'm concerned. Cardinology completely lacks memorable moments. Well, completely lacks anything memorable for the right reasons, I should say. As with his last album, the only thing that really sticks out is essentially a joke song called "Magick". Following in the footsteps of the epic "Halloweenhead", the song is so ridiculous that you cannot help but sing along. That being said, it is a tune that would not be out of place if it were being performed by a group of teenagers on some MTV show. Or maybe it just reminds me way too much of some cheesy 80's rock song. Either way, you end up liking it because of how outlandish it is. For an artist who used to be the king of the sad bastard country song, this is an interesting path for him to choose.

So the question begs to be asked...how did Ryan Adams come to this? Like I said before, this is not a solo Ryan Adams album. Since Easy Tiger, the Cardinals (his one-time backing band) have become more involved with the writing process. So are they really the ones to blame for this? Honestly, probably not. Because while the music is sometimes actually pretty decent on this album, Ryan's lyrics just lack effort. There is none of the deep meaning that he used to infuse in every track. Looking over his past solo efforts and his work with Whiskeytown, there are legitimately spectacular songs interspersed with some absolute garbage. So the fact that he is now writing terrible songs does not come as a complete surprise. However, the fact remains that he has not written a truly great song in about three years now, if not longer. And that just so happens to coincide with the time when he apparently stopped using heavy drugs. I would hate to say that the guy cannot write anything decent while sober, but it really does seem to be the case here. Or maybe now that he's clean, he just does not have it in him to write anything meaningful. He definitely still has the same wild mood swings that he did while he was plowing through speedballs, so his demeanor has not changed a whole lot. He does seem to be tending towards legitimately crazy, so maybe the lack of drugs has exposed that further.

You will probably read a lot of reviews of his recent work praising it as his most authentic and genuine to date. I do not believe that for a second. He used to write soul-crushing music. The kind of songs where a well placed harmonica could accurately describe the entire theme of an album. His first solo effort was called Heartbreaker, for Christ's sake. To this day, I am convinced that there has not been a better fitting album title in the last ten years. And yet today we are left with a Ryan Adams who is at best a shell of his former self. People used to criticize him for releasing so much material within such a short span of time, but perhaps that is just his way. In 2005, he released three albums and just about two and a half of them were good. Within those three albums, there were some bonafied great material. Since then, he has released two albums with at best a handful of decent songs. Perhaps there is something to be said for throwing a bunch of material out there and seeing what sticks. Or perhaps there is something to be said for lots and lots of drugs.